The Abbey Brewery

The Augustinian Order of monks was established in the Ghent in 1295, when the Borluut family (a wealthy family of wool merchants who held civic posts in Ghent for four Centuries) first allowed them into the city. Two years on, in 1297 the bishop of Ghent gave his permission to the order of monks to build their monastery in the city around the church of Saint Stephanus. The resulting Sint Stefanus (Sint referring to the specific order located in Ghent, and not the religious figure of Saint Stephanus) was the first Augustinian Order in the Low Countries, right at the heart of the second-most powerful and influential city in Europe at the time.

Monks have always brewed beer and the abbey brewery at Sint Stefanus was no exception. It was acknowledged that brewing was part of the work a monastery should do for its community. During Lent, monks would also sustain themselves on beer and share their surplus with beggars, pilgrims and patients in the hospitals they established.

The original Sint Stefanus monastery was destroyed in the "iconoclastic fury" of 1566 when Calvanists ravaged every single church, monastery and convent in the Low Countries. It was rebuilt, only to be destroyed again by the French Revolution, which stripped all abbeys and monasteries in France and the Low Countries of their wealth and power. In 1796, the monastery was once more rebuilt - this is the current building that still stands today.

In 1978, the Augustinian monks of Sint Stefanus announced that they were looking for a brewery to make and sell their beers. They knew they didn't have the same ability as a modern brewery to protect the recipe and yeast strain. While the beer is no longer brewed on site, the order retains a very close relationship with the Van Steenberge Brewery, which produces the beer on the behalf of the monastery. Proceeds from this Belgian abbey beer help the monastery maintain their beautiful historical site.