Brasserie de Rochefort

The website you linked mostly has information only on the abbey itself, with only a little bit about the attached brewery. It appears they operate a guesthouse that can lodge up to 20 people, with reservations, although from what I'm reading, the purpose of the guest house is for a spiritual retreat, not for casual beer tourism. The abbey itself is not open to visitors (as is typical of most Belgian abbeys). I see no information on the website about an attached brasserie, although most of the Trappist breweries operate one outside of the abbey premises. Abbey Maredsous (up river from Namur and also located in the middle of nowhere) is a little more open to visitors, although you can't visit the brewery (and by the way, few Belgian brewers, monastic or otherwise, open their facilities regularly to visitors). In addition to their three varieties of beer, they make some delicious cheeses and hams.

Hi Erica, We visited Rochefort last fall as part of a Beer Tour in Belgium. The Abbey is out in the countryside, not in the village of Saint Remy. From my understanding, the abbey only allows a few tours per year to visit...I am not sure about individual persons traveling on their own. When we visited, we tried several Rochefort beers served with crispy cookies in a special little tap room as the guest of Pere Jacques, the former abbott. We were allowed to wander about a bit but were not allowed inside any of the abbey buildings nor in the brewery portion. We did get to visit inside the newly renovated cathedral with one of the monks as our guide. My suggestion would be to contact Mike Saxton at BeerTrips.com (www.beertrips.com) OR to call the abbey directly to ask if you could visit. Good luck! The Rochefort beers are lovely.
Jennifer

Erica, I think Tom is right that it is usually pretty difficult to get into the abbey breweries unless you are part of a pre-approved tour. That being said, we had a full tour of the Orval abbey ruins and brewery production area and it looked like there were other visitors there at the same time. At Chimay, no access at all, we just sampled the beers and cheeses in the roadside Chimay brasserie. You can also visit Cantillon lambic brewery in Brussels - they have quite a nice tour + tastings and the building is very interesting. Good luck!
Jenn

Thanks for the beer tours link; I'm scheming already....

Southam, Happy scheming! We really, really enjoyed The Great Beers of Belgium 2012 trip. Mike is a great guide! The trip is nicely balanced with beer and non-beer related touring/activities. I am the "beer-wife" and my husband was worried that I would get bored. Not so! Touring the old breweries and monasteries was very interested and in each city we visited, the tour included a walking tour with a local guide which was a great way to see the city. And there was plenty of free time for shopping/sight-seeing on our own. And the hotels are great, very centrally located - you can walk to many sights. Hubby kept a record of all the beers we tried...over 70 new beers on the trip. Hope it works out for you to go!
Jenn