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 prone to migraines and I’m sure I was attached to drinking as well, even though in moderation. It should not be too much of a surprise, as I emphasized the importance of fasting and the virtue of temperance extensively in the book, drawing on monastic spirituality, which integrates alcohol into a life of prayer and penance. I still sample new monastic beers in sufficient sips for a taste test (giving the rest to friends) so that I can stay current on the monks’ latest projects, and I still frequently give talks about beer and alcohol for Catholic men.

There, I confessed it! And to be honest, I’m very much at peace about it. With a new line of beers, however, I could do more than taste test them. Welcome the first monastic non alcoholic beers.

NA beer is having a moment. It used to be undrinkable but apparently enough people now want to enjoy beer without the effects of alcohol to make greater investment in its quality worthwhile to craft brewers. Apparently, monastic brewers have paid attention. Both Affligem and Leffe are brewed by secular brewers with an affiliation to a monastery: Heineken on behalf of Affligem Benedictine Abbey (with a brewing tradition dating back to the 11th century) and InBev in partnership with the Norbertine Notre-Dame de Leffe abbey (with brewing dating to the 13th century). La Trappe is brewed on the grounds of the Koningshoeven Abbey in Holland (straddling the border with Belgium) in cooperation with Bavaria Brewery onsite. Because the Trappist monks maintain supervision and control, La Trappe is considered an official Trappist product (although there was controversy over the outside partnership for a time).

Taking a sip of Leffe’s 0.0 Brune was the first time a NA beer hit with full flavor, although the aftertaste gave the usual flat effect. It’s unusual, however, to find an NA with that much body. The Affligem 0.0 also presents more normally than the average NA, which are generally too sweet without the balance of the alcohol (often because fermentation has been arrested before converting the sugars to alcohol). The aftertaste was not as flat. It certainly wouldn’t have fooled me, although it didn’t scream NA.

La Trappes’s Nillis was even better, an amber beer with a stronger hop profile (though not overbearing) and greater complexity. It is the best NA beer that I’ve had (but La Chouffe and Lindemans, which are not monastic, are also very good). It comes the closest to the experience of drinking a normal beer to me. Besides, it has a great Latin name! Some of the proceeds are sent to a sister monastery in Uganda and its secondary school. The name Nillis not only combines the Latin words nihil and nullus but also offers a nod to the Nile River (Nilus in Latin). The prior, Br. Isaac, explains: “The Nile rises in Uganda, where we as a Trappist community have a daughter house, Our Lady of Victoria. The name of this new beer thus also symbolizes our connection to that country.”

Non alcoholic beers often still have up to .5 % alcohol, although these three beers all advertise 0.0%. Methods of removing alcohol are improving and lead to a better beer than stopping fermentation or boiling off alcohol. Vacuum evaporation, filtration, and modified yeasts are some examples. Many American craft beers have started heavily hopping NA beers, which goes a long way to covering over the flatter taste.

Even though beer has found an accepted place, prominent at times, in the monastic tradition, there is something fitting about monks making non-alcoholic beer. St. Benedict permitted his monks to consume a daily allotment of wine, due to their weakness, while affirming the practice of the desert fathers: “We read that monks should not drink wine at all, but since the monks of our day cannot be convinced of this, let us at least agree to drink moderately, and not to the point of excess, for wine makes even wise men go astray (Sir 19:2).” And furthermore: “But those to whom God gives the strength to abstain must know that they will earn their own reward.” St. Thomas More gives a later example, drinking small beer as an inconspicuous penance when at public dinners.

It will be interesting to see if other monasteries follow suit and offer beer that St. Benedict would approve and St. Thomas More would consume.