Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Powered by Head Quarters Built on WordPress
You are here: Home / Breweries / Rochefort Brewery Damaged By Fire

Rochefort Brewery Damaged By Fire

December 30, 2010 By Jay Brooks

rochefort
I just woke up to the news that the brewery at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy, better known to the beer world as Brasserie de Rochefort, was damaged last night by a fire that swept through the abbey. Pete Slosberg forwarded me the e-mail he received from Belgian beer writer Christian Deglas, which outlined the damage.

Bad news from the Belgian beer world. Yesterday evening there [was] a great fire in the abbey of Rochefort which [was] a big disaster. The church was saved as [well as] the Bibliothèque and the rooms of the monks, but the brewery and stables are completely destroyed. The fire started in the warm reserve places. All the new material is destroyed. There are no victims or injured persons.

Normally, the production should start again in a few weeks, but I’m afraid that [at the] moment there will be a rupture of the stock.

The BBC also has the story up now, too, and they’re reporting the following:

The Trappist (Cistercian) monks were dining when fire broke out at the abbey at St Remy-Rochefort, famous for its Rochefort beer.

The building was evacuated and it took 70 firefighters to put out the blaze. It seems the blaze began near a generator being used temporarily after problems with the power supply.

Francois Bellot, mayor of Rochefort, said he was confident that it would be possible to resume beer production within a few days.

The BBC Piece, Fire damages Rochefort Trappist beer abbey in Belgium, also has a short video of the fire.

Filed Under: Breweries, News Tagged With: Belgium



Comments

  1. fraggle says

    December 30, 2010 at 10:24 am

    Hey Jay.
    It says above that “the brewery was completely destroyed”. Everything i read yesterday said the brewery is fine, with some minimal damage, they just lost some stock. the brewery was basically untouched. have you heard anything different?

    • Jay Brooks says

      December 30, 2010 at 10:56 am

      I know, I noticed that discrepancy as well. The initial report I got was from Deglas (by way of Pete) so I tend to put more stock in that, though I obviously don’t know where Christian got his information. His e-mail also mentioned that he’d had an appointment today with a friend at Rochefort which he had to cancel under the circumstances, which suggests his information is from an inside source. I considered that the official story may be spin for the sake of business or appearances, but I can’t say for sure, of course.

  2. Tom Dalldorf says

    December 30, 2010 at 11:01 am

    The BBC report also said there were 5 Trappist breweries. Well now….

  3. fraggle says

    December 30, 2010 at 11:25 am

    well, only five, because
    a. news that there is a trappist brewery in the netherlands got lost in the snow somewhere.
    b. the bbc has been miffed over the netherlands since Queen Beatrix infamously told Queen Elizabeth that Bass tasted like warm bathwater.
    c. and with the fire, that means there’s one less, and OH MY BACCHUS ITS TRUE! the BBC knows! it knows! Rochefort must have burned. that was their secret way of letting it out! ahhh!

    oh, and btw…now ISO Rochefort 8 rauchbier please.

  4. Christina says

    December 30, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    Maybe the original article was translated to English and the discrepancies result from an unintentional exaggeration of a phrase or word.

  5. fraggle says

    December 30, 2010 at 12:55 pm

    an update.
    apparently the roof was damaged over a building holding 4 vessels of beer. the fear is the roof beams will collapse onto said beer, so they have to move it all.
    at least no one was injured
    here’s a more detailed article from yesterday (in french)
    http://www.rtlinfo.be/info/votre_region/namur/764013/un-incendie-detruit-une-partie-de-l-abbaye-de-rochefort

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Beer Bulletin Email

Enter your email address to receive daily digests:

Recent Comments

  • Kendall Staggs on Beer In Ads #4341: Miss Rheingold 1955 Filling Yuletide Requests
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Robert Burns » Brookston Beer Bulletin on John Barleycorn
  • Susan Appel on Historic Beer Birthday: John Roehm
  • S. Pavelka on Beer Birthday: Rich Norgrove
  • Celebrating Texas History With Alamo Beer: An Iconic Taste Of The Lone Star State – SanctuaryBrewCo on Fictional Beer Brands

Recent Posts

  • Beer In Ads #4346: Something Is Brewing For 1956 February 8, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Andrew MacElhone February 8, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: A.J. Houghton February 8, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Lüder Rutenberg February 8, 2023
  • Beer In Ads #4345: Miss Rheingold 1955 Visits San Bernardino February 7, 2023

Tag Cloud

Advertising Anheuser-Busch Announcements Bay Area Belgium Brewers Association Brewing Equipment Budweiser Business California Christmas Europe France Germany Guinness Health & Beer History Holidays Hops Humor Infographics Kegs Law Mainstream Coverage Miller Brewing Northern California Pabst Packaging Patent Pennsylvania Press Release Prohibitionists Rheingold San Francisco Schlitz Science Science of Brewing Sports Statistics The Netherlands UK Uncategorized United States Video Washington

The Sessions

session_logo_all_text_1500

Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
Archive, History & Hosting

Typology Tuesday

Typology-png
Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
Archive & History

This month’s posts

February 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  
« Jan    

BBB Archives