Belgian Beer Tour - A Pilgrammage to Westvleteren and Saint Sixtus Abbey

It is a small world. We are fortunate enough to actually know people in Europe before we moved here. Our son-in-law is from Belgium and his parents live only 2 hours away from us in Holland.  We love our son-in-law for many reasons, but the added bonus when he joined our family was getting to know his parents, who we consider to be our very good friends.

We really enjoy being with Vera and Joos. Even though we speak different mother tongues, we have similarities that surpass all cultural barriers.  We both value our families very much, we understand the importance of serving God and others, and we are adventure seekers. Our last adventure was to explore a Belgian Trappist brewery and additionally a non-Trappist brewery by bicycle tour.

In 1997, eight Trappist abbeys—six from Belgium (Orval, Chimay, Westvleteren, Rochefort, Westmalle and Achel), one from the Netherlands (Koningshoeven) and one from Germany (Mariawald) – founded the International Trappist Association (ITA) to prevent non-Trappist commercial companies from abusing the Trappist name. They have guidelines to be able called a Trappist beer. Only beer brewed in a Trappist monastery under the supervision and responsibility of the monks may be called a 'Trappist beer'. The monastic community must be involved in the brewing, the choices of ingredients to include in the brew such as hops, barley malt and yeast and the water used to brew it, as well the marketing of the beer. The beer is sold only for financial support of the monastery and for other benevolent causes. Usually then, a limited quantity of beer is made - enough only to support the monastery and the monks within it.

We rode our bicycles with Joos and Vera to visit the Westvleteren brewery. It was founded in 1838 inside the Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus of Westvleteren, not far from the hops-producing town of Poperinge,  and the medieval city of Ieper where Joos and Vera live. We arrived at the abbey in time to join a prayer service with the monks and a few locals who were present.  We walked through the halls of the monastery, through the garden to the chapel. Prayers commenced when a monk rang the bells in the entry way. They interrupt the beer making to have prayer services four times a day. It was a very special experience to be able to observe and participate in the prayers of the monks. They were praying the Psalms and I guess I have picked up enough Dutch - as well as know enough of the Psalms - to be able to follow and sing most of the prayers during that 20 minute service. On our way out of the abbey, we quietly passed the guest rooms that are available for people who would like to make a silent retreat in the monastery.

The brewery currently employs three secular workers for various manual labor tasks, however the primary brewing

is done by the monks only. It is the only Trappist brewery where the monks still do all of the brewing. Of the 26 Cistercians who reside at the abbey, five monks run the brewery, with an additional five who assist during bottling. All of this is to support their prayer life and the buildings they live in.

We walked over to the tasting room to buy lunch and beer - a bruin Westvleteren 12 for me with 10.2 percent alcohol. It is known to be the best beer in the world by a percentage of beer aficionados and judges. It's by far the best beer I've ever tasted. Only a little bit of extra beer is sold outside of the tasting room in small quantities weekly from the doors of the monastery itself, to individual buyers with reservation only. Thanks for our hosts, we were able to come away with six bottles of the world's best beer, which we are securely guarding in an undisclosed location until we can consume it.

After lunch, we then pedaled to another little village in nearby Watou (across the street from the French border) to  St. Bernardus brewery. In 1946, the St. Bernardus brewery was granted a license to brew beer under the St Sixtus name. However, this agreement ended in 1992 and then St. Bernardus re-opened as a non-Trappist brewery. They still brew beers of similar style to Westvleteren, but now under their own name and without the Trappist seal. We miscalculated the time involved to travel from the Abbey to our second brewery, so we rode quickly on our bikes to be able to take in a tour of the brewery at our appointed time. Our tour guide was our son-in-law's Latin teacher from high school. Our guide was gracious to offer the tour in English as well as Dutch so that we could understand the brewing process. We tasted the St. Bernardus beers and also got a souvenir drinking glass with the sampling of beers to take with us. The saddle bags on the bikes were filled to the brim with very good beer - our reward for cycling for over 60km for the day.

Next Up: Aachel is very close to where we live and we have ridden our bikes to the Sint Benedictus Abdij - De Achelse Kluis where the Achel beer is brewed. We are not able to actually visit the abbey there, but the brewery shop is open for tasting. It is a good atmosphere to relax and enjoy a good beer as well as help the monks financially support their monastery, They do have a window to allow viewing of the some of the process. We watched the cleanup one day at the end of brewing.

We have also ridden along the canals to Tilburg in the Netherlands, but missed a visit to the Koningshoeven Abdij, where Trappist monks brew La Trappe beer, the Netherlands only Trappist beer. We will return there to taste the La Trappe beer made by the Trappist monks.