Belgium's Coveted Westvleteren 12 Beer

Brother Manu van Hecke, the abbot of Saint Sixtus Abbey, stands near bottles of Westvleteren beer at the bottling plant. Image credit: Yves Herman/Reuters

The brewing brothers at the Abbey of Saint Sixtus in West Flanders, Belgium – one of the 14 official Trappist beer producers in the world – are forced to go digital in a bid to stop the thriving black market for their highly sought-after Westvleteren beers.

The monks insist the beverage should only be sold to private individuals and not businesses. And yet, it is very possible to buy it in some off-licences and bars at inflated prices. 

One of the said beers, Westvleteren 12 (left) is so coveted – it sells for about £14 in Brussels, in the US, get ready to pay £40 and in Dubai, a single bottle was on sale for £238 ($300), the monks had told Reuters. 

But buyers who buy direct from the abbey can purchase a crate of 24 bottles of this highly prized beer for around €45 (£40), which is only about €1.80 (£1.60) per bottle!

Its cachet is increased by the Trappist monks’ resolve to only produce as much as they need to cover their annual costs. 

“We brew to live, we do not live to brew” is the monks’ motto. 

The said brewery which was founded in 1838 produce just over 5,000 barrels over 42 brewing days annually. The nineteen Trappist monks brew three types of beers: a blonde that is 5.8% alcohol, and Westvleteren 8 and 12, the latter of which is regularly ranked as the best beer in the world despite its hefty 10.2% alcohol by volume.

But last year, the Jan Linders supermarket chain in the Netherlands – having stockpiled 7,200 bottles – and without the permission or knowledge of the abbey, had put the three types of the renowned beer on sale at £9 a bottle. 

That scandal prompted the monks to abandon the complicated phone ordering system they have used for the last 15 years in favor of an online reservation system – it went live on yesterday – designed to better enforce the limit of two crates per 60 days. In any case, customers must still travel in person and on appointment to pick up their allotted two crates. 

In 2018, monks in East Midlands became the first in the UK to brew an officially recognized Trappist beer (right). Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, near Coalville in north-west Leicestershire, was given permission to brew the beer, becoming the 14th member of the International Trappist Association. 

According to the ITA, the beer must be brewed within the abbey by the monks or under their supervision and must not be sold for profit.

I forgot to mention that on Tuesday, I was handed three more Toastmasters awards: 2 CCs and one CL for projects done in March:

I should expect to again submit applications for awards in August, probably five more.