Beer brewing Belgian monk makes bishop

A Trappist monk who once ran one of Belgium’s most celebrated abbey breweries has been promoted to bishop by Pope Francis, the Ghent diocese said Wednesday.

Abbot Lode Van Hecke, 69, runs Orval Abbey in southern Belgium and between 1998 and 2001 he was director of its world-renowned beer producing operation.

In February next year he will become bishop of Ghent, in the north of the country, the first monk of the Trappist order to achieve this rank in Belgium.

The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, more commonly known as Trappists, are a contemplative religious community and rarely take leadership roles.

But the abbot told Church news site CathoBel that his years running the Orval brewery would stand him in good stead after he dons episcopal robes.

“Luckly I spent some years in the brewery,” he said. “Not for the beer but for the management experience.”

Several Trappist monasteries in Belgium have become world famous for producing high quality beers in commercial quantities and Orval is one of the best.

The monks began making a distinctive, fruity beer in 1931, under the influence of a Bavarian brewmaster and using the British dry-hopping method for bitterness.