The First Belgian Beer Trip • March 2000
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It was late when we arrived at the l'Auberge de Poteaupré and to our good fortune, there was a room available. ( I thought you made reservations!) |
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Then it was time for a Chimay… a '97 Grand Reserve.
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The next morning, having discovered that we were then only guests that night, we had a great breakfast in a beautifully decorated private dinning room.
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Now, just when you think it can't get any better than this, Jean Yernaux tells us that there is a group from the US which has a tour of both the bottling plant and the brewery and ask if we'd like to join. Are we dreaming? |
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We said goodbye to Denis, who works at the hotel, and Jean escorted our car to the bottling plant |
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There we met Frédéric Simonis, export sales executive of Bieres de Chimay S.A. Joining us from Alehouse Distributing Ltd, of Renton, WA were Gordon McMillan and two others from his firm.
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The plant is automated beyond anything I've ever seen outside of Budweiser. So much for little monks bottling by hand! |
The bottle washer was an enormous unit that sorted out the non-Chimay
bottles, cleaned the bottles and removed the old labels. Another
unit tested the bottles for defects and removed them as necessary.
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The filling units handled about 38,000 bottles per hour… or
about 16 per second! |
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At the end, we saw the finished product, stored at 54f for a few weeks before being shipped.
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Note that the European distribution uses plastic cases for returnable bottles. No cans, any draft… necessary for quality control. We leave the bottling plant and head off to the Abbaye where we stop for a quick photo op of the front entrance. |
Inside we meet the head brewer Paul Arnott, a Scotsman! Ok, so the monks don't stir the beer by hand… another vision dispelled. 
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Moving through the brewery, you find the same level of automation, perfection, and high standards of quality as we saw in the bottling plant. From the high-speed centrifuges to the stainless steel tubing. |
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The beer is moved from the fermenting tanks to the other stations via more stainless steel piping.
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The lab made you forget you were in a brewery. The testing, the research, the concern for the yeast was impressive. Of course, being a homebrewer, I made copious brewing notes that will be taken to the grave. |
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At the end of the tour there was only one arduous task remaining… |
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One of the WA guys commented that it reminded him of a northwest IPA |
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On leaving the brewery, we stopped at the main entrance for a look inside the Abbaye. The grounds and the courtyard are really beautiful. |
Being cloistered, the only monks we saw were standing at prayer in the hallways.
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The folks at Chimay made our trip much more enjoyable than we could have hoped for. We thanked them for their hospitality and moved on. |
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But our beer day wasn't over. We continued on to Rochfort to see
how our luck would work at Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy near
Rochefort. |
Talk about cloistered!
No one was around, so we went into town to buy some #10 and #8. $1.10 per bottle… how much can we carry? Not enough!
And then, onto Houffalize to find the gnomes of LaChouffe.
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Arriving around 6:30pm, I found Christian Bauweraerts getting ready to go home. While he was finding beer labels for my daughter Becky, my dad joined us. On seeing my dad's diamond soaring badge, he told us his "glider" stories. 
Before they had a name, they used artwork from a jacket patch from the '83 world championship in York, England. |
He not only gave my dad the original patch, but also a copy of the first beer label.
And, if that wasn't enough, found us a hotel in town and joined us in the morning for coffee. Hospitality is spelled LaChouffe! |
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At the Hotel du Commerce in Houffalize, we were fortunate to meet Sebastien who helped me with my beer glass collection. By the end of the night, I'd had another 6 Belgian beers and thought… "How lucky can you get?" |
As a historical note, Houffalize was an important site during the "Battle of the Bulge". American troops were pinned down until the weather broke and re-enforcement's arrived. |
Keep in mind; were it not for those who died here, we wouldn't be lucky enough to enjoy this fine Belgian beer…and maybe we'd be missing a lot more |
Thanks guys |
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Update October 2000 |
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I met with Christian Bauweraerts of LaChouffe at the Brooklyn Beer Fest and present him with a bottle of my latest beer. |
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Links and info related to this story… |
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Chimay … www.chimay.com |
Brasserie d'Achouffe… www.achouffe.be |
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Auberge de Poteaupré - Hotel near abbaye Tel 060/21.14.33 • Fax 060/21.44.04 |
Hotel du Commerce - Houffalize www.ducommerce.yucom.be Tel. 320(0) 61 / 28 96 86 • Fax. 32 (0) 61 / 28 89 79 |
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