St. Bernardus

Brewery sign

St. Bernardus outdoor advertising

St. Bernardus is a Belgian brewery in the West Flanders town of Poperinge ; it is located in Watou Township. The brewery is a member of the Belgian Family Brewers . In 2012, 33,000 hl of beer were brewed.

history

The history of brewing begins with an anti-clerical French policy in the late 19th century, which led the monks of the Abbaye du Monts des Cats to settle on a farm in the Belgian municipality of Watou and to found the Refuge Notre Dame de St. Bernard there. According to the old Trappist tradition, the monks started producing cheese here to finance monastic activities. After the political situation in France had improved again, the monks gave up their possessions in Watou in 1934 and returned to France. The dairy was taken over by Evarist Deconnick, who also had his own production facilities built in Watou, to which he attached a brewery.

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the St. Sixtus Monastery in Vleteren decided to stop commercial production of its Trappist beer Westvleteren and to brew beer within the monastery walls only for personal use - and beyond that only for a few nearby inns. At the same time, Deconinck acquired the license from the monks to brew and sell Trappist beer commercially for 30 years according to the original recipe. Deconnick had a new brewery built next to his cheese factory and, with the help of a master brewer from Westvleteren, started producing the licensed Trappist beer under the name Sixtus . In the early 1960s, Deconinck's son-in-law Claus, who continued the family business from that time, obtained an extension of the brewing license for another 30 years; This license expired in 1992. A further extension did not come about because the six Trappist monasteries in Belgium and one Trappist monastery in Holland had jointly decided and committed to only allow the designation Trappist beer for beers that were brewed within the respective monastery walls; for this purpose, the guaranteed designation of origin Bière Trappiste has been added to the bottles . For this reason, the beer and brewery in Watou was renamed St. Bernardus in 1990 - based on the former Refuge de Notre Dame de St. Bernard . Other beer brands were added later.