Alvinne Brewery Visit July 2011

5 of us made our annual trip out to Chimay, Belgium for the l'Audax des Fagnes cycle ride http://audax-de-chimay.over-blog.com/ As usual we try to find a brewery to stop at on the return journey (and on the way out of possible). This year we contacted Glenn at Alvinne and he was kind enough to invite us to visit their new brewery, which was not yet brewing due to the new equipment not being installed as yet. Freshly imported all the way from China - cheaper than buying from the EU we were told.

The brewery has moved to a small town called Moen, a village near Kortrijk, where they have bought an old industrial building to put in a brand new brewery. The address is Vaartstraat 4a, Moen (Zwevegem), 8552 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Vaartstraat+4a,+Moen+(Zwevegem),+8552&hl=en&oe=utf-8

We arrived just after noon, as planned. Glenn invited us to a nearby cafe for a spot of lunch - lovely hot and sunny day and a pleasure to sit outside and talk about beer, Flanders, governments (or not as the case was) and even bikes. Back to the brewery to see what is planned - stainless steel everywhere and waiting for a engineer to link them all together.






At the back of all this steel are the wooden barrels that they hope to use to mature some of the beer. Many collected from a recent visit to Bordeaux and having a amazing small of the Monbazillac that had been matured in them previously. These are the barrels they use to mature the Cuvée d’Erpigny beer (15%) Here you can see Glenn explaining how they got around 17 barrels back from the Bordeaux area to Flanders - must have been a large van, shame the barrels were empty as some contained some very nice Bordeaux wine.




So now it was upstairs to taste some of the beers. Very comfortable it was too - as you can see from the photos. Not finished yet and the bar area still had to have the shelf glued on. One pump for draft beer and some very comfortable seats at eh end. We tried most of the regular beers finishing with the Cuvée d’Erpigny. It was then downstairs to purchase a few beers to take home with us. I was pleased to see a good selection of Fantome beers - which are very difficult to get even in Belgium itself.

 What better site than a fridge full of beer - and all at a very reasonable price with small tasting glasses available and the opportunity to be talked through each one by the brewer himself.

Thanks very much Glenn for all the trouble you went to to make us so welcome, Hopefully they will update their website and add details of local gites etc. for those wanting to visit and not drive - perhaps info on cycle hire in the area to explore the nice (flat) countryside to generate a thirst.