This brewery serves blessings
Britain’s only Trappist beer gets special attention from monks and their neighbors
COALVILLE, England — The conveyor belt was ready, the empty bottles were stacked and the machinery was about to splutter into life. But one more step was needed before any beer bottling could get underway.
That last step required a monk. Within a minute or two, Father Joseph Delargy appeared, dressed in the white robes of the Cistercian order, to bless the proceedings in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And bottles of Britain’s only Trappist beer were soon rattling swiftly along the small production line.
Only beers brewed in monasteries with the active involvement of Roman Catholic Cistercian monks are classified as Trappist products, and there is just one in Britain — Tynt Meadow, a dark English ale made with brewing equipment from Germany that is celebrating its fifth anniversary.
At Mount Saint Bernard Abbey — set outside the town of Coalville in the lush countryside of east central England — the blessing is a part of the bottling routine that even nonbelievers say is perilous to skip.
“If it’s a day when it hasn’t been blessed, you can guarantee it will all go wrong,” said Ross Adams, a professional brewer who is not religious.
There are just a dozen Trappist breweries worldwide, most in Belgium and the Netherlands. The only U.S. producer, St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, said last year it would cease operations.
To be recognized by the International Trappist Association, products must be made within the surroundings of an abbey under the supervision of monks or nuns, and profits should be devoted to the monastic community, the Trappist order or development projects and charitable works.
Named after the nearby field where the abbey’s founders settled in a cottage in 1835, Tynt Meadow is a malty beer, a little like a cross between a stout and an English bitter, with a faint flavor of chocolate.
That taste has proved popular, with brewing enough of a success that local volunteers help with bottling to relieve the burden on the abbey’s 17 monks.
But the differences from a secular operation are soon clear. Step inside, and gazing down from the wall is a statue of St. Arnulf of Metz, the patron saint of brewers.
And forget about a 9-to-5 work day, for the monks at least. Each morning, Delargy and his fellow monks rise at 3:15 for vigils, held at 3:30, the first of seven sets of prayers that end at 7:30 in the evening. Lunch is eaten in silence, except for a reading.
The brewery is separated from the abbey where silence is observed and from its church, designed by Augustus Welby Pugin.
A dairy farm used to support the abbey, which was founded in the 19th century when religious tolerance permitted Cistercians to return to England after an absence of three centuries. There were 86 Cistercian houses until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.
But what sustained the community in the 20th century proved unviable in the 21st as milk prices dropped. Cistercian monasteries had a long tradition of brewing, particularly in Belgium, so beer making seemed an obvious alternative.
“Certainly we had a big discussion on the moral aspects of brewing beer,” Delargy said. But they concluded they could, in good conscience, brew a quality product whose full-bodied style may discourage most drinkers from overindulgence. Still, the beer’s alcohol content of 7.4% is higher than most mass-produced brands.