La Trappe - Koningshoeven

The only non-Belgian monastery that has received the logo “Authentic Trappist Product” is the Dutch of Berkel – Enschot, 3 kilometers from Tilburg, that the abbey of the Onze Lieve Vrouw (“sheep pen”) of Koningshoeven, in the Dutch province of Brabant. Located just eight kilometers from the border with Belgium, the story begins in France in 1880, when the abbot of the Trappist monastery in France Saint-Marie-du-Mont in Mont-des-Cats monaco instructs his trusted to look outside the France, a place “safe” where you can transfer all the monastic community at that time dangerously in the balance in the turbines, French revolutionary. The choice is, after evaluating (and discarded) the option England, the Netherlands, in an area around Tilburg, heath land, full of small farms, which the locals called Koningshoeven (“the king’s garden”). The abbey was officially “opened” in 1884, and ten years After counting more than 200 monks and a beer already. Until 1950-1960, the abbey experienced a period of great expansion, through both World Wars unscathed and founded other monasteries abroad. Then begins the period of “decline”: the crisis of vocations, senior monks present, scaling of work activities. Now the situation seems to have found its stability, with the presence Tilburg men of a community composed of about twenty monks, between 22 and 85 years. The brewery is in the context of the fine history of the monastery since 1885, thanks to Abbot Nivard Schweykart, himself the son of a brewer, which begins at Brass according to the type high fermentation. Since 1891 began marketing outside the abbey, with good results, leading to a gradual expansion and modernization of the structures of the brewery. After the Second World War period begins more complicated: the consumption fall outside the demand for new types of beer (Pils) capture unprepared for the monks, who, after several attempts, in 1969 decide to sell, the Artois. The sales contract for the sale of plants to Artois for 10 years, after which, however, the Artois decided not to renew the contract with the monks Abbey, which begin to produce directly in their own plants on June 18 of 1980.La Brouwerij broadens its range of beers, is aligned with the commercial for John Martin distribution and export, but the internal labor (meant for the monks) tapering more and more. So much so that in 1998 the monks forge a cooperative relationship with the Dutch Bavaria, retiring at the same time, the direct control of production. And ‘the reason for which the ITA retires in the same year the brand “Authentic Trappist Product” at the monastery Dutch. That is “Returned” after long and tiresome litigation, in 2005. In the USA and Canada is sold under Trappist Ale Koningshoeven the brand.