The Bowsing Ken

1069: PALM Speciale Belge Ale

  Several years ago, when I first started travelling to Belgium - for work - we stayed at a little hotel in a town just across the border in the Netherlands. At times there would be upwards of a dozen, or more, of us there, working various schedules both day and night. It would not be unusual to show up at the hotel at two or three in the morning, only to find several colleagues sitting around a lobby table, drinking beer and talking. Although the bar was long closed, the hotel night manager was a great guy, and he would not hesitate to bring us out tray after tray of cold beer.
   I remember when I first started working this gig, the beer that was usually served during these wee hour gab sessions was PALM (note the all caps). Over the next couple of years I drank a lot of PALM - and loved it. I am glad to say that in a few places in North America one can buy PALM beer. Mostly I have found it in the northeastern U.S., but I imagine there are other outlets as well.
  The PALM beer we drank, and which is noted here, is Palm Spéciale Belge Ale, a top fermented amber colored ale, made at the Brouwerij PALM, located in Steenhuffel, Belgium (about halfway between Brussels and Antwerp).

  Here's a snippet of company history explaining where the name "PALM" came from:
  [In 1929] Arthur Van Roy [who in 1908 marries into the family that owns the De Hoorn brewery, itself harkening back to 1686] renames what is until then known as Steenhuffel Brew. Spéciale PALM, refers to a type of beer known as "Speciale Belge" and to the palm leaf crown, symbolizing the victory of top fermented beer over the growingly popular lager beers.

  According to the PALM folks, today the beer is made with specially selected amber colored malts, equally special yeast selected from the many strains held at the brewery - for a fruity aroma - and hops from Kent. They describe PALM Spéciale Belge Ale as an affordable specialist beer, with a reasonable alcohol content (5.2% ABV), that is made for socializing.
  Believe me, I have done my share of socializing with a PALM beer in hand. Well worth a try if you can find it.

A Bit of History:
  Most of the old travel guides of the late 1800s do not give much mention to the village of Steenhuffel, Belgium, located in about the middle of a triangle formed by Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp. Indeed, most of these old books mention only one reason to stop over in Steenhuffel, namely to check out the "remarkable old" 16th stained glass windows in the Church of Ste Geneviére and the Church of St Nicholas. Nary a mention is given to the De Hoorn Brewery, perhaps a more appropriate destination for the dedicated beer tourist.  Ok, maybe after a day of traipsing around the churchyards, the 19th Century traveler would have worked up a mighty thirst and stopped by the local brewery for a cool one. Sounds like a plan to me.
  The early history of the De Hoorn Brewery, especially before the turn of the 19th Century, is a bit vague. As a matter of fact, the very name De Hoorn is shrouded in the mists of time. Apparently, in the distant past - we are talking pre-1380, here - there was a piece of property in the environs of Steenhuffel that at some indeterminate point was dubbed De Hoorn. Who called it that, when and for what reason, is not completely certain. By 1380, the property, described as a farmyard, or alternately as simply a house and courtyard located adjacent to a churchyard, was owned by one Peter Vander Smessen. This location would make sense, as today the De Hoorn/PALM Brewery is located across the street from the abovementioned Church of Ste Geneviére.
  In the early 1500s, documents indicate that there was an inn on the land, run by a guy named Joos De Lichte. It was apparently called the De Hoorn Inn or the De Hoorn House. Although this is just a supposition, perhaps this inn made its own beer, as was common in those days. Could this be the first example of brewing in Steenhuffel, the very origins of the PALM beer we enjoy today? In any case, the inn was destroyed in the late 1500s and was not rebuilt. After this the property changed hands several time.

  It was in 1706, when the property was owned by Andries Van Doorselaer and his wife Joanna, that a proper brewery was established. Since around 1686, Andries, then a single man, had been renting a small brewery "next to a church" (Ste Geneviére, perhaps?) in Steenhuffel. Some mark this year as the establishment of the De Hoorn Brewery, although it was probably not called that back then. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, in 1691 Andries and Joanna were married, and in 1706, were prosperous enough to buy the De Hoorn property and build their own brewery. It was noted that in 1724, their brewery was producing the most beer - mostly brown beer - in the town, which raises the question of exactly how many breweries were in Steenhuffel at the time. The world may never know. Andries and Joanna ran a multifaceted operation, as not only was there a brewery but also a large farm and dairy operation, a malting facility, a building for drying hops, and even a still. I wonder what liquor was distilled - one record states it was brandy? Plus, the inn - more of a coaching inn - was reestablished.
  Records are again rather sparse, but it appears that by 1801, the original Andries and Joanna operation - now owned by their decedent Peter Van Doorselaer, but leased to a Jan Baptist Mees - had shut down, and the property sold off at a public auction. The new owners of De Hoorn were Jan Baptist de Mesmaecker and his wife Clara, although it is not certain how much of the original operation, including the brewery, was retained in use.
  Fast forward a hundred or so years - in 1908, great grand-daughter Henriette de Mesmaecker married Arthur Van Roy, who brought into the marriage a long family legacy of making beer. It was Van Roy who fired the De Hoorn brewery back up, but as things happen, the brewery was destroyed during the First World War. Hanging in there, Van Roy rebuilt the brewery after the war, concentrating, partly for economic reasons since refrigeration equipment was too expensive, on the traditional top-fermenting beers of old. As previously mentioned, in 1929, Van Roy gave his Steenhuffel Beer the new title Spéciale PALM, indicating his beer's superiority over the increasingly popular bottom-fermenting pilsners.
 After World War Two - the brewery survived, but due to scarce resources only brewed a weak pale beer - Arthur's son Alfred began to take the reigns. Alfred fully assumed leadership, upon Arthur's death in 1952, and oversaw a multi-fold expansion of the business. Alfred had been in the game since 1928, when at the age of 15 he started his schooling in the art of brewing beer. At the helm now, Alfred introduced more varieties of beer, expanded the market served, and increased the exposure of the breweries products. Later, under the direction of Jan Toye - Alfred's nephew - the De Hoorn brewery, which in 1975, was renamed PALM Breweries, grew to include an international presence. Starting in the 1980, PALM Breweries began to acquire other breweries - Rodenbach, De Gouden, Aerts, etc... - which in 2014, were all organized under the title PALM Belgian Craft Brewers. At the same time, in a nod back to the days of old, a small micro-brewery called the De Hoorn Brewery was opened, specializing in developmental, small batch beers.

In 2016, PALM Belgian Craft Brewers was folded into the Dutch Swinkles Family Breweries N.V.