Catholic Monasteries have long been a bastions of alcohol production. In the warmer climes of Southern Europe, they made wine. In the cooler north where grapes weren't a viable option, they turned to beer. Beer served the monasteries in many ways. The production of beer rendered often questionable water into a drinkable liquid. The grains and other ingredients used in beer also formed a nutritious piece of the everyday diet of the monks and all who consumed it.

Besides working the land and producing for their own needs, monks provided shelter and sustenance for weary religious pilgrims and other travelers, selling to them their labors from the land, including their beer. The beer nourished and revived the guests while providing added income to the abbey helping to pay for that which could not be done in-house. Today, that tradition lives on in the hearts of the world's brewing monasteries. While many abbeys would have had a brewery, only a few dozen have survived the centuries of war and increased secularization to take up the brewers mash paddle in the 21st Century. The Brewing Monks is there story.

(The abbeys are categorized by the Monastic Order to which they belong)

Trappist Benedictine Fransiscan