On Friday the 18th of September I managed to cross something of my (beer) bucket list. I visited the Open Brewery Days at Orval. This Trappist Monastery opens their brewery only once a year, always in September. It’s 190 kilometres away and at least two hours driving from Brussels, but it was definitely worth the trip. I thoroughly enjoyed walking past the copper brewing tanks and the rest of the installations, reading about the history of the beer and its recipe. Orval is one of my favourite beers and is often mentioned in my beer and brewery talks because of it’s special nature.
The Orval brewery was set up in 1931 in a time when they were rebuilding the monastery back up from its ruins. It was always intended as an activity to finance the monastery and not specifically as an activity for the monks, as they were already making bread and cheese. So Orval brew masters were and are always laymen.
When they started the brewing team used an unusual combination of production methods, such as infusion brewing and dry-hopping, especially for that time but even now. Orval beer is made with three different fermentations. After the first fermentation (top-fermentation with a house yeast), the young beer is transferred to big maturation tanks and kept at 15 degrees Celsius for 3 weeks. This is the moment where hops are added (dry hopping) and the wild yeast (their house strain of Brettanomyces). They have dozens of 10.000 litre tanks that we walked past during the brewery tour. After bottling the beer is refermented in the bottle for around 4 weeks at a temperature of 17 degrees Celsius. Only after that the beer is ready to go to the customers. And as all Orval-lovers know, from there the beer will continue to evolve.
After the tour we went to the nearby tavern A l’ange gardien, where we had a nice lunch and I drank my first green Orval ever. Green Orval is an Orval without the addition of wild yeast (Brettanomyces). It tastes like an IPA, because the strong dry hopping that is used on Orval now determines the flavour. Even without the brewery, the Orval Abbey is worth a visit and the nearby tavern is open every day, except Wednesdays. I have made a video of my visit and you can see it here on Instagram.
The next Open Brewery Days at Orval are already scheduled: 17 & 18 September 2027. Registration will open in May 2027. Click here for more information: https://www.orval.be/en/page/501-open-days
