A Third Hill Climbed: The Story Behind Leetvleteren’s Triumph

Hey DC Beer Fam, it’s Jordan, your favorite hop-head here with my first Beers Around the Way (BATW) Spotlight. I wanted to highlight a member of the DC/Maryland/Virginia (DMV) who did something awesome and worthy of a collective cheers from the DC Beer scene.

Allow me to introduce, (for those that don’t know him already) Roy Roberts, a longtime resident of the area, avid cyclist, former scientist, occasional homebrew judge, and frequent homebrewer. Roberts and I had the opportunity to meet while he was brewing Leetvleteren, his award winning Belgian Dark Strong Ale, on Third Hill Brewing’s professional system in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Back in February, Silver Spring’s Third Hill Brewing Company partnered with Maryland Homebrew to hold their first ever homebrew competition. This event was a fundraiser and opportunity for beer lovers and amateur brewers to showcase their creativity and takes on various beer styles. The competition featured three winners and was judged simply based on how enjoyable the beer was. Few constraints were enforced with two being “no Brettanomyces or wild yeast strain”’ and the obvious, “must be homebrewed,” which opened the door for a wide swath of styles.

Second and third place were awarded gift cards for Third Hill and Columbia shop Maryland Homebrew, while first place earned the opportunity to brew their beer on Third Hill’s professional system, including kegging and canning the beer. Leetvleteren was brewed in September and released before Halloween.  

Roberts brews this beer once a year; the winning homebrewed version of this beer was brewed back in December of 2020 and was the ninth iteration of this recipe. Roberts conditions and ages this beer in bottles after bulk aging in a keg for at least six months. It speaks well to his packaging practices that a three-year old beer won the competition. 

One of the unique processes of the batch made at Third Hill after winning the is the use of candi sugar and dry yeast versus his homebrewed version that uses liquid dark candi syrup and a more expressive liquid yeast, purportedly the same as is used at the famed St. Bernardus Brewery in Watou, Belgium. An additional nugget Roberts incorporates in his homebrew version(s) is the use of South Asian coriander, which is a bit more oblong than standard red coriander and contributes to the fruitiness you’d expect from a Belgian quad. This tidbit is something Roberts attributes to Sapwood Cellars co-founder and ”Mad Fermentationist,” Michael Tonsmeier.

Roberts’ love for this beer style is reflected in the recurring use of the recipe as he aims to brew a batch every year. The name, Leetvleteren, comes from Roy’s enjoyment of Westvleteren beers from the world-renowned Westvleteren Monastery in Belgium and a previous house number of “1337.” Having an auspicious meaning in some circles, “1337” reads  as “Leet,” short for and a nod to the online hacking community’s modified spelling of “elite.”

Being a longtime fan of Belgian Tripels and Quads, this beer couldn’t have come at a better time of year, adding to an already stacked roster of Third Hill offerings. Now available on draft and in to-go cans, Roy has only expressed excitement and gratitude to Jason Sliter and Matt Cronin of Third Hill and the extended Third Hill Brewing family for the opportunity to enter his beer and the opportunity to brew it at scale.

Make your way to Silver Spring this fall/winter while supply lasts and be sure to let us at DC Beer know what you think!

P.S. My latest collaboration with Third Hill, Homecoming Vol. 2, is a hazy IPA hopped heavily with Nelson and releases on Friday, November 8! A percentage of proceeds from Homecoming Vol. 2 goes to the Harvey-WIlder Foundation’s scholarship fund for incoming freshmen attending Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU). Whether Belgians are your thing or hazies, Third Hill has something for everyone. Cheers!