When Jan Baptist De Bruyne expanded his agricultural activities to include beer brewing in 1784, the Van Steenberge brewery was born. The first beer Jan Baptist developed was an old brown stored in oak casks and distributed to local, private pubs. The brewery was named ‘De Peer’ because of the beers’ typical fruity aroma. Later, the next logical step was the evolution to pilsner under the influence of the ‘lager beers’ during the two world wars. However, the Van Steenberge brewery’s true excellence lies in its craft beers over the past few decades.

To honour our rich history, we went back to our brewery’s origins and developed Monk’s Café, a fresh and mildly acidic old brown.

Under Paul Van Steenberge the brewery was called Bios, the Greek word for ‘life’ and a direct reference to the brewery’s own yeasts, which it carefully protects. As a microbiologist, son Jozef Van Steenberge was fascinated by the development of yeasts and created ‘Bios Vlaams Bourgogne’.