Verhaeghe

Brewery Verhaeghe Vichte is a small family-owned Brewery in the southwest of the province of West Flanders, Belgium. The history of the brewery dates back to 1885.

Brewery Verhaeghe Vichte was founded as a brewery-malterie by Paul Verhaeghe. Most of the Belgian breweries of this time organised their sales in the immediate vicinity of the brewery. In this sense we can say that the Verhaeghe brewery already showed a great commercial activity in the previous period to the great war. Through a railway line linking Vichte with Brussels, the Verhaeghe brewery was able to sell a significant part of its production on the Brussels market.

At the outbreak of the first world war, Paul Verhaeghe responded to the call of the Belgian Government to resist the German occupation economically by stopping the production. The refusal of brewing during the war was responded in turn by the Germans by the dismantling of the brewery.

After four years of inactivity, the brewery had lost all its customers in Brussels and was put in front of the investment of a whole new production equipment. In the post war period the brewery remained bind regionally and adapted to new trends in the market. The first brews of beer of low fermentation by the brewery date from this period. The brewery was focused also on the improvement of the quality of its existing beers.