For years, monks at St. Joseph's Abbey in Massachusetts have been selling jams and jellies to make m

Описание: (16 Jan 2014) When the monks from St. Joseph's Abbey started asking questions at a Boston beer festival, their Trappist brothers in Europe wondered if trouble was brewing.
For nearly 60 years, the monks in Spencer, Mass., had been selling jams and jellies to help support their community of 63 monks. Now they were interested in the real family business: beer.
For more than a century, Catholic Cistercian monks, commonly known as Trappists, have been brewing and selling what many beer lovers consider some of best brews in the world. Eight monasteries _ six in Belgium and one each in Holland and Austria _ produce the only beer recognized by the International Trappist Association as authentic Trappist beer.
And starting Thursday, the 63 brothers of St. Joseph's Abbey _ about an hour's drive west of Boston _ will join them, selling the first Trappist beer brewed outside Europe.
The American monks' journey from jams to beer started almost five years ago when St. Joseph's sent two monks on a fact-finding mission to the Belgian Beer Fest in Boston. Within hours, European monks learned of the inquiries, concerned about what their American counterparts were up to.
"The original skepticism was because we were outside of Europe... and Americans," said Father Isaac Keeley, the bald, jovial former potter who has been at St. Joseph's for 35 years and now directs the brewing. "And the fear we would go too big too fast."
Keeley and another monk from St. Joseph's packed up and moved to Belgium in Dec. 2010 to see how their European brothers brew _ and to convince them that they could properly produce an American Trappist beer.
The European monks weren't the only ones who needed convincing. Back at St. Joseph's, a robust debate among the brothers was underway. Some were concerned about starting what would be the most expensive enterprise ever undertaken by the abbey.
But everyone agreed the aging monastery buildings were getting increasingly expensive to maintain. In the end, more than 85 percent of the American brothers voted for the project.
"We see it as a 50-100 year project. As we're standing on the shoulders of those who came before us and built these building and supported the way of life. Hopefully future generations will be stand on our shoulders, what we are doing and we see the brewery as part of that." said Father Damian Carr, the head of St. Joseph's Abbey.
The European monks, warming to the idea of an American Trappist beer, began giving close counsel to their Massachusetts brothers.
The European monasteries made three strong recommendations: To brew beer of Trappist quality they needed to build a state-of-the-art brewery, hire a skilled brewing engineer, and brew just one kind of beer for the first five years. The monks from St. Joseph set to work, building a multi-million-dollar brewery that would be the envy of almost any microbrewery in the world.
Their bank loan _ an amount they won't disclose _ was made easier by the success of the monks' previous business venture, "Trappist Preserves."
The European brewers, wanting a beer that wouldn't damage the Trappist brand, agreed to help the Americans develop a good recipe.
After more than 20 trial batches, the monks settled on the recipe for what would become Spencer Trappist Ale, a "refectory ale" of 6.5 percent alcohol. The cloudy, golden beer is all-American yet rooted in European tradition with sweet, yeasty notes familiar to fans of other Trappist ales.
"They approved it unanimously," he said, "and after the vote there was applause."
Telling the story of that night, Keeley started to cry.

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