West-Vleteren goes public?

Before going any deeper into the various beers we have in our pub, I have to put a comment on a recent news-fact about West-Vleteren Trappist beers. One of the most asked questions I get as a waiter in our pub is "Do you have West-Vleteren?" ... The answer always has been "NO" ... as it is not allowed to sell West-Vleteren on a commercial basis.

But now apparantly the monks over in West-Vleteren seem to revise their selling-strategy and are seriously thinking about selling more of their delicious beer. (see Article in De Standaard, Nieuwsblad and a comment in De Standaard)

But the way they're planning to do it is again a surprise to many people. As it looks now (but then again, it just only "talk"), they're only going to sell through one chain of supermarket-stores. Colruyt seems to be the lucky one.

And you might have guessed it ... this drops in as a bomb in beer-land. And personally I do have my doubts about it too.

What will happen if they effectively going to sell it through that one store-chain?

The idea is (probably) to let normal consumers buy West-Vleteren trappist in a shop closer to their homes. But what will probably happen is that once the beer will appear on the shelves, about any pub-owner will be there as first, buying as much as they can, leaving no beer for the normal consumers. As I'm working in a beer-pub, professionaly I hope this will happen, however being also a "normal" beer-consumer, I hope this won't happen, as you'll be obliged to go to a pub to drink a West-Vleteren trappist.

It is quite an odd selling-mechanism they are setting up. Which will definetely lead to some strange situations in the first few weeks/months. Actually I don't understand the reason behind it. Well actually I do ... those monks just need a bit more money to rebuild their monestary and they're looking for a quick and temporary way to sell some of their beer. Once they have enough, they might just go back to the way they used to sell it.

And that is probably the main reason why they're not setting up a more traditional line of selling through the usual beer-movers who eventually sell their beer to pubs and grocery-stores as most of the other beer-brands.

What do you think? If they're going to sell it, should they do it the "normal" way, or is the way they're planning it right now a better one?

Greetingz,
Koen.