The Guardian

Monks launch legal fight to protect water purity of Trappist beer

Belgian brothers fear Lhoist lime quarrying will threaten production of brew
Monks claim water pumped up from deeper aquifers will not be drinkable. Photograph: Horizons WWP/TRVL/Alamy

As keepers of one of only 14 abbeys in the world producing Trappist beer, the monks of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy, in Rochefort, are dogged defenders of the purity of the spring water from which it is made.

A long-running attempt by one of Belgium’s richest families, the Lhoist-Berghmans, to

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