Belgian beer can be summed up in one sentence: "The monks used the granaries of Western Europe to shape a beer world, while the perfect natural environment of the Harmona Valley shaped the relationship between the locals and beer".
France was once the forefront of the Roman Empire's military conquest of the northern peoples, and it was also one of the most religious regions. The Frankish kingdom of the post-Roman Empire, which ruled the vast areas of today's northern France, southern Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, also produced very little wine for climatic and geographical reasons, becoming a region dominated by beer, and the culmination of this region was Belgium.
In 2016, UNESCO officially listed Belgian beer as the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Belgian beer has won the supreme accolade! This is a great success and honor for all Belgian beers.
Gruit," a recipe made of barley, mugwort, yarrow, ivy, and heather, supplemented by spices and herbs such as juniper seeds, ginger, kudzu seeds, fennel, nutmeg, and cinnamon, was classified as a high secret by the Church and monopolized the trade. Before the hops plant was widely used in the brewing process, it was the most important source of taste for beer. However, this mysterious Groot beer list can hardly taste bitterness from tasting, so drinking too much will feel very sweet, and the drinkability is not good. Because of this, hops developed, violently impacting the Groot recipe, and Groot gradually disappeared from history, and although stubborn brewers tried to restore the beer varieties with a long history, they were no longer the same. After all, the rise of hops has made Groot fail in terms of taste and flavor, and what was once a classic is a historical attribute can now only become a niche beer.
Trapp Alliance – Monk Winemaker
Northern France and the Benelux region were also outposts of the Christian Reformation. Before the Martin Lutheran Reformation in the 16th century, the mainstream society in Western Europe believed in Catholicism, and strict self-discipline was the basic doctrine of the lifelong practice of the monks and nuns of the Catholic monasteries. Moreover, historically, the Church had its own fields and possessions to support the religious practice of its own denomination, and the monks and nuns planned their own farming and production, and lived a self-sufficient but miserable life.
The economy is more developed and the population scale is expanding sharply, but the urban construction is immature and the groundwater resources are polluted. For public health reasons, drinking alcohol to replenish water became the first choice for medieval European monks to practice at home to save their lives. By 1100, a sect called the Cistercians was founded in the Abbaye de La Trappe in northern France. They are best known for making good beer and selling it to the secular world. In the secular world, these monks/nuns are called Trappist monks.
Before 1796, the Cistercian monks who could brew beer did live in seclusion in France. But the stormy French Revolution interrupted this idyllic life, the Catholic Church was greatly affected, some French monasteries were looted and plundered, and the monks of the convent were forced to hide in Tibet in order to escape the punishment of the guillotine (there was a Belgian winery called "guillotine/la guillotine"), and most of them fled to the Netherlands and Belgium, some fled to Switzerland, Russia, and even flew high to the United States, Canada, and even the Macau region of our country. There were more than 200 monasteries transferred out before and after, and it can be said that the French Revolution indirectly played a role in spreading this monastery beer.
Because life was simple and fulfilling, these monks had a lot of time to seriously study the brewing process of beer, they did not accept commercialization, but only hoped to maintain the basic operation of the monastery with the income from beer, so they pursued quality excellence. The best thing the monks are good at is the use of sugar, which they boil with great skill to make different colors, and thus bring a very different flavor, which naturally gives beer a different flavor when brewing. In addition, monastery beer is also commonly fermented in the bottle, making the taste more intense and the sand taste is also very strong. The next issue explains what "killing taste" is.
For example, La Trapp and Simmel like to use this set of single, double, three, and four material systems, Zhimei likes to use gold, red, white, and blue colors to correspond, and Roosevelt likes to use the numbers 6, 8, and 10 (but Roosevelt only has two and four materials, and 8 and 10 correspond to four materials), and there is no fixed habit.
It is also said that the single, double, three, and four naming systems are related to the time when monastery beer needs to mature in the bottle before leaving the factory, and they represent one, two, three, and four weeks, respectively. In fact, it is easier to understand, the higher the degree of beer, the more it needs to stay in the bottle for a period of time to weaken the obvious alcohol taste and make it softer. And when many people hear this name, they take it for granted that beer has been fermented once, twice, three times or even four times, or how many multiples of raw materials are used, which is actually a misunderstanding.
With the outbreak of two world wars, the Benelux region, one of the main battlefields in Europe, was severely damaged, and Belgian monastery beer was found by soldiers from all over the world. Europe began to recover and rebuild after the end of World War II, the economy recovered rapidly, and as the people's living standards improved, the production of monasteries was far from meeting the demand. In the process, a lot of manufacturers have advertised for free and called their beer "×× Monastery Beer". This made the conservative monasteries intolerable and decided to unite to form an alliance to preserve the reputation of the monasteries' beers, while prosecuting these distilleries that violated their right to reputation.
Wineries that can receive this badge must meet the following conditions:
(1) Trapp beer must be produced within or near the courtyard walls of the monastery;
(2) The methods and methods of production of Trapp beer are determined or guided by the internal organization of the monastery;
Trapp Abbey Beer Official Certification Mark
(3) The profits from the sale of Trapp Beer are mainly used for the purpose of providing for monks or social charity.
At the beginning, only 6 monastery distilleries in Belgium and 1 monastery in the Netherlands joined, and as Trapp became more famous, more Trapp monasteries began to join the ranks of winemaking and selling wine, and there are currently 11 certified or pending Trapp abbey wineries in the world.
■ Group photo of all Trapp Abbey beers (Photo: Philip Rowlands)
The wineries of these wines are, from left to right:
(1) Achel Beer, the full name of the distillery is Brouwerij derSint-Benedictusabdij de Achelse Kluis, located in Belgium. One of the traditional 7 Trapp Abbey wineries with six main products.
(2) Chimay, the full name of the distillery is Brasserie de Chimay, located in Belgium. One of the 7 traditional Trapp Abbey wineries, it specializes in four beers and is also known for making four cheeses that accompany the beer. Chimei was also the first distillery to brand the Trapp certification mark on the beer trademark.
(3) Engelszell, the full name of the distillery is Step Engelszell, located in Austria. One of the new breweries, there are currently three beers.
(4) La Trappe, the full name of the distillery is Brouwerij de Koningshoeven, located in the Netherlands. One of the traditional 7 Trapp Abbey distilleries, making almost any kind of beer, is characterized by diversity and also has the number one production.
(5) Orval, the full name of the distillery is Brasserie d'Orval, located in Belgium. One of the traditional 7 Trapp Abbey wineries, which basically only brews one wine for external sale, using spices, dried hops and special yeast, the taste is very distinctive, and the monastery has an internal version.
(6) Spencer, the full name of the distillery is St. Spencer. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, based in the United States. One of the new distilleries, the style is very American, mainly producing IPA, Empire Shitao and so on.
(7) Rocherfort, the full name of the distillery is Brasserie de Rochefort, located in Belgium. The earliest founded Trapp Abbey Distillery (1595) has three dark beers of 6, 8 and 10, of which 6 are double and 8 and 10 are four.
(8) Tre Fontane, the full name of the winery is Tre Fontane Abbey, located in Italy. The latest addition of the distillery is characterized by the addition of eucalyptus leaves around the monastery, and the beer has a strong herb flavor.
(9) Westmalle, the full name of the distillery is Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle, located in Belgium. The second oldest monastery distillery, the creator of double and triple beer, has a pivotal role in the history of the development of monastery beer.
(10) Westvleteren, the full name of the distillery is Brouwerij Westvleteren/St Sixtus, located in Belgium. Produced 8, 10, 12 three beers, of which 12 are long-term firmly occupy the world's beer ranking of beer beer, a bottle is difficult to find.
(11) Zundert, the full name of the winery is Brouwerij Abdij Maria Toevlucht, located in the Netherlands. Zindert is the birthplace of the famous Dutch painter Van Gogh and a winery that has just joined the alliance, and only one beer is currently on the market.
The world's first beer produced in the monastery
West Flatren 12, often referred to as W12, has long occupied the number one position in the world beer rankings, and both the total number of reviews and the score are very convincing. However, this actually has a large degree of emotional component. Since the sale of wine in Severetren is not profitable, the wine is also extremely low-key, not even a bottle label, nor is it sold through any public channels, but through a very traditional telephone reservation to pick up the monastery, the reservation requires the same phone number and the same license plate (which must be a Belgian license plate) in three months can only buy a maximum of two boxes of 48 bottles in three months, which is extremely difficult. Although the monastery sells you a bottle for about 10 yuan, you can immediately sell it for 10 times or even more when you get it. This kind of starvation marketing is really humiliating to other commercial companies, but it should be solemnly stated that the monastery itself has not thought of any marketing.
This beer reflects the peak of the monks' use of Belgian dark sugar. When opened, not only does the beer have a rich taste of preserved dark fruits, syrup, honey and raisins, the malt flavor perfectly suppresses the alcohol level of up to 10.2%, and there is a very comfortable taste similar to lychee and pear, which is not found in all other monastery four beers, which makes the balance of this wine reach an insurmountable height.
Although it is not fair to firmly occupy the world's first pair of other well-intentioned wineries and winemakers, this wine has maintained such a high level of evaluation over the long years, so the stability of quality is also a very important core. Considering the winery's indisputable feelings and serious winemaking attitude, it is easy to understand that this wine is so favored by everyone.
As mentioned earlier, the Trapp Alliance was forced to unite in front of "counterfeit" distilleries, but it is impossible to let these distilleries go out of business from then on. The Trapp logo was not allowed, and they very cleverly chose the term Abbey Beer. In China, people sometimes confuse the two when translating.
Belgian beer outside the monastery
In fact, there has always been a small controversy in the Belgian beer industry: whether the original Belgian beer influenced the abbey style, or did the abbey beer influence the evolution of the local beer style? Because every kind of monastery style beer has a local style to correspond to it, if you want to talk about the difference in taste, ordinary people really can't necessarily taste it.
Belgian Pale Ale is a beer that evolved in Belgium in the mid-18th century, but its style is heavily influenced by English draught beer, incorporating Belgian elements. Due to the widespread use of Viennese or Munich malt with a darker color and stronger caramel flavor, this beer is generally beautiful amber in color, and has a certain nutty, biscuit and honey flavor, which is richer and less powerful. At present, it is basically the most common wine in Belgium, and its historical status is like that of the "big green stick" to the Chinese.
The slightly more powerful Belgian golden ale is similar to abbey single-ingredient beer, but it significantly removes the spice element and is closer to the various pilsen and lager beers in Eastern Europe. It has a high degree of fermentation, drinks refreshingly, similar to lager plus rich aer yeast phenolic aldehyde flavor, but also its own characteristics. The higher-intensity golden ale has a more intense taste, similar to the monastic version of the three ingredients. In the same way, there is a Belgian style of dark blasphemous ale, corresponding to the abbey four, but the difference between the two is significantly less than other styles, and the dark blaspheme ale is more like a general term, which can sometimes cover the dark version of Christmas beer in winter when classifying.
However, belgium has too many types of beer, here can not cover every type, some important belgian cities such as Antwerp, Ghent have their own specialty beer, can only hope that friends in the future to slowly develop.