The name Cinq Cents — five hundred — refers to the 500th anniversary of the town of Chimay, and it is the name the brewery chose for the 750ml presentation of its White Tripel. The beer inside the bottle is the same pale gold, spicy, citrus-edged Trappist tripel that the 330ml White has carried since 1966. What the larger format changes is the occasion the beer is opened for: a 750ml cork-finished bottle at a table is a statement of intent, the choice of someone who has thought about what the evening calls for. If you are Belgian and living in Tokyo, the Cinq Cents is the format to reach for when the gathering justifies sharing rather than pouring individually.
The Chimay Tripel in 750ml, named for Chimay’s 500th
Bières de Chimay — the brewery of Scourmont Abbey — was founded in 1862 in Baileux, near Chimay in the Hainaut province of southern Belgium. The Cinq Cents is the 750ml champagne-style bottle presentation of the Chimay White Tripel, named in reference to the 500th anniversary of the town of Chimay. The liquid is the same recipe as the standard White: the same fermentation, the same ingredients, the same profile — with the larger format offering more volume for shared occasions and the bottle-conditioning runway that a 750ml vessel provides.
The style is a Trappist Belgian tripel, and the Chimay White is the brewery’s most hop-forward beer. The pour is pale gold, clear and bright. Pronounced spicy yeast notes define the front of the palate — the phenolic character produced by Belgian high-temperature fermentation — with citrus following and balanced malt sweetness providing body without weight. The finish is dry and warming from the 8.0% ABV, with a bitterness that is more present here than in any other Scourmont beer. Like all Chimay beers, the Cinq Cents is bottle-conditioned, and the larger format means the yeast continues to work in greater volume, which experienced collectors of Belgian beer treat as an advantage for short-term aging.
How Chimay White Cinq Cents Beer is drunk at home
Santé! / Op uw gezondheid! (sahn-TAY / op-uw geh-ZONT-hayt) — French and Flemish respectively, both meaning “to your health.” A 750ml bottle opened at a table draws the full round of toasts in a way a single 330ml bottle rarely does, and the Cinq Cents format was designed precisely for that kind of moment.
In Belgium, the Cinq Cents belongs to the earlier and lighter courses of the Sunday family lunch — the beer poured before the table moves toward the heavier dishes and the darker bottles. Moules-frites is the pairing it handles best: the brine of steamed mussels and the neutral crunch of Belgian fries find a natural counterpart in the citrus note and dry finish of the tripel, and the beer’s spicy yeast character gives the pairing more interest than a standard lager would. Belgian fries with mayonnaise are a constant at any Belgian table of scale, and the Cinq Cents, with its dry finish, moves through them without difficulty. Stoofvlees, the slow-braised beef stew, calls for something with more malt weight than the White provides — but a Belgian Sunday lunch is rarely limited to one bottle, and the Cinq Cents tends to have completed its work by the time the Stoofvlees arrives.
The tradition of Trappist pilgrimage — visiting Scourmont as an occasion in itself — gives a cork-finished bottle like the Cinq Cents an association with the abbey that a standard bottle does not quite carry in the same way.
How to drink it in Japan
The Chimay White Cinq Cents suits the warmer half of the Japanese year — April through September — when the dry, citrus-forward character of the tripel fits the season more naturally than Chimay’s darker beers. The 750ml format also makes it particularly well-suited to the small gatherings that mark the Belgian calendar in Japan: Belgian National Day on July 21, a midsummer dinner shared between four people in Tokyo, or any evening that calls for a bottle rather than individual cans.
At FamilyMart, pick up a camembert-style cheese portion from the deli section — the mild, slightly tangy dairy rounds against the spicy yeast and citrus of the Cinq Cents in the same way that a cheese plate follows a tripel at a Belgian table. For a more composed pairing at home, serve it with grilled scallops finished with a squeeze of yuzu — the clean sweetness of the scallop and the citrus of the yuzu find an immediate counterpart in the beer’s own citrus note, and the dry finish resets the palate cleanly between bites. A 750ml bottle serves four people a proper pour each, which is the right number for this kind of pairing.
A 750ml Trappist tripel at a Tokyo specialty import shop can cost ¥2,500 or more per bottle. By the case from Omori Mart — 750ml × 12 bottles — the per-bottle cost is considerably lower, and twelve bottles is a reasonable supply for a household that opens one at every gathering through the summer.
Get Chimay White Cinq Cents Beer delivered in Japan
Chimay White Cinq Cents Beer is available from Omori Mart in a 750ml × 12 bottle case, delivered nationwide across Japan.
- Free shipping on orders over ¥15,000
- Pay at FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, or Lawson — or by bank transfer or card
- Nationwide delivery to any address in Japan
Rakuten and Amazon Japan do not carry this label. Omori Mart is where Belgians in Japan find the Chimay formats that belong at a table planned in advance.
[Shop Chimay White Cinq Cents Beer →]
https://omorimart.com/product/chimay-white-cinq-cents-beer-750ml-x-12-bottles/
Santé at Scourmont Abbey, where five hundred years of Chimay history is written into the bottle’s name, and kanpai at a Tokyo table in July — the cork comes out, the pale gold fills the glasses, and the evening begins properly.
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