The Only Brewery of Malmedy

Controversy has hit our happy beer tasting series from the Ardennes winter retreat -- or at least it seems I screwed up the other day, when I said the small town of Malmedy had two breweries. In fact, it only has one, as has now been pointed out to me in a letter from that unique establishment, Brasserie de Bellevaux.

I reviewed their Black beer and found it “yummy”, which is a statement that needs no correction. I also have notes here to write about their Brune, so stay tuned for that blog entry.

Where I got confused was when I reviewed Bière de Malmedy Brune, which I’d thought was also made in the Malmedy commune, but is actually brewed by Brasserie Lefebvre in Quenast, a town a bit south of Brussels, makers of Floreffe among others.

This does explain one thing, however. When I wrote about the faux Malmedy beer, I included a photo of a truck clearly belonging to the makers of that beer, and I said. “Not sure where the lorry-load of Malmedy Brewery’s beer ends up. I’ve never seen it anywhere else but in this corner of the Ardennes.”

The lorry was not the means for exporting Bière de Malmedy to the world but rather, I now suppose, the means for importing Bière de Malmedy INTO Malmedy.

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