A video about Trappist brewing, specifically Chimay.

Cool video, I visited chimay in 01. Stayed here at Auberge de Poteaupre - Rue de Poteaupre 5, 6464 Bourlers Belgium. Our room had a fridge stocked with chimay beer, One that was hard to get, Dory I think it is called.

Chimay is worth a visit if you are in the area.

 

Wow, the processing times are far shorter than I envisioned. But there's no denying that Chimay is damn fine beer. The only issue I have with Chimay is deciding which one I wish to consume at the time of choosing.

 

This is consistent with the way most production breweries manage their fermentations.

The key is a very healthy yeast supply and precise control over pitch rate and fermentation temperature. For instance, a production brewery may harvest yeast from one fermenter and pitch into another fermenter in the same day. Or, perhaps the breweries collects their yeast by skimming off the top, which is the best way to collect ale yeast, and I believe many Belgian breweries still practice this.

Homebrewers should (theoretically) be able to do the same with regards to yeast/fermentation management. In most cases, keeping your beer in the primary for a month is simply unnecessary - or if it is (due to off flavor or fusel generation), you should be able to drastically shorten that time by paying attention to the above. Not that it hurts to keep it in there for a little longer either (for the most part), as long as you don't mind waiting...

 

conicals have many advantages. but one disadvantage is that conicals by design collect the high floc yeast within the strain while leaving behind the slow movers. and every harvest compounds the selection process.
maintaining a healthy strain by collecting the krausen (God is Good) is one way to control for consistency. and unlike homebrewers, pro-breweries can get the fresh yeast back into service almost immediately with conditions that are virtually identical to the environment the yeast was harvested from.
don't know about your brewery, but if I am using harvested yeast it is being put into service with a variety of worts.


the Abbey is equally famous for its beer and the innovations in brewing technique that were developed at its brewery.
Cheers.

 

That place was booked up when I went back in 2009, but we did stop to see it (and the monastery around the corner). Actually everything in the town of Chimay was too because the time I was going to be there corresponded with some for of VW Bug-fest. lol. We stayed a town over. Beautiful countryside. Definitely worth a visit.

And that beer is called Doree - its their enkle I believe. Can't get it in the states.

On a side note, the Chimay cheese was just not our cup of tea. Hard to get past that odor.

 

Conical fermenters had an impact at chimay. Before that they had open ones. I think the change came around 03. I was a big fan of the red in the old days. The red today is good, but nothing like it was.

 

The countryside was beautiful, I remember waking up at the hotel and looking out on a lush green field. And that was in March. I've seen Doree a time or 2 on ebay.

 

The flat, open fermenters will do more to encourage ester production - since the liquid pressure within the taller conical isn't exerting force on the yeast. Which is maybe why the beer was better then (I can't personally say having not compared the two...)

Man, when I die, I hope I come back as a cow roaming the countryside next the Chimay brewery - just eating spent grain and mooing contentedly...

 

Here is a quote I found a while ago from Whitebeer Travels " In the fifth ( 2005) edition of his Good Beer Guide Belgium, ( www.booksaboutbeer.com, White Beer Travels web page) Dr. Tim Webb has the following to say about Chimay Beers: "The world's leading beer writer, Michael Jackson, ascribes their relatively recent loss of complexity to the changes in yeast dynamics brought about by that change ( to cylindro-conical fermentation)"

 

That was very interesting. Thank you for posting this. I would like the job of official taster!

 

Almost like this lovely book "Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition"

 

On Beer Advocate, especially the main forum, the notion is that the Trappist brewers are very hands on and old world traditional brewers. Did you notice the mash press? The yeast lab, which the pros that have been there say is very sophisticated, all of the stainless pipes?

Father Theodore cleaned up the yeast in 1948, working with Jean De Clerck. Before that Chimay was known for low quality. Father Theodore passed around 2006 or 2007, so you see that the video is a little old. The Chimay White dates from 1966. This also points to those who think the Trappist beers they are drinking are hundreds of years old. The monastery may be old, but not the beer recipe and techniques.

Sorry for the rant.

 

There is no doubt they make good beer! I like them all!

 

I guess what I don't understand is where the money comes from to purchase all of this excellent technology, or the revenue stream for trappists as a whole. Obviously the retailers and distributors get a nice cut, but is there a Chimay bank account? Is that used to pay for everything at the Monastery? What happens when they have too much money, do they donate it to other charities? Did they save up for 40 years to buy all of the nice tanks, piping, controls, etc.? I don't remember reading much about this in Brew Like a Monk...

 

They talk of the other abbeys they support in the video, and they also support a few cloisters of nuns IIRC.

They live like monks, so low overhead, and the property is probably paid for. The cheese and other farming is a source of revenue. How they financed the expansions over the years, I am not sure. I have driven past the packaging plant/warehouse, and it is impressive.