The small exception is that although very bitter hops are not unknown to Belgium, few beers use them. Low alpha hops are by far favored. The huge exception is that some styles reject the notion of fresh hops, opting to age them for as much as 3 years. This is particularly true of Lambics and Whites, who need the preservative properties of hop alpha acids without the associated flavors. I asked an instructor from the American Brewers Guild about aging hops once during a weekend Brewing Science for the Advanced Homebrewer seminar. Although planning ahead is always a good idea, three years ahead is pretty challenging. He told me very confidently that sticking them in a 150 degree oven for 1 hour would do the same thing years of aging would. The book USING HOPS by Mark Garetz from HOPTECH suggests this process might take closer to 12 hours - but it still beats 3 years! Anyway, if you are interested enough about hops to read this far you should buy this book. Check out HOPTECH's website and you may never think the same about hops again.

One more thing. I have seen many Belgian recipes that call for Styrian Golding hops. The above mentioned book describes this variety as English Fuggles grown in Slovia. They are basically the same as Fuggles but more expensive. One might be better off substituting them for Fuggles or East Kent Golding.