Sun, 8 November 2009
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The Trappist monks of Belgium's Westmalle abbey face a new and unexpected challenge: commercial success.For over 200 years, the Trappist monks of Belgium's Westmalle abbey have preserved their order through war, fire and revolution.
Now the abbey's famous Benedictine brewing monks are facing a new and unexpected challenge: commercial success.
The beer they brew within the abbey's walls has become so popular that they cannot keep up with demand - forcing them to choose between the Rule of St Benedict and the iron rules of supply and demand.
"Given the ever-increasing demand, should the Trappist abbey of Westmalle give in to growing market pressure and intensify its production?" a statement from the Abbey asked. 
"This sempiternal (eternal) question has returned to the monks' order of business, and they have decided to keep the limit on their production," the statement said.
Belgium has long been famed for its "Trappist" beers, brewed by Benedictine monks in the abbeys of Westmalle, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westvleteren and Achel.
Westmalle, for example, is renowned for its production of the powerful dark-brown "Dubbel" beer, re-fermented in the bottle to reach an alcohol content of 7 per cent, and the golden "Tripel," also re-fermented to reach a staggering 9.5-per-cent alcohol content.
The beers, which can only be marketed as Trappists if they were brewed within the walls of the monasteries, have become popular well beyond Belgium, reaching supermarkets from London to Latvia.
But now demand has become so great that the monks - whose purpose in brewing the beer is to raise money to support their communities and their charitable projects - simply cannot keep up with demand.
"If we grow, we'll have to hire an extra team or work longer hours. That doesn't interest us," Brother Benoit of the Westmalle monastery said.
I thought the Westmalle abbey was a for-prophet organisation.
Just keep the grasping hands of Inbev (ex-Interbrew) a LONG way from Westmalle and Chimay -please!
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