The image is unusual.
Dressed in his Benedictine tunic, Brother Matthieu stands in one of the galleries of the cloister of his Saint-Wandrille abbey, in Normandy.
In his hand ?
A bottle of Leffe.
“At the top of the label,” he points out, “we read “Anno 1240”.
This is undoubtedly the year the Leffe Abbey was founded.
And in the center, they represented a stained glass window which represents the bell tower of a church.
» On the side of the logo, written in Gothic letters, we also read “Belgian abbey beer”.
“You might think it was produced by an abbey,” remarks the monk.
But when you turn the bottle over, you read, in small print: “Produced by InBev Belgium”.
“It’s the world leader in beer,” explains Brother Matthieu.
I think that Christian values are not what is most important to them and that, like all large groups, they seek to make the most profits.
»
Our interlocutor knows the subject well.
In Saint-Wandrille, he is in charge, with brother Olivier, of the production of beer launched in 2016. That morning, they both brewed a dark beer.
The malt grains are crushed and mixed with hot water, then filtered.
“In monastic life, we have a motto: “ora et labora”, prayer and work.
We have times of the day when we pray and times of the day when we work.
We have seven services a day but as the brewing of beer does not give us time to change and go to church at a fixed time, we will say them on site.
» So Brother Olivier that morning, dressed in pants and fleece, grabbed his psalter, sat down and crossed himself before launching into song, alone in front of his stainless steel tanks.
A little later, we will find him putting green hop flowers in a percolator.
“These are the same flowers that are sculpted on the frieze in the cloister,” slips the Benedictine.
And indeed, above the antediluvian “hop gate”, Brother Matthieu points out a bas-relief of leaves and flowers in the shape of hop cones.
“It is perhaps a trace of the abbey’s brewing past,” he comments.
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After six weeks of fermentation, the beer is ready to be sold in the local shop.
Brother Matthieu grabs a bottle.
“Brewed by monks,” we read on the front.
“Really brewed by the monks,” he insists.
And to clarify: “Not like Leffe.
»
In the rest of our report, we looked at where Leffe was really produced by interviewing a teacher-researcher, Marie-Catherine Paquier, a specialist in monastic marketing;
and we organized a blind tasting with Léa Debrie, wine merchant in the boutique and bar of the Fédération française de l'apéritif, in Paris.