BierTalk English 31 – Talk with Father Karel, Subprior and Brewer at Grimbergen Abbey Brewery, from Grimbergen, Belgium

Grimbergen Abbey has not had its own beer since the brewery was destroyed during the French Revolution. After more than 200 years, the 15 monks of Grimbergen Abbey and the brewery groups Alken-Maes (Heineken) and Carlsberg have now decided to resume operations at the abbey north of Brussels, Belgium. A microbrewery with a capacity of 10,000 hectoliters per year started production in 2021. Father Karel combines his daily monastic life with the management of the abbey brewery and supports the master brewer Marc-Antoine Sochon. To this end, he completed an apprenticeship at the Jacobsen Brewery in Copenhagen and received theoretical instruction at the Scandinavian School of Brewing. Today, the brewery has three beers: Grimbergen Astrum Pale Ale (6%), Grimbergen Magnum Opus Brut (8%) and Grimbergen Ignis Quadruple (10%), but father Karel and the brewmaster are already working on new beers, especially some barrel-aged ones, as he tells us in the podcast...