Oelenberg
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For more than nine centuries, the Oelenberg abbey has maintained the great monastic tradition in Alsace.
In 1046, Heilwige de Dabo, Countess of Eguisheim, mother of Pope Leo IX, founded a priory of canons regular of Saint Augustine. This was on the hill (Berg), along a stream (Oelen).
After many vicissitudes, in 1825 the monastery returned to the hands of a large group of Cistercian “Trappist” monks, returning from exile. They came from Darfeld, Westphalia, where they had found a temporary refuge after many wanderings.
Very prosperous in the 13th century, the monastery was ruined by wars in the 14th century. Its decline was accentuated until the 16th century. In 1626, the abbey passed to the Jesuit college of Friborg en Brisgau, then in 1774 to the university of this same city. During the Revolution, the abbey buildings were sold to a Mulhouse industrialist. Sold in 1821 to a priest, the former monastery then became a boarding school for young girls.
The monks put the agricultural domain into operation. They experienced difficult times: a famine in 1846, fires, epidemics. Yet the prosperity of the monastery continued. Intense activity reigned there. Œlenberg founded a monastery in Germany, in the diocese of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1862: Mariawald, near Heimbach. At the start of the 20th century, the abbey had 200 monks: 80 priests and 120 lay brothers. Oelenberg was then a very famous religious, intellectual and economic center.
The First World War would destroy all this development: the buildings were bombed and the monks had to disperse. Reconstruction was difficult. A group of monks of German origin went to live in Austria in 1925, at Notre-Dame d'Engelszell, between Passau and Linz, on the banks of the Danube. And they brought this ancient secularized Cistercian abbey back to life. Oelenberg experienced a second destruction in 1944-45, as bad as the previous one. The diocese of Strasbourg and its faithful generously contributed to the reconstruction, while monks from Zundert (the Netherlands) came to support the very tried community which regained life and hope. The abbey was slowly reconstituted and to this day occupies a small community of Trappist monks, with a population of less than ten religious.
The brewery is in the center of the courtyard, on the right.
Brewery.
The Trappist monks who occupied the abbey from 1825 onwards built a brewery in 1852, digging cellars into the hillside under the leadership of Dom Ephrem Van Der Meulen.
However, evidence seems to show that the monks were already serving beer to their guests in 1839. This first brewery, which no longer exists, was completed in 1854 on the eastern slope of the hill. The excavation work continued until 1857. The plan was to connect this underground network to the guesthouse and the refectory so that fresh beer could be served there. Of the 230 meters planned, only 150 were ultimately dug.
It was decided to brew a table beer for the community's needs, and also to address the poor quality of the wine, which the monks rightly complained about. The cellars were used to store beer until the brewery closed in 1916. They were equipped with a freight elevator and, until World War I, housed 32 large barrels of 8 to 12 hectoliters and 1,200 barrels of 15 to 57 liters.
In 1854, the brewery was listed under the name Stadler, then Gstalder (Xavier) around 1862 (but this may have been the same brewer as Stadler), then under the names Dietrich-Meinrad around 1866 and Dietrich in 1875 (the surname of the brewer or the abbot's father).
At that time, the vast cellars were dug into the clay beneath the monastery; after a while, the monks took advantage of the low production to brew beer in the laundry room, and so it was that sheets regularly took the place of wort in the copper kettles. The brewery was set up in the laundry room, probably during the 1880s. However, the coexistence of the two activities in the same room proved problematic, and in 1891 it was decided to build a new brewery in the heart of the abbey. Work began on constructing this new brewery and a malt house in the convent courtyard, based on plans by Father Ignace, with plans to sell beer in barrels to private individuals.
The production workshop was equipped with two copper boilers with stirrers and domes, two water tanks, a square vat with a stirrer, two beer pumps, and three coolers. The entire installation, as well as the malting kiln, was supplied by the Société Strasbourgeoise de Constructions Mécaniques.
Barley and hops came from the abbey's land, and the brewery itself grew almost all of the hops it needed (around 7 quintals in 1903). Production, which did not exceed 2,800 hectoliters, was consumed mainly by the monks and their guests, as well as by the sisters of the neighboring community of Altbronn. The surplus, approximately 1,500 hectoliters, was sold. The abbey delivered beer in small barrels mainly to visitors from the surrounding countryside. During the summer, a stagecoach connects Lutterbach to the convent, and the people of Mulhouse come in large numbers to taste the abbey's bread, cheese, and beer.
In 1903, the decision is made to build a power plant. It is located in an extension of the brewery, which is enlarged by three bays of openings on the north side. The gas engine was supplied by the Hoerting bros. company in Hortingsdorf. This engine was difficult to use, and Father Ambroise, who was then in charge of the brewery, paid the price in October 1904: caught in the drive belt, he was thrown against the wall and killed instantly.
The Klosterbrauerei Oelenberg probably ceased operations during the war in 1916.
As reported in the newspaper “Gebweiler neueste Nachrichten” (“Latest news from Guebwiller”) on April 15, 1933: "One of the most popular monks at the abbey for decades was Brother Anselm, who died in the early 1930s at the age of 88. He was known and loved far and wide: before the war, Brother Anselm brewed the very good and very pale beer of the Oelenberg monastery, and after the war, he was replaced by Brother Müller."
There are accounts from visitors to the abbey around 1904 attesting that “the brewery has been newly organized and, with the brewer mastering his art, the beer there is truly splendid”: this testimony, coming from Germans, is all the more valuable. (Sources: Mérimée database, see also: Documentary History of Industry in Mulhouse (1902; page 798)).