$50 per person- 6:30pm- Tuesday, November 3rd
A Trappist Beer is brewed by or under the control of Trappist monks. Of the worlds 171 Trappist monasteries, only seven produce beer (6 in Belgium & 1 in the Netherlands). Only these seven are authorized to label their beers with the Authentic Trappist Product logo that indicates compliance to various rules.
This crisp reception beer (also known as Chimay White) bears a light orange color & is the most hopped & dryest of all three. As with all Trappist breweries, the beer is sold only for financial support of the monastery & good causes. In the 75cl bottle, this beer is known as Cinq Cents. All of the profit from the sale of the beer is distributed to charities & for community development around the region. Like many other strong Belgian beers, those produced at Chimay age well. The Chimay Bleu variety can be aged for upwards of fifteen years. The water for the beers is drawn from a well inside the monastery walls. The filtered solids from the beer are recycled into livestock feed which is given to the same cows that produce the milk for the Chimay cheeses.
Often referred to as "The Queen of Trappists", this beer was first made in 1931 and has a very complex flavor & aroma produced by a unique strain of yeast. The beer is light in color, slightly cloudly with large foamy head. There is a complex aroma of leather, horse blanket, spice & other earthly components. According to legend, a widow of Tuscany was visting the site when she lost her wedding ring in a spring. When she prayed for the return of the ring, a trout appeared on the surface of the water with the ring in its mouth. She exclaimed "Truly this place is a Val d'Or", from which the name "Orval" is derived. In gratitude, she made available funds for the foundation of the monastery. The abbey arms show the trout & ring. The spring still supplies water to the brewery.
Reddish-brown colour with very compact head and aroma of figs, feels like honey in the mouth. Very similar to the 6 & 8, but has much more of everything. The monastery has been brewing since 1595 and there are only 15 monks that reside inside. They are very secretive about the process & the brewery is not opened to the public, so therefore information comes from only a few sources. The monks will not increase production based on demand or profit motives, but only enough to support themselves, resulting in fairly-limited supply of availability. The Rochefort age well & can be cellared for at least 5 years whilst maintaining quality.
This flavorful dark amber beer is surprisingly refreshing. It is lightly filtered, but still wholesomely hazy with yeasts remaining in the bottle. Its history goes back to 1648 when Dutch monks built a chapel in Achel. The chapel became an abbey in 1686, but then was destroyed during the French Revolution. The ruins were rebuilt by Westmalle monks, who brewed the first beer in 1852. During World War 1, the monks fled the brewery while the German occupation dismantled it to salvage the 700kg of copper. In 1998, the monks decided to begin brewing once more. Monks from the Trappist Abbey of Westmalle & Rochefort Abbey assisted in the building of the new brewery.
The origin of the dubbel was a beer brewed in this brewery in 1856. The abbey had originally brewed a witbier that was quite sweet & light in alcohol. The new beer, however, was a strong version of a brown beer. In 1926, the formulation was changed and it became even stronger, which is considered the first double (dubbel in Dutch). In 1934, the brewery brewed a strong pale ale of 9.5% abv giving it the name Tripel- the first use of the name. The modern brewery has a bottling capacity of 45,000 bottles per hour and the majority of the workers are no longer monks. There are 22 monks and 40 outside secular staff.
This Dutch brewery, founded in 1884, is the only Trappist beer produced outside of Belgium. This beer is fermented in oak barrels & put to rest sorted by year in the cellars of the abbey for further fermentation, comparable to wood-aged red wine. The abbey was opened up to contribute to charitable organizations, but was eventually run as a commercial enterprise. In 1969, the abbey licensed the brewing operations to Artois (now InBev). In 1980, the deal with Artois ended and the monks went back to brewing themselves- this time a top-fermented beer which has only been made in limited quantities since the 1950's.