Capt Keith's Beer Blog

A trip to Belgium is a must for any beer enthusiast. The year 2005 was the “year for beer” and I was told by one of our hosts that 100 years ago, Belgium had 1500 breweries. Now they have 150 or so independent breweries. So, I set out to find some of the best.

We set up camp in Brussells and then headed south to Chimay. It was a nice drive past Waterloo and despite my lack of navigation skills, we made it on time to meet Fabris (shown in the picture). He was a great host and everyone we met at Chimay was very happy to be there and to meet us.

Chimay is a Trappist brewery and is located inside the Scourmont Abbey and was founded in 1863. Chimay brews and sells 3 different ales; The Premiere (Red) – 7%, Tripel (White) – 8% and Grande Reserve (Blue) – 9%. The beer is sold to raise money to maintain the Monastary and to aid charities supported by the Monks.

Seventeen monks were at the Abbey and I caught a glimpse of them in prayer. I was told that visitors rarely get to go inside the prayer hall – I felt honored. Inside the brewery, I was surprised to see that almost everything was fully automated. They have a red, blue and white button to press for each brew. I assume recipe secrecy has something to do with this. The brewery has a lab inside and each beer is inspected, measured and tasted at different stages of the brewing process and before it leaves the Abbey.

After a primary fermentation, the unfiltered beer is shipped in large tankers to the bottling facility nearby. I was told that the travel in the tanker helps mix things up a bit to further the process of fermentation. At the bottling line, the beer and more wort or sugar is added to continue fermentation in the bottle. When the bottling line is on, Chimay bottles approximately 35,000 beers per hour. Then the beer is packaged in crates and sent to another room to continue (bottle) fermentation for several more weeks.

Their yeast strains are protected and samples are frozen and stored in off-site vaults in two seperate cities. Chimay is one of SEVEN Trappist Breweries in existence today. They also produce wonderful cheeses for personal consumption and retail markets.