Basilica of Avioth / Orval Monastery / Beer Making

The Basilica of Avioth

Last week our neighbours Christophe and Isabelle had friends visiting from the UK, and they invited us to go on a little road trip to Avioth, just over the border into France.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Avioth is a quite beautiful example of "Flamboyant Gothic" architecture, and was completed in the mid-13th century.  It's surprising that such a large and impressive church would have been built in such a small place: the commune of Avioth is quite small, with only around 130 inhabitants, but it has been a pilgrimage site since the 12th century, when a statue of the Virgin Mary is reported to have been found there.  This miraculous discovery encouraged people to visit the site and make offerings to the Virgin, among them St. Bernard.  Over the decades, enough generous gifts were left by pilgrims and by the local nobility to finance the building of this church.

The accumulation of offerings necessitated the construction of a small structure that resembles a church spire that you can see in the foreground of the photograph above, known as a recevresse, or "reciever", where the religious offerings were placed.  This structure is unique, and quite famous in architecture circles for the delicacy of its stonework lace, and an exact reproduction was made for display at the Trocadero Museum in Paris.  Here's another picture of the recevresse as it appeared in that museum between 1878 and 1935.

one of the rose windows

a statue of the Virgin Mary protecting her many petitioners

It was quite a nice church, with a calm atmosphere and with beautiful light.

After our exploration of Avioth we drove the 12 km to Orval, and had lunch in the cafe there.  We've been for lunch at l'Ange Gardien near the monastery before, and as usual, we sampled the "petite Orval", or Orval vert, the lower-alcohol beer that is only sold in the cafe, on draught.  It's quite different from the usual Orval in the bottle, and quite refreshing.

After lunch we had a tour of the ruins... Maggie and I have explored them before, during a road trip in July of 2015, while the boys were vacationing in Canada, but it was still nice to visit them again, and there were some things that we had forgotten.  Also by way of the display cases of Orval memorabilia I was able to determine the age of one of my older Orval beer glasses: let's just say that it will stay at the back of the cabinet, as it is of the 1950 or maybe even of the 1930's vintage, and so quite valuable.

in 2019...

... and in 2015

in the Abbey church organ loft

We also found the staircase into the current abbey church, which we somehow missed last time, and had a look at the sanctuary from the organ loft.  I am sure that the organ makes an impressive sound... like the rest of the church it most probably dates from the late 1940s.  As I wrote back in 2015, there have been monks at Orval for a thousand years, but the last community of monks was dispersed when the abbey was burned during the French Revolution.  It remained vacant and in ruins until the current community was reestablished between 1926 and 1948.  The brewery was built in 1931, and it was the revenue from the sale of Orval beer that paid for the new monastery complex.  Indeed Orval was the first Trappist beer to be marketed and sold throughout Belgium, a strategy soon to be adopted by the other Trappist monasteries.

Belgian beer has a long and continuous history dating back to Roman times, but I have been surprised to learn that the strong Trappist beers are largely a twentieth-century invention.  It is interesting to see how the connections between the Trappist communities have led to a remarkably unified beer aesthetic... Sint-Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren was founded in 1831 by a group of monks from the French monastery Mont des Cats; brewing started at Sint-Sixtus beginning in 1838, but was strictly for their own consumption until 1931, the same year that Orval brewery opened.  Similarly Westmalle was established in 1794, and achieved abbey status in 1836, but they didn't start brewing until the 1930s.

In 1850 another group of monks left Sint-Sixtus to found the monastery of Notre Dame de Scourmont, which is better known globally as the producer of Chimay.  And the Orval beer that we enjoy today is quite different from the 1931 vintage; it was developed in the 1940s and 1950s... by Orval monks who apprenticed as brewers with their brothers in Chimay!

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I guess that I was inspired by our road trip, because another activity this past week was beer bottling.  It turned out that the Duvel's Nat and the Abbey dubbel both were ready to bottle at the same time, so we did the dubbel in the afternoon in swing-top "grolsch" style bottles, and then did the Duvel in the evening, in normal long-neck bottles with crown caps that you have to crimp on.

draining the beer after primary fermentation to ensure that

the sludge of dead yeast cells is retained and discarded

adding sugar to the beer just prior to bottling to encourage secondary fermentation

bottling the dubbel

pouring out the Duvel's Nat

ready to bottle

capping

no it's not really Westvleteren, but I had an empty case lying around

Now comes the hard part: waiting.  The beer has to sit for around two months to mature, so we will be opening it in the first week of October.  Until then it will be on the concrete floor in the coolest part of our cellar, to try to maintain a temperature of between 18 and 23 degrees C.

This week we are staying around home and collecting our camping equipment, because on Saturday we leave very early to drive to les Contamines Montjoie, to stay there for the following week. The boys will come, and Yoshi too!  We realise that we missed Yoshi's fifth birthday, as it fell on the same day as the wedding that we attended in Bath, but I think he won't mind if we celebrate it a few days late...

Hot days / at the beach / road trip UK / wedding bells / a new gig

On Thursday morning we left fairly early to try and beat the heatwave by going to the nature reserve De Nekker near Mechelen, as we did around the same time last year.  We were there just after it opened and I felt that it was less crowded than last time.  Still, well worth the EUR 4,50 per person entrance price.

We took along a frisbee, the cribbage game, and books to read, along with a picnic lunch.  A good time was had by all but it was pretty warm when we got back to the car: the thermometer read 40 degrees C!  Some of our friends reported even higher temperatures, and the official record was set at 40,7 degrees in Uccle, Brussels.  It would seem that last year's heatwave was not an anomaly: we have had two already this spring and summer and it looks like extreme weather is the "new normal".

We were home in enough time to cook a bunch of food for a nice dinner together, and to pack for the early departure of 7h the next morning, to drive to Calais and catch the ferry to Dover.  We were on our way to celebrate the wedding of Andrew and Julia Gardner's eldest daughter, Bethany, to Timothy, a soon-to-be Anglican priest.

We have always either flown to the UK, or taken the channel tunnel train, so we've never had the chance to take the ferry, as our elders did in the days before the tunnel was built.  But I must say that I found the kilometres of tall fences topped with razor wire quite depressing, and a bit menacing.  You don't really get exposed to that when you are on the train, but it's obvious here that the ferry terminal complex, at least on the Calais side, is built like a huge prison, to keep undocumented immigrants out.  It was a sobering start to our trip.

finally getting onto the ferry at Calais

Once we were underway, it was a much more relaxed atmosphere, and Maggie and I went outside to enjoy the cool sea breeze and sunny day.  It was a calm and pleasant trip across la Manche as it is called in French.

I didn't see any bluebirds (unless Maggie's blouse makes her one) but the white cliffs were striking even from a long way away.

Once out of the ferry and onto the highway that would lead us to Bath, we noticed that it was lunchtime, and started to think about where we should stop to eat the sandwiches that Maggie had packed.  We saw a sign for something called "Samphire Hoe", and took a quick turn through a narrow tunnel that had been bored through the chalk of the cliffs...

The Samphire Hoe Country Park looks as if it has been there for a long time, but in fact, it's a relatively new piece of land that was created from the roughly five million cubic metres of chalk marl that was excavated during the digging of the Channel Tunnel.

It's a gorgeous nature preserve with lots of wild grasses and flowers, and there are tons of insects and birds that were either placed their after the land was reclaimed from the sea, or have arrived in the years since it was created.  It's beautiful and quiet and peaceful, and I highly recommend that if you happen to be in the area of Dover you should give it a look.

The traffic for the rest of the journey was diabolical: the 290km is roughly the distance from Toronto to Gananoque, Ontario, and it took us over six hours to drive that distance due to the huge lineups on the motorways.  I have come to learn that traffic jams on the southern roads are a normal thing, and we had budgeted some wiggle room, but as it was we only just checked into the bed and breakfast and made it to the rehearsal dinner party in time.

a happy reunion of former St. Andrew's Brussels friends

Andrew has moved to Dundee, and our friend Oliver (just to my right) is now in Dublin with his family, so it was great to get together again.  The party was informal and relaxed with a few speeches from friends and family...

Tim and Bethany (centre, smiling at each other)

We had a lovely time catching up with everyone and meeting new friends from the groom's family, and walked back to our bed and breakfast.

Our host Polly was really nice; she gave us a good breakfast and an interesting conversation, and pointed me in the direction of the Bath Skyline trail, a 10 kilometre circuit of the hills that make a kind of bowl around the city of Bath.  Maggie wanted to check out the fabric stores and also received my suggestion of looking for the British Trappist beer Tynt Meadow, and we walked a little bit together before parting ways for an hour or two.

panorama near the top of the skyline trail

a manor house up in the hills

It was an awesome run, with lots of steep hills giving an total elevation climb over the 11 or so kilometres of around 340m.  All of that up and down meant that my heart rate was pretty high, much more so than it usually is on my Wavre and Bousval runs.

I was home in time to quickly iron my shirt, shower and get into my kilt for the wedding.  Maggie wore her poppy dress...

happily married

We didn't take any photographs during the wedding, which was quite a long and old-fashioned one.  It lasted almost two hours; had several responsory readings, two anthems, a sermon, and communion.  But the service had lots to keep our attention and so didn't seem that long.  Saint Stephen's Church was built in the middle 19th century and is a nice medium-sized church that is beautifully decorated.  The place was half full of people but full of smoke from the censer, as they were pretty enthusiastic with high anglican ritual.  Tim is nearly finished his studies to become an Anglican Priest, and the choir was supplemented with a number of his friends from Theological College, so it was an energetic and enthusiastic service.

We had about 45 minutes before the reception, so everyone walked down the hill and stopped at the Saracen's Head pub for a pint and a few packets of crisps to share out, before carrying on the reception.

at the pub

Gill, Julie, and Maggie

welcoming the happy couple

lots of young kids playing together at the reception

speeches

We had a great time at the delicious dinner, having conversation and meeting members of Tim's family and Bethany's.  But we made it a relatively early night, as we knew we had an early morning the next day.

We were on the road by around 8h45 and made a short detour to drive past Stonehenge...

And the ancient hill fort of Old Sarum, which is close to what we now know as Salisbury.  It's been occupied from as long ago as 3000 BC, and then had a succession of edifices built there: Picts, Angles, Saxons, and then the Normans: in all likelihood William the Conquerer had the Domesday Book presented to him there in 1086.  We didn't have much time to explore it, but the deep moat and defensive walls were impressive, as was the view of Salisbury nearby. But we didn't have time to go there, but hit the road for Dover.

I don't have any more pictures to show, but it was an uneventful drive back, less time-consuming than the outward leg of the journey.  We stopped about ten kilometres from the docks to buy some hard-to-find British items at the Tesco's, and then made it to the ferry on time, and then were home a bit before 21h.  In retrospect we wished that we had budgeted a few more days on either side of the trip, but that will have to wait for the next time we do a UK tour...

In other news, I received confirmation of something during our journey: I am happy to announce that St. John's International School has engaged my services as the Musical Director of their autumn musical theatre production, Hello Dolly.  It's going to be big, with a cast of maybe ten principals and a chorus of something like 100, drawn from the 3rd to 12th graders at Maggie's school, the staff, and some parent volunteers.  The Artistic director is a dancer so he will do the staging and the choreography, but I will be there for the auditions of the soloist singers, and will give input into the casting choices, will be responsible for working with the soloists and the choral singers on basic singing technique, and also will lead their rehearsals to help them learn the music.  As well I will help with optimising the microphone distribution and will be there to call cues and things during the performance.

It involves around 12 hours per week for the months of September and October and the first two weeks of November, and then my time commitment will be double that (26 hours) for the third week and triple that (38 hours) for the last week.  It's a great opportunity for me, and seems to be the next step in my teaching / coaching / directing evolution.  Certainly Bruce is positive about it: he's always encouraged me to teach or direct, as part of my own artistic development as a soloist, so I'm really looking forward to it... Fortunately I don't have too many performances during that time period, so it should be fine for me to work around them, and I will be done my concerts well before I have to fly to Newfoundland to sing Messiah.

Everybody is busy

Maggie with a test dress

Maggie has been doing lots of sewing this week, and made a test dress to try out a new pattern.  She's happy with how it went and so is doing the finished dress in a lovely poppy fabric.  She should have it ready to wear this weekend, when we will go to Bath to attend the wedding of Andrew and Julia's eldest daughter. 

I have been doing more gardening during the days that it has been cool enough to work... after finishing the back wall I have now gone on to remove nearly all of the ivy from the apple tree and the lilac and elderflower bushes, and found this cute bird's nest up high in the branches.

Yoshi has been suffering a bit from the heat, but he's still wanting to play frisbee.  I ran with him yesterday, early in the day, and he was not very fast at all.  I am going to stop running with him when the temperature is higher than 20 degrees, because it's just too frustrating to have to stop every 500 metres for him to catch up.

Earlier in the week before it got super hot, we did a wood run to take our half of the firewood that we had delivered to Bousval last summer.  We spent some of our time while house-sitting chainsawing it up and stacking it, and now that it has been sitting for over a year it's good and dry.  Some of the larger pieces needed splitting before we put them inside the garage for storage, so I did some therapeutic work with the splitting maul.  Happily my right shoulder handled it just fine.  I can't say how relieved I am that I can throw a ball or swing an axe again!

Fortunately we were able to get all of the wood into the garage before a huge hail, wind, and rainstorm hit...

Fortunately nothing was damaged by the hail; the old part of the pavilion fabric had a couple of small tears but the whole thing held together, and the "toque" section on the cupola that Maggie sewed to replace the old one didn't budge a bit.  Also I was happy that our roof didn't leak, even with such extreme rain and wind.

Duncan and I were encouraged by the initial bubbling of the Abbey-style dubbel (which is still in primary fermentation but will need bottling in another week) so we decided to brew another batch of beer, this time 15 litres' worth.  Maggie prefers strong blonde beers to the brown ones, so we bought a Duvel style blonde from a brewing store near Leuven.  This kit was different as it came with a couple of different types of sugar to add during the initial fermentation, as well as some hop pellets!

We did the mixing up on the Belgian national holiday on the 21st July, but as the weather was a bit warm we had to wait until the next morning before the wort was cool enough to sprinkle the yeast.  If the temperature of the wort is higher than 25 degrees celsius there is a danger that it will kill the yeast.

We are keeping all of the fermenting beer in the basement where the temperature has been pretty steady at 23 degrees.  Ideally it should be a little cooler but we hope it will be ok.

the legal definition of brewing

Maggie and I used to go to a local wine-making place back in the 1990s, where the wine was fermented and bottled in a factory, so you didn't have to store it at your home.  But the legal obligation was that you had to show up to throw the yeast into the "must" (the wine equivalent of the wort) and then you had to do the bottling at the end of the process.  So I made sure that Duncan and I shared this responsibility...

Just down the road from us is a field that sells flowers that you can cut yourself, and you pay into a little piggy bank, based on the honours system.  This time of year it's full of gladiolus, and that is a special flower for us.  It was a variety that my mother grew for the decorations at our wedding back in 1997, and Maggie's late aunt Ina gave us a lovely big watercolour painting of gladiolus as a present, as she was not in good enough health to travel to Skootamatta for the wedding at that time.

Yesterday was the 24th anniversary of the day that we met, so I took the boys, a vase filled with water, and some secateurs up the street and we chose a few stems to decorate the house.

I did some baking yesterday, but did so in a minimal way so as to avoid heating the house even more than it is already.  English muffins are hard to come by in Belgium, and they make excellent hamburger buns.  I picked up a bunch of mini black angus burgers at the delaize that were on sale for a ridiculously low price, and squished them a little with a plate to make them the right size to fit the "buns".  The "mini" burgers weighed around 60g each, or two ounces, uncooked.  Interestingly, the original MacDonald's hamburger patties (the ones that are now on the kid's menu) were 45g before cooking, so that would mean that these little burgers were perfectly fine.  We ended up serving them up with some aged gouda, squares of cured bacon, a thin slice of beetroot, onions, pickles and mustard.  Very nice on a summer's evening...

Here are a few shots of Malcolm at work on his mandolin today...

here he is cutting a small rabbet at the edge of the top to accept ebony binding

part of the binding rabbet, with the back and point binding already installed

the scroll; the top has not yet been rabetted

In the time that it has taken me to write this blog, Maggie has completed her dress!