Today I want to share my experience while visiting the Trappist Abbey of Rochefort (a.k.a. Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy), which is the proud member of trappist family.
The brewery itself is located in Rochefort in the province of Namur (Wallonia, Belgium).
It is considered that the history of brewery goes back to the 13th century. In 1887 father Anselmus Judong from Achel came to the old place of Rochefort and the buildings were bought by the monks of Achel. The abbey was restored and re-opened. A new brewery was founded, but it would take until 1952 for the brewery to produce enough beer to bring the product out to the market. As the owner told my, they got huge help from Chimay monks to restart the production, they were supporting them by giving highest quality of malts and hops.
Nowadays Rochefort is well known for it's exclusive and high quality beer, produced with the best ingredients possible. Mainly Rochefort is known for dark beers, but they also brought to life their white beer (traditional tripel style), which became extremely popular on the market immediately.
Visiting the monastery is quite hard and also getting the full tour is almost impossible, I had the privilege to be invited in the monastery, see the old, already closed brewery and the new one as well, they also were kind enough to let me taste freshly bottled beers and give some small gifts for good memories. I also checked the old cellar and saw the first ever Rochefort number 8 bottles used in the production, owner kindly gave me one bottle and I took it back to my house and gave special place in my collection.
If you like the content, let me know and I will share more information about trappist culture and their monasteries.
