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(Courtesy Trappistes Rochefort / Amazon)
Trappist Monks at a Belgian abbey renowned for its beer have been fighting plans by a local quarry to tap into deeper water reserves which they fear will damage the taste of their prized offerings.
This legal battle has been going on for years and here’s where things stand…
For more than a decade the monks of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy, in Rochefort, south Belgium (one of only 14 abbeys in the world producing Trappist beer), have been engaged in a long-running dispute with the Lhoist-Berghmans family (one of the richest in Belgium).
And this ongoing legal challenge, which revolves around the region’s pristine water source, has been clouded by almost Game of Thrones-like political machinations.
The Lhoist Company, which is the world’s largest lime, mineral and dolomite producer with 100 branches in more than 25 countries and 6,400 employees according to the Guardian, runs a lime quarry near the abbey in Rochefort, home to some of Belgium’s most valued beers.
The company had hoped to deepen its quarry and seek out new sources of water, but the Trappist brewers worried that their actions might impact the water source so important to the taste of their beer if the project was allowed to go forward.
Some history…
In 2017 the Walloon environment minister Di Antonio issued Lhoist a license to drill.
But in 2018 “Belgium’s highest administrative court, sided with the Trappist monks in their dispute and withdrew the multinational mining company’s license to perform drilling tests at a site near the brewery and the chalk producer was ordered to halt its deep drilling.
The back and forth has continued steadily since then. But in December 2018 the Walloon administration granted the Lhoist company the right to see if pure waters for the town and the brewery could be found deeper still, allowing the exploratory drilling to begin again.
The monks countered, contending that water sourced from deeper aquifers would not be suitable for brewing. And the abbey took the mining company to court in late 2019, and this time presented a deed from 1833 that forbids anyone from changing the course of the Tridaine spring.
In this legal action the regional court sided with the monks of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy and predictably the multi-national mining giant appealed that ruling.
But now according to Food & Wine, a higher court in Liege has addressed that appeal, again ruling in favor of the Trappist brewers and confirming that Lhoist cannot “remove or divert all or part of the water which supply the abbey.”
Whether the company appeals the latest ruling remains unclear (but many expect that it will) so this Game of Thrones scenario, only with beer at stake, could continue.
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For more on the whole Trappist beer thing check out…
