Sometime before 1698 one Andries Van Doorselaer started renting a brewery next to the church in Steenhuffel; however, he was able to open his own brewery when he purchased the De Hoorn property across the street in 1706. In 1801 De Hoorn is sold by public auction to Jan Baptist De Mesmaecker and Clara Bastaerts. In 1908, his daughter Henriette De Mesmaecker married Arthur Van Roy, a descendant of a brewing family from Wieze.
Arthur kick-started the brewery’s industrial development in order to sell his beers far beyond the borders of the municipality. He also created his own “Spéciale Belge” brew. In 1929, Arthur Van Roy gave his “Spéciale Belge” the brand name “Spéciale PALM”. The brewery continued to grow before and after the second World War.
In 2014 Palm Breweries is renamed Palm Belgian Craft Brewers. A new micro-brewery is opened in order to experiment with new combinations of herbs, spices, hops, fruit and wood, and is named in honour of De Hoorn. At 10 hl, the capacity of the micro-brewery is almost exactly the same as that of the village brewery of days gone by.
On 9 May 2016, the Dutch brewery Bavaria N.V. (Swinkels Family Brewers) bought a majority stake in the company. Bavaria initially bought 60% of the shares and will expand this to 100% in 2021.
