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.