Brasserie Brunehaut

Geschiedenis

Brasserie de Brunehaut is the trade name for Brunehaut Brewery, located in Rongy-Brunehaut (Hainaut), Wallonia, 80 km south/southwest of Brussels, Belgium, near the French border.History (aka Patrimoine)The brewery's history dates directly to 1096 in Tournai, and a time of severe medieval famine, locally remembered as part of "the great plague". Beer was already known as a safe alternative to impure local water supplies and the local community desperately needed help to avoid starvation. To promote public health, and compensate for minimal humanitarian support from far-away Rome, Benedictine Bishop Radbod included brewing permissions in the charter to re-establish Abbaye de Saint-Martin. Brewing thrived at Abbaye de Saint-Martin, through multiple wars and rebellions without significant interruption until 1793 when, during the French revolution, most abbey structures, including the church sanctuary and brewery were destroyed. Only the mid-18th century Abbot palace, parts of the 14th century Gothic cloister and a Romanesque, 13th century crypt survived. Fortunately, many important abbey documents, including Saint-Martin's "secret" brewing recipes, were successfully hidden from revolutionary plunder. In 1890, during Belgium's post-Industrial Revolution prosperity, these essential recipes permitted resumption of Abbaye de Saint-Martin brewing by Brasserie de Bruenhaut. More than forty individual Brunehaut beers were brewed during the next century and, in 1990, output capacity doubled, via new construction of a purpose-built fermentation house, two kilometers distance from the 1890 brewery site. Abbaye de Saint-Martin remains one of 18x Belgian beers to still enjoy official "Certified Belgian Abbaye Beer" status.