80 Belgian drafts walk into a bar ...

A guy taps David Farnworth on the shoulder. “When are you pouring the Rodenbach?” he wanted to know. Sunday after next, the owner of Lucky Baldwin’s Pub assured him.

“It’s amazing how many people call for that beer,” Farnworth said.

Yes, Rodenbach is a beer, but it’s not just any old beer, and this is not just any old Rodenbach, either. Farnworth has a 6-year-old keg of it at his Pasadena bar -- the last of the old-school Rodenbach, made before the Belgian brewery changed hands, to the dismay of its aficionados. Rodenbach fans know he has it on hand, so they were already asking about it Saturday, the opening day of the annual Belgian Beer Festival at Lucky Baldwin’s.

This festival, the fifth Farnworth has hosted at his bar, might be the most specialized beer event in town. By Feb. 29, the day it ends -- and the fabled Rodenbach pours -- he expects to have had 80 or more Belgian beers on tap at one time or another, as many as 51 at a time (the bar is set up with a total of 59 taps). Not only the Rodenbach but an equally distinguished 6-year-old beer, Abbaye des Rocs Grand Cru, will have been on tap. And that doesn’t even count all the Belgian beers he stocks in bottle.

In an age of ever-larger brewing companies producing an ever more generic product, Belgium continues to make hundreds of distinctive local beers, including traditional brews flavored with fruits such as peaches or strawberries. They have names you’d never mistake for German -- such as Babbelaar, Kwak and Scotch de Silly. (Kwak is named for Pauwel Kwak, who first brewed it in 1791; Scotch de Silly is a Scottish-style ale brewed in a town named Silly; and Babbelaar means “babbler,” for reasons that are said to become clear after a couple of glasses.)

Farnworth says he got hooked on Belgian beers in England, and he’s been encouraging the Belgian beer cult in Pasadena since taking over his Old Town pub eight years ago. One year he even took some of his regulars to Belgium for, in effect, a tour of the Beer Country.

“I’d say 70% of the people here today are here for the Belgian beer festival,” Farnworth said, looking around the patio.

The crowd was there not only for the beer but for a festival menu of Belgian dishes -- leek soup made with Bornem ale, carbonnades a la flamande (beef stewed with onions and beer), a seafood stew made with Piraat Ale and three dishes of rabbit stewed with dark beer: plain, with wild mushrooms and with prunes. Belgian cuisine has been described as having “a certain truculent originality,” as it must to survive next door to the big-foot cuisine of France, and the dishes all show a warm, homely richness that is definitely un-French.

Everything tends to come with French fries, of course -- or rather Belgian fries, as the Belgians rightly claim, since they invented them. The Belgian dishes are made for Lucky Baldwin’s by Belgian-raised Katharine Ratnoff, who works as a bartender at the pub for the rest of the year. Mainly the customers come for the distinctive beers, of course, which serve the same function in Belgium that wine does in France. In fact, Belgian beers often resemble wine. Liefmans Kriek is a dark, strong brew almost as red as a Cabernet, with a tart edge and a subtle taste of cherries in the finish -- it actually contains cherries. Maredsous 10 has a rich and clean flavor and, at 10% alcohol (20 proof), it’s stronger than many a wine. Farnworth described it as “a beer for sipping in the afternoon, perhaps with a fine cigar.”

Long before Riedel started making specialized glasses for particular wines, Belgian brewers were serving their beers in dedicated glasses. Farnworth has a lot of the specialized glasses on hand. For the beer festival, however, many people will be ordering half-sized tastes to sample as many brews as possible. They come in short-stemmed glasses that look like miniature brandy snifters.

Why do people go for Belgian beers? “The flavors are so different,” Farnworth said. “They’re fascinating. And a lot of them are high in alcohol. People think, ‘Why go and have a Margarita?’ We’ve got one beer that’s 11% alcohol, and it tastes good too.”

Next to the jungle of taps in the back bar stands the biggest beer bottle you ever saw -- a bottle of St. Feuillien holding 9 liters. That’s a bit over 2 1/3 gallons. The price tag reads $180.

“People buy it too,” Farnworth said.

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Belgian Beer Festival

Where: Lucky Baldwin’s Pub, 17 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena

When: Through Feb. 29. Open daily 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.

Price: Belgian dishes: Leek soup, $4.75; main dishes, $9.50-$16.95; desserts $4.95-$5.25. Beers: Full glass, $5; tasting glass, $3.

Info: (626) 795-0652