Other beermakers simply inject beer with carbon dioxide as it is bottled. Coca-Cola straight out of the bottle isn't unbearably sweet, as flat Coke is. These ales are meant to be sipped rather than chugged. A German purity law instituted in 1516 still forbids this or any other adulteration. The only ingredients permitted in German beer are malted grain, water, hops, and yeast.
More alcohol means a stronger aroma, a heavier body, and a creamier texture.
The brewery at Orval makes just one kind of beer, another reason I prize it. Also, I'm extremely happy with Orval's ale, and not just for its cheerful topaz color, the confident fat 1930s lettering on the label, and the shapely bowling-pin bottle, which is said to help keep yeast sediment from getting into the glass. Orval beer is drier than other Belgian beers that can boast anything like its depth, and not bitter despite the high hops content. Hops, the herbal flowers that act as a preservative, give beer its balancing bitterness when they are boiled with the initial sweet liquid. At Orval big sacks of hops, like man-sized tea bags, infuse in the cooled beer as it ferments, giving spiciness rather than bitterness.