In 1152, the Abbey of Leffe, a charming abbey situated near Dinant in the Belgian Ardennes, was founded. Since the foundation, the monastery has been lived by the fathers Norbertins. In 1240, we find the first reference to the brewery in archives. The Father Abbot then founded a brewery next to the abbey, on the other side of the Meuse.
In the Middle Ages, the utility of a brewery in a monastery is above all from sanitary order. In the material impossibility to verify if the spring water was clean or not for the consumption, the community finds in the manufacturing of beer a practical means to resolve a so crucial doubt thanks to the cleaning up process of the fermentation.
At the beginning, the Abbey of Leffe brewed a beer reserved for the monks and for their leading hosts.

During the French Revolution, the brewery was destroyed. We only began after the second world war, to brew again the beer, to make the tradition relive. Because of the high investments, we decided to give right of license to brew the beer Leffe, by respecting the old processes, to the brewer Lootvoet. So in 1952, Leffe Brune was again brewed and met at once a deep success. While beers of Leffe already counted their 4 varieties with each their very precise character, important investments were necessary for the brewery Lootvoet to be able to answer the increasing demand of the consumers. So in 1977, Albert Lootvoet received the financial support of another brewery, brewery Artois. In 1987, while the Brewery Artois and Piedboeuf merged, the brewery Interbrew was created. Brewery, which today still assures, in narrow relation with the fathers of the abbey, the production of beers of the Abbey of Leffe in the respect for the established traditions.