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Belgium: is abbey beer really produced by monks?
Tuesday, November 7, the 13 Heures focuses on a drink that the French love and which dates from the Middle Ages: abbey beer. But is this famous drink really produced by monks? Investigation. – (France 2)
Tuesday, November 7, the 13 Heures focuses on a drink that the French love and which dates from the Middle Ages: abbey beer. But is this famous drink really produced by monks? Investigation.
It is the promise of ancestral know-how, recipes several centuries old, brewed by monks. For hop lovers, abbey beer is a safe bet. The best known of them is undoubtedly the Leffe. And behind it, there is a real abbey, located in Belgium, and monks who pray, meditate, but do not brew. “There hasn’t been a brewery here for a little over 200 years. To say that there is a mythical recipe dating from the Middle Ages is pure Hollywood fiction. It never existed here or anywhere else“, says Father Benoît of Notre-Dame-de-Leffe Abbey.
Monumental factory
In reality, Leffe is produced 80 km from the abbey, in a monumental factory which belongs to the largest brewing group in the world. “LAbbey beers are the subject of a lot of marketing today. They will really highlight all the know-how, the quality, the ancestral. However, unfortunately, three quarters of abbey beers are brewed in large structures.explains an expert.