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Brewing Monks: A List of the World’s Monastic Beers
Monks created brewing as we know it, with the first large scale breweries in Europe and many advances to brewing techniques and technology. There were thousands of brewing monasteries, but then...
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Drinking . . . and Not Drinking in Dublin
We began our Beauty of Faith Pilgrimage to Ireland in Dublin, visiting its churches and its saints/saints in the making: St. Valentine-the Roman saint whose relics are at the Whitefriar Street church;...
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Beer, Saints, and Song: Drinking and Temperance in Ireland
This is the last of my posts reflecting on the Beauty of Faith Pilgrimage to Ireland. As author of The Beer Option, which presents the Catholic way to drink as rooted in feasting, fasting, and...
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Beer Review: Ommegang’s Hennepin Farmhouse Saison
Beer has a long connection to saints and holy figures. In The Beer Option, I discuss the beer miracles of St. Brigid of Kildare, St. Columban, and St. Arnold, St. Hildegard’s description of beer’s...
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Lenten Fasting: Creating Noon with a Supplemental Beer
Brescia, “Christ in the Wilderness,” 1515-20, detail. Medieval Lent was, to say the least, a lot harder. The season’s origins come from the early catechumenate, which led converts through a multi-day...
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The End of the Beer Option? Thoughts on the Closure of Spencer Trappist Brewery
Many of us were excited for the first American Trappist brewery back in 2014 at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. I was inspired to write The Beer Option: Brewing a Catholic Culture...
View ArticleA Trappist Bishop on Trappist Beer
In my last post, I looked at some things that went wrong for Spencer Trappist Brewery in Massachusets. Remarkably, a Catholic bishop in Norway (of the territorial prelature of Trondheim to be...
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The Beer Option Continues: Grimbergen’s Norbertines Revive Medieval Brewing
Recently I reflected on the “End of the Beer Option” after the Trappists of Spencer Massachusets decided to close their brewery. Since then, the Guardian has also reflected on the decline of Trappist...
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A New Option: Monastic NA Beer
As the author of The Beer Option, I have a confession to make. I felt the Lord calling me about two years ago to give up alcohol, making it a sacrifice for both my physical and spiritual health. I am...
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The Nuns of the Beer Option
Monks star in The Beer Option, but nuns are not absent. In fact, one of the main patronesses of beer, the great Doctor of the Church, St. Hildegard of Bingen, was a Benedictine abbess who touted the...
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