Brewer Gumer Santos and export manager Alfons Vandermolen were on hand for the event, accompanied by Merchant du Vin president Rich Hamilton and national sales manager Joe Lipa. Santos said that an increase in production from 15,000 to 18,000 hectoliters annually convinced the Trappist monks who own and run the brewery that it was time to institute a more orderly process in U.S. distribution. Up until this point, various small importers would take on the beer when they could obtain it so its availability was a hit-or-miss proposition.

"Actually, the export manager for Orval put us together," explained Hamilton. "He heard that Rochefort was looking around and told us we should contact them."

"We bottle beer once a week and, in terms of production, could probably produce five times the beer we now do," said Santos, "so things move at a nice, comfortable pace. While I over here. Father Pierre, from whom learned to brew--he was the head brewer for 20 years--is brewing in my place. Our work force includes five monks as well as nine others."

Rochefort beers will first be available in California, Washington and Michigan, Hamilton said, and distribution will be expanded "depending upon state liquor laws and registration requirements." He could not say whether Pennsylvanians would eventually Rochefort on distributors' shelves but noted that one of Merchant du Vin's three warehouses is located in New Jersey, "so it certainly is a market we'd like to be in."

A second introductory event was held today in Atlanta, which, Lipa said, "has become a really good beer town since the laws were changed down there" (to allow stronger beers into Georgia).