occupies half of the village of Steenhuffel, Belgium, northwest of Brussels. It began as the Van Roy family’s De Hoorn brewery enterprise. Brewing started there in the mid-18th century, although the expansion of the brewery from a small, local operation did not begin until the 1880s.

The product responsible for the company’s success has been Palm Speciale, an amber-color, biscuity pale ale with 5.4% alcohol by volume, created in 1904. The brewery almost came to an early end in 1914, when a German bomb destroyed most of it. However, the Van Roys refused to quit, and the brewhouse was quickly rebuilt to an even higher standard.

This refusal to bend before the forces of history became apparent once again in the late 20th century, when the international brew scene became preoccupied with mergers and acquisitions. Although many drinkers considered the 1970s a time that solidified the global triumph of standardized pilsner beers, Palm had a different vision of the brewing future, one in which the beer-drinking public would turn away from conformity. Palm decided to remain an ale producer when others were turning to lagers.

In 1981, Palm acquired a 50% share in Frank Boon’s lambic brewery, which strengthened this brewery’s distribution and helped it survive. See boon brewery. Then, in 1998, Palm took over the iconic Rodenbach brewery with its hundreds of huge oak tuns, for which Palm built a new brewhouse. See rodenbach.

Palm had many critics at the time, who predicted that no good would come of these moves. They were proven wrong, however, because the traditional brews made by these companies began to enjoy not only greater market acceptance but also a significant expansion of their market shares.

More recently Palm has started to undertake a revamp of its own beers by returning to traditional bottle conditioning and slowly introducing a greater variety of styles. This was a move, in part, to combat the newly voiced paradoxical charge that perhaps Palm had become “too mainstream for beer aficionados and too distinctive for the mass market.” Today, the Palm Breweries Group is a central fixture of the Belgian brewing landscape.