All the New Monastery Breweries

Post updated. Another opened in September near Leuven—the Norbertine Park Abbey.

Just before I completed the manuscript for The Beer Bible, the Trappist monks at Stift Engelszell started brewing in Austria. Until then, there had been a pretty stable stable of Trappist breweries, all located in or extremely near Belgium. Well, things have changed. Since Stift opened, six more Trappists have come online and been approved—none in Belgium. But while Trappists were the most well-known, they’re certainly not the only brewing monks. Over the past decade, Cistercian and Benedictine monks have also started new projects. By my count, a baker’s dozen opened in the 2010s.

Here’s my running list, which will certainly continue to expand—monks are finding that beer sells better than jams and jellies. More interestingly, many of these new upstarts see beer as a bridge to communities that are increasingly disconnected from religion and monasteries. In more than a few cases, the embrace of brewing represents an effort to keep the doors open.

Mont des Cats, Trappist order. (France, 2011). It is appropriate that the monastery that gave birth to two current monastic breweries (Westvleteren and La Trappe) would eventually find its way back to beer. Mont des Cats began selling a single product, a 7.6% pale ale in 2011, but it is actually brewed at Chimay.

Abbey Brewing, Benedictine. (Christ in the Desert Monastery, New Mexico, 2012). Monks at Christ in the Desert have actually been selling beer since 2005, but built a new brewery on monastic grounds in 2012. Abbey Brewing currently boasts the broadest range of beers, which are largely focused on Belgian styles. The monastery is also the site of fields where native neomexicanus hops are grown—and which are used in some of the beers.

Stift Engelszell, Trappist. (Austria, 2012). Founded by Cistercians in 1293, the monastery was dissolved in 1786 and stayed in secular hands until the Trappists took it over in 1925. Monks make a strong saison, Benno (which the brewery calls a tripel), a strong dark ale named Gregorius, a pale called Nivard, and a wheat ale. Benno is the most interesting, with spicy farmhouse notes and a dollop of honey that adds to a cakey, sweet palate.

Birra Nursia, Benedictine. (Monastero di San Bendetto, Italy, 2012). Monks have occupied the grounds near Norcia, Italy for over 1200 years, but a recent tragedy struck the monastery. In 2016, four years after installing a small brewery in a disused basement room, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake destroyed most of the buildings, including a 14th century basilica. The brewery itself was not damaged, but the monks now depend even more heavily on the sale of their two Belgian-style ales for support.

Zundert, Trappist. (Maria Toevlucht Abbey, Netherlands, 2013). The Maria Toevlucht Abbey is located in the Dutch town where Vincent Van Gogh was born, dating only to 1899. The monks themselves brew the brewery’s two beers, 8 and 10, phenolic and toffee-like, but gentle. The beer is named for the town, but the brewery has its own name, De Kievit, which is the Dutch name for the Northern Lapwing, depicted on the bottle.

Spencer, Trappist. (St. Joseph's Abbey, Massachusetts, 2014). St. Joseph’s Abbey was founded in 1950, after a fire caused monks to relocate from Rhode Island. The idea to start brewing percolated for years before the abbey started selling beer in 2014. The first products were in the Belgian mode, but the monks have since added a wide range that includes an IPAs, lagers, and a stout.

Benedictine Brewery, Benedictine. (Mt. Angel Abbey, Oregon, 2014). Father Martin Grassel championed one of the most ambitious monastic projects in the world when the monks began planning a brewery in 2013. In 2014, they began brewing at a commercial brewery while planning a brewery and taproom on the edge of the abbey grounds overlooking abbey-owned hop fields. The beers lean in the direction of Belgium, and the flagship Black Habit is a standout dark ale, but they also make American ales and a German-style helles.

Zirci Apátsági, Cistercian. (Zirc Abbey, Hungary, 2015). The abbey dates to 1182, though there have been regular interruptions in control. Brewing originally started there in 1735 and lasted over a century. The newest iteration of brewing began in 2015, and the monks make a bold range that includes spiced ales as well as a pilsner and Belgian styles.

Tre Fontane, Trappist. (Monastery of Saint Vincent and Saint Anastacio, Italy, 2015). Roots of this monastery in Rome date back to the 4th century and was by the seventh century Benedictine. After a fallow period following the Napoleonic purge, it returned under Trappist control. Since the 19th century, monks have made eucalyptus liquor there and, when they started brewing, they included that signature ingredient in the sole beer they make, an 8.5% tripel.

Szczyrzycki Browar Cystersów Gryf, Cistercian. (Cistercian Abbey, Poland, 2015). The Cistercian Abbey in Szczyrzyc is actually older than the Polish town of the same name, and was brewing as early as the 1600s. The abbey’s first brewing revival lasted four years in the 1990s, and was re-started in 2015. Beers include some historical recreations, including a grodziskie, as well as Belgian and German styles.

Cardeña, Trappist. (Monasterio de San Pedro, Spain, 2016). Over a thousand years old, for most of its life the monastery was Benedictine. The monastery fell into secular hands in the 19th century and weren’t returned to monks until 1942. The brewery currently makes only one beer, a 7% tripel.

Mount Saint Bernard, Trappist. (St. Bernard Abbey, England, 2018). In 2013, the monks of Mount Saint Bernard began exploring the idea of brewing—something abbey monks were doing in the 19th century. As of 2018, brewing is the abbey’s sole source of revenue, and monks brew, bottle, and package their beer. Currently just one product, Tynt Meadow, combines the Belgian method of refermentation in the bottle with rounded, soft English malts and yeasts.

Country Monks, Benedictine. (Subiaco Abbey, Arkansas, 2019). Subiaco Abbey was founded by Swiss monks in 1878 and began brewing at the end of 2018 in a shed on the monastery grounds. Brother Basil Taylor makes a classic lineup of American-style beers, including amber, red, and nut brown ales as well as IPA and stout.

Braxatorium Parcensis, Norbertine. (Park Abbey, Belgium, 2019). Like others, the Norbertine monks at Park Abbey, which was founded in the 1100s near Leuven, had a history to draw on when they began brewing in late 2019. But the monks there aim to do more than restore a practice—they’re interested in older brewing techniques, including grinding the grain by water mill. It will be hard to get bottles, however; the abbey only plans to make 3,000 annually.