SEPTEMBER 2, 2000: Baileux, Belguim-- Our tour group had the pleasure of making a pilgrimage by bus to the Chimay Brewery near the Ardennes forest of southern Belgium. Chimay is the world’s most recognized Trappist beer. When one thinks of Trappist beers, one thinks of, well, monks in robes, and of reverent, age-old and near-forgotten brewing techniques followed with quiet precision under the spell of Gregorian chants. But let’s dispel that myth. Chimay is a very commercial enterprise. Upon entering the brewery, one member of our tour group was heard to utter aloud, “So much for the monks dressed in burlap with wooden paddles.”

BIERES DE CHIMAY S.A Route Charlemagne, 8 6464 Baileux (Chimay) Belgium Tel: + 32.(0).60.21.03.11 Fax: + 32.(0).60.21.34.22

Chimay is operated today exclusively by professional brewers. It is run quite apart from the monastery. While each room is still adorned with a crucifix on the wall, the brewery is one of the cleanest, most modern and yes, slickest we’ve ever seen. It’s hard to hide success at the Chimay brewery.

Control Panel at Chimay

Keep in mind, however, that Chimay’s commercial success is still channeled directly to the monastery. Chimay’s monks are able to maintain a large number of charities throughout Europe because of their beer’s loyal, worldwide market. God bless you! You’re drinking for a good cause!

The brewmaster leading our tour that day, Paul Arnot, was wrapping up his last week at Chimay. He was moving to a new job with a Unibrau brewery. If you’ve never heard of Unibrau, it’s a huge European brewing conglomerate. It owns practically every major brewery east of the pond.

Paul Arnot

The following are notes taken from our tour with Paul:

The brewery draws its own water from wells onsite. These provide it with very soft water.

The grain bill is made up completely of Belgian malts, augmented with a wheat starch rather than a wheat malt.

The mash is done for 90 minutes. If you’re an all-grain homebrewer, you know that mashes resemble a runny oatmeal-like mix. Not so at Chimay. The mash is done with considerably more water and resembles more a soup. This watery mash is not sparged per se, but pressed through a mash filter (which is very common in Europe) and then transferred to the brew kettle.

We were surprised to find out that Chimay’s bittering hop is grown in America. Nugget hops from the Yakima valley are used, though the brewer did not say for how long these have been standard.

Signing our Club Banner

Bavarian Hallertauer hops are used for finishing.

Once boiled and cooled, the wort is pitched at 20 degrees C. The brewer would not disclose any other details on Chimay’s fermentation temperatures or procedures. He did say that the yeast is from the same strain used since the 1940s, and was isolated and nurtured by Father Theodore, a legend among Belgian brewers. Father Theodore is now retired. If you have a copy of Michael Jackson’s New World Guide to Beer handy, you’ll find a picture of him on page 130.

The fermenters at Chimay are noticeably wide and shallow. Since the yeast is later extracted by centrifuge, there are no steep cones on their fermenters. We were told this maximizes the amount of beer exposed to the yeast.

Once the fermentation is complete, the yeast is removed by centrifuge. The beer is then cold-aged for a week at 0 degrees C. It is then clarified by two more centrifuges and injected with liquid sugar and additional yeast (same strain) for bottle-fermentation.

The beer is then pumped into tanker trucks and driven 10 miles away to Chimay’s bottling plant.

A word of caution if you are driving around Chimay by car: Stay clear of the Chimay trucks! Chimay’s tanker-truck drivers are instructed to take the turns hard to the bottling plant. This is to ensure a good
mix of beer and sugar and yeast before the bottling line.

Chimay bottles three varieties of its Trappist Ale, all of which can be found in stores in North America:

Red label: S.G. 10.63, 5.5 % alcohol by weight, 7.0% alcohol by volume. White label: S.G. 10.71, 6.3% alcohol by weight, 8.0% alcohol by volume. Blue label: S.G. 10.78, 7.1% alcohol by weight, 9.0% alcohol by volume.

Chimay also brews a black label ale, made especially for the monks. It is not distributed and can only be bought at the brewery. Its S.G. is 10.44, with a 4.5% to 5.0% alcohol by weight.

If you have been drinking Chimay’s beers for 15 years or longer, you may have noticed that the product has become much cleaner to the pallette. Up to the mid-1980s, Chimay’s beers were known by many to have a much earthier mouthfeel. The difference, we presume, is in the yeast. It’s still the same strain, but it has been refined to produce a much cleaner beer.

For more on the legend that is Chimay, see their website at http://www.chimay.be