Over at A Good Beer Blog, Alan begins tasting the beers from Brouwerij St. Bernardus. He includes a bit of the history of the brewery that might lead you to believe it was once a monastery where beer was brewed.

Not exactly, but as Alan writes, “Correct me if I have that mixed up. I only have the internet to rely upon in these matters.”

So here’s a quick summary from Brew Like a Monk that I hope clarifies the matter.

The brewery just outside of Watou operates in a building that first housed a cheese factory, established in the 1930s after the monks of the nearby French monastery Mont de Cats returned to their home. The Trappist monks built the business in Belgium during an unstable period in France.

I 1946 the monks at Westleteren decided to devote less time to brewing, producing a small amount a beer at their abbey (close to Watou) and contracting Saint Bernardus to brewed the Saint Sixtus line of “Trappist” under contract from 1946 until 1992. Thus Saint Bernadus began brewing in 1946 with a secondhand brewhouse (pictured above) it still uses today.

After Westvleteren ended the deal, Saint Bernardus continued with its own brands, extending the range and boosting production to 10,000 hectoliters (8,500 barrels) a year. Today it brews beers with no monastic influence―including Grottenbier under contract for Pierre Celis and a wit he helped formulate―but still uses recipes the brewery claims haven’t changed since 1946.

Because the head brewer from Westvleteren helped set up the Saint Bernardus brewery, it seems likely he brought along the original Westvleteren yeast with the recipes. We can only guess how Saint Bernardus yeast today might have changed in sixty years. We know, of course, that Westevleteren now uses yeast acquired fresh from Westmalle each time the monks brew.

The brewery employs a second yeast in bottle-conditioning, with 330ml bottles conditioned at Saint Bernardus and 750ml bottles shipped elsewhere. Beers may be pasteurized, based on their destination.

After the contract between Saint Bernardus and Westvleteren ended, many cafes continued to describe the beers from Saint Bernardus as Trappist, leading to legal confrontations. As a result, Saint Bernardus bottles that formerly pictured a smiling monk hoisting a glass of beer now show the same fellow wearing a robe described as medieval rather than a monk’s cowl.

That’s the short version of the story. To return to the beer itself, Alan starts with the Pater 6.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 11:32 am and is filed under Abbey-style beers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.