Beer-brewing Trappist monks put faith in plants to cut back water waste

Koningshoeven abbey is truly one of only 13 places worldwide to brew Trappist beer, as well as products have won over drinkers globally.

For the many commercial success, however, a nagging sense that cash has triumphed over spirituality has prompted the monks to rethink their by using water after above 130 years.

The Cistercian monastery over the Dutch-Belgian border is a first brewery in western Europe to make a plant-based water filtration system that avoids today’s waste of seven litres of water for each litre of beer produced.

In a substantial greenhouse, 70 species, including ferns and also other sub-tropical plants, sit above bins of waste water that flows through pipes on the brewery. The interaction with the micro-organisms over the plants’ roots additionally, the bacteria in water purifies it for reuse.

“We are praying seven times per day to praise our creator for his creation, but we had been broken properly to avoid pollution,” said Father Isaac of his brewery. “We have experienced to translate our faith into sustainability.”

Only beer brewed that has a monastery’s walls is authentically Trappist, along with the Koningshoeven abbey produces 10m litres (18m pints) annually.

It is among one of just 13 abbeys producing Trappist beer. There are six in Belgium, two inside Netherlands the other each in Austria, north america, France, Italy as well as UK.

It is hoped which the new system, which is officially consecrated, willpurify around 450,000 litres every seven hours when fully operational without any need for human intervention.

The abbey while in the Dutch village of Berkel-Enschot, in Noord-Brabant, also produces 43% of the electricity from residential solar panels, as well as the monks C who also develop a popular cheese C drive electric cars if they need to leave the monastery.

The abbey offers further reduce the monks’ ecological footprint in a very less palatable way. “We wish to be in the position to purify human waste water to turn it into h2o,” said Father Isaac. “I feel a large responsibility for the following generation, and now we must make sure they inherit a cleaner world.”

This post was amended on 31 December 2018. You will discover 13 abbeys brewing Trappist beer, not 12 as mentioned inside an earlier version.