Brewer and Brother at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, Fr Mateusz, often says that people know more about the surface of the moon than they do about monks.
Nestled away in the idlic Leicestershire countryside amongst the rolling hills is Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, a monastery founded in 1835 on land provided by Ambrose de Lisle, who was eager to re-introduce monastic life into the United Kingdom.
As time went by, farming – the principle activity and source of income for the Brothers – became increasingly difficult to the point where the monks needed to explore new ways to generate an income to sustain their life and rhythms of prayer and worship.
The natural choice was to start a brewery.
Since 2018, Tynt Meadow have produced batch after batch of their authenticated Trappist beer: a mahogany-coloured Dubbel with a subtle, warm red hue, and a lasting beige head. Its aroma carries hints of dark chocolate, liquorice, and rich fruit flavours.
In this episode, we visited Tynt Meadow and met both Peter Grady – the Brewery and Operations Manager – for a tour of the brewhouse and Fr Mateusz, a Brother and brewer of the beer, to discuss the rich history of the monks and abbey, the brewing process and how spirituality and brewing are interconnected at the abbey.
This is a lengthy episode that straddles the lines between brewing technical knowledge, the story and history of the monastery, and themes about the Christian faith, spirituality and practises. The discussion featuring Fr Mateusz begins at 51 minute mark.
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