Belgium: Trappist brewery Chimay to launch new permanent beer for the first time in 55 years

The Trappist brewery Chimay has announced that it will officially launch a new permanent beer for the first time in 55 years, unveiling the new Green labelled beer on an already colourful lineup, The Brussels Times reported on May 3.

Officially named Chimay 150, the new beer will join the Dorée, the Rouge, the Blanche (triple) and the Bleue, bringing the brewery up to 5 permanent beers.

According to the International Trappist Association, producing a new Trappist beer is no short order, and must meet certain criteria:

• Made within the immediate surroundings of the abbey;
• Production must be carried out under the supervision of the monks or nuns;
• Profits should be intended for the needs of the monastic community, for purposes of solidarity within the Trappist Order, or for development projects and charitable works.

“It was a beer that we had wanted to launch for a long time and for which the board of directors, which includes three monks, agreed this year,” Giselda Mercuri, marketing manager of Bières et fromages de Chimay told local media. “We were missing this beer, blonde, strong, a little rounder and with a more accessible bitterness than the Chimay Blanche (triple),” she added.

The beer – first brewed in 2012 to mark the 150th anniversary of the brewery’s creation – has stiff competition among the rest of the range to make a mark. Chimay Bleue alone accounts for just over half of the brewery’s 190,000 hectolitres per year, Blanche (triple) for 20%, Rouge for about 15%.

The new beer will first be made available in May at Discobeer and Poteaupré, a beverage and catering business that are part of the Chimay group. It will start to show up in bars from June and eventually be available for mass distribution in autumn.