The Augustinian monks have been brewing Augustijn since 1295 at their monastery in Ghent. In the Middle Ages, many priests and monks brewed and marketed their own beer. As the water was often contaminated, it was safer to drink beer because the water was boiled during the brewing process.

When the Augustinians started looking for a new brewing partner in 1978, Jozef Van Steenberge had already been experimenting a lot with top fermenting beers. Jozef won the competition organised by the Augustinians. This meant that the brewery gained access to the recipe of this historic monastery beer and the expertise of recipe administrator Janus Jeremanus. Janus was a consultant for the Van Steenberge Brewery for more than 25 years and introduced the original Augustinian yeast strains that we still use today.

Visionary Jozef Van Steenberge guaranteed the continued existence of the brewery in 1982 with the relaunch of Augustijn with secondary fermentation in the bottle. Jozef Van Steenberge was able to distinguish himself from the other pilsner brewers of that time thanks to the innovative character of the Augustijn beer.

The historic yeast strains give the beer its mild, smooth, but very rich flavour. The Van Steenberge brewery uses these strains as the basis of Augustijn and many of its other beers.