Tripel

Westmalle describes its brewing process step by step. After boiling, the wort goes into the fermentation tanks with yeast and then matures in lagering tanks. Just before bottling, the beer gets extra sugar and active yeast, so that it referments in the bottle. That is one main fermentation and one refermentation. On the product pages of the Tripel (9.5%), the Dubbel (7%) and the light Extra (4.8%) it says the same every time: top fermentation with refermentation in the bottle. The number of fermentations therefore does not distinguish a tripel from a dubbel.

So where does the name come from? Nobody knows for sure. The beer writer Michael Jackson wrote in 1998 that the term probably goes back to casks marked with one, two or three crosses to indicate strength. Other explanations: more malt and other raw materials than in ordinary beers, as Good Beer Hunting writes, or strengths on the old Belgian gravity scale, a view that Jackson attributed to 'some Belgians'. None of these has been proven with documents. Westmalle does explain where the name of its Dubbel comes from, but gives no explanation for the Tripel. Westmalle's own figures do not form a 1:2:3 series either: the original gravity is 12 °Plato for the Extra, 16 for the Dubbel and 20 for the Tripel.

What the theories have in common: tripel stood for a heavier beer than dubbel. More than that cannot be demonstrated.

That Westmalle made the tripel popular is stated in all the sources we consulted, from the BJCP style guide to Michael Jackson (1998) and Good Beer Hunting (2017). On the beginning they differ.

Westmalle itself says that the Tripel was first brewed in 1934, in honour of a new brewhouse. According to Good Beer Hunting the beer appeared that year as a strong blond 'Superbier' and was first called Westmalle Tripel only in 1954, after Brother Thomas had adjusted the recipe slightly with more hops. The BJCP gives 1931 as the first brewing year. A production manager of Westmalle told Jeff Alworth that the formulation was developed in 1936 and that Brother Thomas Sas turned it in 1954 into the tripel as it is now. The year 1956 is mentioned by none of these sources.

Who devised the style is not settled either. The brewer Hendrik Verlinden of the De Drie Linden brewery in Brasschaat, known for Witkap Pater, is often mentioned. Jackson believed that the first golden-blond tripel came from De Drie Linden. According to Alworth, Witkap Pater was developed by the same brewer who also drew up Westmalle's tripel, and it came out a year or two earlier. Westmalle acknowledges that connection, but according to Good Beer Hunting says it cannot be traced what exactly Verlinden contributed. Who really devised the style is therefore still debated.

To carry the label Authentic Trappist Product (ATP), a beer must meet three requirements of the International Trappist Association (ITA). It is made in the immediate surroundings of the abbey. The production takes place under the supervision of monks or nuns. And the proceeds go to the needs of the monastic community, solidarity within the Trappist order, development projects and charities. It does not say that the monks must brew themselves.

You do not get the label just like that, either. A dossier is involved, a visit to the abbey and production site with a quality audit, and a vote on the board of the ITA. The licence is valid for five years.

In practice it differs per abbey. According to Good Beer Hunting, three monks worked full time in the Westmalle brewery until 1990. In 1998 lay people did all the manual work, though under the direct supervision of the monks.

That supervision is real and mandatory. Without monks the label disappears. Achel lost it after the last monks left in 2020, and Zundert after the closure of the abbey in 2025.

The International Trappist Association (ITA) writes that the name Trappist is first of all a designation of origin. Three conditions apply for the logo 'Authentic Trappist Product'. The product is made in the immediate surroundings of the abbey. The production takes place under the supervision of the monks or nuns. And the profit is intended for the monastic community itself, for solidarity within the Trappist order, or for development projects and charities.

Every Trappist beer has, according to the ITA, its own recipe and its own yeast. The BJCP also writes of the Belgian monastic beers that many of those names are protected designations, which say something about the origin of the beer and not about a style. Monasteries can brew any style they want.

Words such as dubbel, tripel and quadrupel are style names. 'Trappist' is a label of origin: it tells where and under whose supervision a beer is made, not how it tastes.