Look, Don’t Talk
Can a brew house be beautiful? Pale sunshine pours in through high windows, reflecting on two burnished copper kettles. A large mash tun standing proud above them on a raised platform feeds them. All three vessels have tiled bases picked out in a pattern of black, blue and red.
The first brewery at Westmalle opened in 1836. The current brew house dates—as the architecture indicates—from the 1930s. It was upgraded in the early 1990s when the brewing vessels were re-lined but they retain their original, striking appearance.
This is classic ale brewing. Water comes from the abbey’s own wells. It’s hard and the iron is removed before it’s used for brewing. The water is mixed in the mash tun with malt that comes from barley grown in the Beauce-Gâtinais region of France, south of Paris. The mash lasts for an hour as starch in the grain is transformed in to sugar. The spent grains are used as cattle feed on the monks’ farm. The sugary extract or wort is then run into the kettles below where it’s boiled with whole flower hops: The monks feel that the hop plant in its natural form delivers the finest aroma and flavor. The favored variety is the Czech Saaz but some Tettnanger from the Bavarian Hallertau and Styrian Goldings are also used. The hops are added three times during the boil and the kettles are heated by direct flame, a method that leads to some slight caramelization of the malt with a resulting hint of butterscotch or toffee in the finished beer.
Dubbel is brewed with pale pilsner malt and well-roasted dark malt. Dark candy sugar is added in the kettles. Tripel is made with pale pilsner malt only and white candy sugar. Following the kettle boil, the hopped wort is cooled and yeast and sugar are added prior to fermentation in closed vessels. The yeast strain is the original one from the 19th century: I was invited to drink a small glass as—I was assured—it would be good for both my digestion and my skin. It was creamy, intensely bitter and delicious, the perfect pick-me-up.
Primary fermentation lasts for a week. The beer is then filtered and re-seeded with fresh yeast and sugar. It enjoys a second fermentation and conditioning in tanks—three weeks for Dubbel and five for Tripel. The beer is finally blended from different tanks and a further dosage of yeast and sugar is added prior to bottling. Only 5 percent of Westmalle beer is sold in draft form from kegs and the Tripel is never available on draft. Dubbel accounts for the bulk of production but Tripel is catching up fast in popularity.
It’s the attention to detail and tradition—no cheaper grains or pasteurization, and a slow, unhurried production schedule—that makes Trappist beers so revered among connoisseurs and an inspiration to craft brewers everywhere.
The large, modern bottling hall is surprisingly quiet. You are reminded that this is a monastery. Hanging panels in the ceiling deflect and retain noise. The bottled beer is stored in an underground cellar, again designed to minimize sound. The beers are warm conditioned at 21 degrees Celsius. Dubbel stays in the cellar for two to three weeks, Tripel for three to four.
