Unibroue Brewery

 

 Unibroue is a brewery located in Chambly, Quebec, Canada that was started by Quebec native André Dion and Serge Racine. It was purchased by Sleeman Breweries Ltd. in 2004, which itself was taken over by Sapporo in 2006. The company was incorporated in 1993, exporting to the United States (under the name "Unibrew") in 1994.Unibroue was founded by André Dion and Serge Racine. They had acquired 75 % of La Brasserie Massawippi Inc. in Lennoxville, in 1990, purchasing the remainder of the shares at the end of 1991 when they transferred their interest in La Brasserie Massawippi Inc. to Unibroue. By 1992, La Brasserie Massawippi Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Unibroue. It then changed its corporate name to Brasserie Broubec Inc. and subsequently merged with Unibroue in July of 1993. It was bought by Sleeman Breweries Ltd. in 2004. Sleeman was then purchased by Sapporo in 2006.

At Unibroue,they create unique-tasting craft beers using traditional brewing methods. Our beers are unlike any other product on the market, and no two are alike. Each one has a distinctive character defined by taste, color, texture, and density.

Know-how

To craft their beers, they draw inspiration from the great brewing traditions developed over the last two centuries by Trappist monks in Europe—particularly in Belgium. Their beers preserve all their protein and part of their yeast, making them truly worth savoring.

Methods

All Unibroue products are made using a combination of the same basic ingredients: water, malted barley, malted wheat, wheat, yeast, hops, sugar, fruit, and spices. With the exception of La Bolduc and our U beers, our products are brewed using a traditional bottle fermentation method in which fresh yeast and pure sugar are added just before bottling. They are only partially filtered, which is what gives them their distinct appearance and natural cloudiness. This brewing method results in strong, intensely flavored and highly effervescent beers. It is almost exactly the same process used to make champagne. The only difference is that while the lees is extracted from champagne using a local cooling process, it is left to settle at the bottom of our bottles once the natural fermentation and saturation (carbonation) process is complete. This process requires strict quality controls because the addition of chemical additives or preservatives would kill the yeast. It is this method that produces the distinctive Unibroue flavor

Unibroue makes a wide range of beers, although there is a focus on Belgian-style brews, such as their Maudite ("Damned"), La Fin du Monde ("The End of the World"), and Don de Dieu ("Gift of God"). Most of Unibroue's beers are bottled "on the lees", or containing yeast sediment. This practice provides additional fermentation after bottling, resulting in a beer which ages well if kept in the dark and unrefrigerated, and allowing it to be relatively cheaply shipped to international markets. The yeast gives Unibroue beers a cloudy appearance and provides a characteristic element to the taste.Unibroue brews and bottles the Trader Joe's Vintage Ale.