Chimay Brewery

Chimay
Industry Trappist brewery
Founded September 19, 1862 (151 years ago)
Headquarters Chimay, Belgium
Products Beer
Production output
123000 hL
Website www.chimay.com

Chimay Brewery ("Bières de Chimay") is a beer brewery in Chimay, southern Hainaut, Belgium. The brewery is located in the Scourmont Abbey, a Trappist monastery, and is one of the ten breweries worldwide that produce Trappist beer. They make three widely distributed ales: Chimay Rouge, Chimay Bleue, and Chimay Blanche; and they make one patersbier exclusively for the monks. The monastery also makes four varieties of cheese.

Brewery

The brewery was founded inside Scourmont Abbey, in the Belgian municipality of Chimay in 1862.[1]

The brewery produces three widely distributed ales and a patersbier exclusively for the monks; they are known as Trappist beers because they are made in a Trappist monastery. It was the first brewery to use the Trappist Ale designation on its labels.[2]

As with all other Trappist breweries, the beer is sold only for financial support of the monastery and good causes.[3] The brewery business pays rent for use of the property within the abbey, which is used to support the monastic community. The majority of the profit from the sale of the beer is distributed to charities and for community development around the region.[4] As of 2007, sales figures for Chimay products exceeded $50 million per year.[5]

The water for the beers is drawn from a well located inside the monastery walls. The filtered solids from the beer mash are recycled into livestock feed which is given to the same cows that produce the milk for Chimay cheeses.

The beer is transported from the monastery to the bottling plant 12 km away, which can fill 40,000 bottles per hour, of which many are returns. The beer is then refermented in the bottle for three weeks before being shipped around the world. Fifty percent of Chimay beer production is sold on the export markets.[6]

The brewing plant was updated in 1988, and as of 2005 produced 12 megalitres annually.[7]

Beers

The four varieties of Chimay, with Chimay Blue in the glass.

The ingredients are: water, malted barley, wheat starch, sugar, hop extract and yeast; malt extract is used in Rouge and Bleue for colouring.[8]

Cheeses

Chimay's Grand Cru cheese

Since 1876 the monastery has also made cheese, and as of 2010 offers four cheeses.[10]

The cheeses are:

See also

References

  1. Bières de Chimay S.A. "History". Chimay. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
  2. Sawyer, Christopher (May 8, 2003). "U.S. acquiring a taste for Belgian ales". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2011-04-16.
  3. Bières de Chimay S.A. "Beers from Chimay: Beer Export, Distribution, and International Partners". Chimay. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
  4. Miller, John W. (November 29, 2007). "Trappist Command: Thou Shalt Not Buy Too Much of Our Beer". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2011-04-19.
  5. "Bières et fromages trappistes, bières belges de tradition, moines trappistes, entraide sociale". Chimay.com. Retrieved 2012-07-24.
  6. "The Beers of Chimay by Roger Protz". Beer-pages.com. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
  7. John White of White Beer Travels. "Trappist Beer from Scourmont Abbey, Chimay, Belgium (Europe)". Whitebeertravels.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
  8. http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Drinks-Brands-News/Fuller-s-to-import-Trappist-beer-Chimay-on-draught
  9. Bières de Chimay S.A. "Products of the Soil, Degustation of Belgian Cheese, and Beers of High Fermentation". Chimay. Retrieved 2010-06-09.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chimay beer.

Coordinates: 49°58′55″N 4°20′15″E / 49.98194°N 4.33750°E