was a brother of the Trappist abbey Saint Sixtus of Westvleteren in West Flanders, Belgium. He ascended to the position of Abbot on November 27, 1941, at the age of 36. Four years into his abbacy he changed the focus of the abbey’s brewery by limiting its production to serve only the on-premise needs of the monks, sales to the public at the abbey’s gates, and a small number of taverns with abbey affiliations. In 1946 the commercial production of the abbey’s beers was licensed to a new brewery commissioned for this purpose at the site of a nearby cheese producer in Watou. The Saint Bernardus Brewery, as it known today, has its own monastic history. The site was founded by a group of cheese-making monks from Mont-des-Cats abbey in French Flanders who had fled the French revolution. Just over a hundred years earlier these same monks helped populate the first monastic community at Westvleteren.

Dom Gerardus resigned as Abbot three weeks before his 63rd birthday in 1968 and died in 1997. While full production of beer returned to Saint Sixtus abbey in 1992, the effect of Gerardus’ decisions of 1945 can still be observed. Availability of Westvleteren beers is still limited to the needs of the monks, strictly controlled sales to the public at the abbey’s gates, and to Café In De Vrede, a tavern with abbey affiliations.

See also westvleteren brewery.