Trouble brews between Trappist monks and Belgian mineral empire

David and Goliath legal battle ensues as silent religious order seeks to protect the taste of its beer

For a decade the monks of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy, in Rochefort, south Belgium - one of only 14 abbeys in the world producing Trappist beer - have been fighting with a quarry owner over the purity of the local spring water.

The monks have doggedly claimed that plans by Lhoist, an international company run by one of Belgium's richest families, to deepen its chalk quarry and redirect the Tridaine spring risked altering the unique taste of their celebrated drink.