Monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer to cease Trappist brewery operations
PHOTO/COURTESY
Spencer Trappist Ale, brewed by the monks at St. Joseph's Abbey, is made at one of a dozen craft breweries in Central Massachusetts.
Spencer Trappist Brewery, the only Trappist brewery located in the United States, announced it was ceasing operations via a Facebook post on Saturday.
Trappist beer, or beer brewed by Catholic monks of the Trappist religious order, is produced in only a handful of monasteries around the world, most of which are in Belgium or the Netherlands. St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer joined in on the tradition back in 2014, making it the only Trappist brewery in the United States.
“It was a long and pretty well-researched decision,” said Father William Dingwall, a Trappist monk at St. Joseph’s who helped oversee production at the brewery. “The beer market has changed a great deal since we started out.”
With the initial novelty of monk-brewed beer wearing off and heavy competition from other local brewers, the abbey had consulted with financial experts, brewers, and even venture capitalists on how to improve their product’s outreach. It had also partnered with marketing professors at Northeastern University in Boston as recently as January to try to promote their product. The abbey had previously held open houses for beer-tasting events, but had to suspend those operations with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.
After some long deliberation, the monks decided maintaining the brewery was simply no longer a financially viable option to help maintain their contemplative religious life.
“After a lot of study and a lot of consultation with the community, it became obvious that this was not the way forward for us anymore,” said Dingwall.
The abbey will sell off its brewery equipment, but keep the property where production took place in order to help facilitate productions of other Trappist-made goods, such as jellies and chocolates. Last week, the abbey informed the International Trappist Association, which oversees all Trappist breweries worldwide, of its decision to cease production.
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