“Brew Like a Monk” chronicles beers originally brewed in what is now Belgium and other beers they inspired. But you know monks brew elsewhere, using ingredients and yeast strains that produce very different flavors. Included are many delightful beers that come from Germany.

The adventure that J. Wilson is embarking upon relates to monks from Germany, but it’s going to get a lot of attention by Easter, so here’s the press release:

“Working to nourish their bodies through during the lengthy 46-day fast during Lent, the Paulaner monks of Neudeck ob der Au in Munich are credited with developing the doppelbock style of beer in the 17th century. Packed with carbohydrates, calories and vitamins, this unfiltered ‘liquid bread’ sustained the monks from Ash Wednesday to Easter, and over 300 years later, the rich history and quality of this beer is well-known throughout the world.With this in mind, blogger J. Wilson is embarking on a historical study, fasting on doppelbock for the same 46-day stretch that the storied German monks once endured — and live to tell the tale.

“‘This will be no small undertaking,’ Wilson said. ‘I will be working with both a doctor and a spiritual advisor as I attempt to tell the story of this facet of the monks’ livelihood.’

“While the end product of the project will be a book, Wilson has set up a separate blog (Diary of a Part-time Monk) to chronicle elements of the fast as it unfolds. ‘The goal is to post short, daily tidbits on how the fast is proceeding, with occasional clips uploaded to brewvana’s YouTube channel,’ Wilson said.

“An award-winning homebrewer, certified beer judge and journalist, Wilson teamed up with Eric Sorensen, head brewer at Rock Bottom-Des Moines to collaborate on a commercial-scale batch of Wilson’s bock recipe. The result, Illuminator Doppelbock, brewed with Weyermann Munich, Vienna and CaraMunich malts and hopped
with Liberty hops, is ‘a bold, unfiltered monk’s Lenten session beer,’ weighing in at 6.67% alcohol by volume and 288 calories per 12-ounce serving.

“‘The alcohol is restrained compared to other doppelbocks on the market, but the 17th century monk beers would have been underattenuated, quite sweet and well-below today’s ABV expectation which starts around 7.5 percent,’ Wilson said. ‘This beer is a thoughtful rendition that I hope will remain drinkable enough to be all I consume — aside from supplementary water — for 46 days. And I hope the folks that visit Rock Bottom to drink the rest of this labor of love enjoy it, too.’

“Illuminator will be released at Rock Bottom-Des Moines on Fat Tuesday with a special tapping at 6 p.m., followed by a crawfish boil at 7 p.m. Wilson’s fast begins on March 9, and continues through April 23.”

I’ll try not to make a habit of this, but today’s post here duplicates one at Appellation Beer. This is another of those topics — like the one about New Mexico’s monastery brewery — of interest to readers of both blogs (and I thank those of you who visit both).

News last week that Abbey Saint Sixtus, the Trappist monastery at Westvleteren in Belgium, might boost production of its much-cherished beer and sell it through supermarket channels led to the consumption of considerable bandwidth on beer discussion boards.

Perhaps some of the questions not addressed by that story were answered in the various threads, but not in the few I had time to read. And I didn’t see a mention of the report from Danny Van Tricht in September that the abbey had installed new lagering tanks. Gee, doesn’t that make you wonder just how much more beer Saint Sixtus might brew?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but an email response from Brother Joris — the monk in charge of brewing at Saint Sixtus — would indicate “not much” and even that won’t be on a permanent basis.

He explained, “I am not allowed to give away more details on the matter, as it should be a surprise.”

He wrote that the reports the brewery would sell beer away from the monastery are not correct, adding, “We remain faithful to our sales policy and we have no intention of opening a second channel for the distribution of our beers in the way suggested by the media.” He indicated the monastery is considering a one-time special project (that would not last for long) to raise additional funds for construction work on the cloister.. “This will however not come down to ‘Westvleteren being for sale in the racks of a supermarket,’” he wrote.

He further explained that the new tanks make the production schedule more flexible, so that brewing needn’t be delayed because beer in the lagering tanks isn’t ready for bottling. This makes it possible to produce a fixed quantity each year (currently that might vary between 4,200 and 4,750 hectoliters a year — comparable to about 3,600 to 4,000 U.S. barrels).

Digression No. 1: Stephen Beaumont has asked what will become of Westvelteren’s cult status should they become easier to buy. The notion — not Mr. B’s, should there be any confusion — that the Saint Sixtus beers might be “dumbed down” is laughable. By adding lagering tanks the monks assure that beer will not be hurried out the door. When I visited the brewery in 2004, Brother Joris explained that the 8 usually lagers four weeks but that the 12 might take two months to ten weeks, “when you get a difficult one.”

If the monks at Saint Sixtus wanted to ramp up production they already could have. The thoroughly modern brewhouse installed in 1989 could crank out a lot more wort, and the squares for primary fermentation sit idle more days than they are used. Plenty of breweries around the world have shortened lagering or aging times to meet growing demand.

Digression No. 2: In cruising through discussion boards I saw it suggested, and I’m paraphrasing, that “the monks should brew more beer to raise more money for the poor.” How come nobody finishes that sentence with what they are really thinking? “. . . and make it easier for me to buy their beer.”

In fact, larger monastery breweries, notably Westmalles and Chimay, help support other monasteries, multiple charities and local economies. Chimay, with 150 employees in its brewery and cheese making facility, is one of the largest employers in one of Belgium’s poorest regions. Westvleteren sells its beer in wooden crates (pictured at the top) manufactured in a “shielded workplace” for those not able to work in a mainstream environment.

But that’s not why they brew. Monks — Benedictine, Cistercian and Trappist — live by the rule of Saint Benedict, written about A.D. 530. Among other things, it calls on monks to be self-sufficient through their own labor.

Brother Joris puts it quite well: “We live on brewing, but we do it so we can continue with our real business, which is being monks.”

Call it Plan B.

You might remember when two New Mexico monasteries were supposed to build a brewery near Pecos, N.M. Didn’t happen. That was five years ago. Today the building pictured above is going up at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, which is located almost 100 miles from Pecos.

It’s small, not anywhere near the size once envisioned for the second American monastery brewery ever, but will be a brewery. In the immediate future the building will house a 20-gallon pilot system first purchased to use in the Pecos. But it was built with the idea of installing a three- or five-barrel system (93 or 155 gallons), and was designed with expansion in mind.

This makes Monks’ Ale seem more like a monastery product, even though the beer that’s become available a lot more places — including parts of Pennsylvania and soon other states — continues to be brewed under contract by Sierra Blanca Brewing east of Albuquerque. Today, by the way, Sierra Blanca brewed the first production-size batch of Monks’ Wit.

Just to make sure you understand: Monks’ Ale is owned by Abbey Beverage Company, which began as a partnership between Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey and Christ in the Desert. Christ of the Desert bought out the Pecos monastery last spring.

At first, Brad Kraus — the brewmaster at Blue Corn Cafe & Brewery in Santa Fe — will brew mostly pilot batches on the 20-gallon system, with a little bit making its way into the marketplace.

Longer term, several members of the community have indicated they’d like to become involved in brewing.

Christ in the Desert (that’s the monastery chapel to the right) is not exactly a perfect spot for a brewery. Plenty of water, but high in bicarbonate. Off the grid, so powered by the sun (backed up by propane generators). This is Georgia O’Keeffe country.

And then there’s the 13-mile-long dirt-and-gravel road leading to and from the brewery. Hard to guess how many bottles might break during the slow drive to a hard road. So if Kraus and the monks do start producing small batches of specialty beers several barrels at a time expect the beer to be available only in kegs.

There are a lot of “ifs” remaining. As Berkeley Merchant, business manager for Abbey Beverage company and the monastery, points out the monks “think in terms of the next hundred years.”

Last week, Abbot Philip and Brother Christian looked out toward fields where monks once tended to their own vegetables — now cheaper to buy in a store — and considered the first hops crop they harvested six weeks before. “Having the hops is a wonderful gift,” Brother Christian said. “Having the fields with crops again.”

These are “wild” varieties native to New Mexico, grown from rhizomes acquired from Todd Bates’ and Stiv Johnson’s Tucker Farms in Embudo (south of Taos). The monks harvested the hops by hand. The next step will to get them analyzed, then to use them in brewing to see what flavors they add to beer.

Will the hops end up in beers brewed elsewhere in the country? In New Mexico beers? Only in beers carrying the Monks’ Ale label?

There’s plenty of time to decide those things.

I have a little trouble getting my bearings when it comes to clone recipes, so maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. These things, after all, are facts:

- People buy “Brew Like a Monk” or “Brewing with Wheat” because they want to make a beer just like Chimay White or Schneider Aventinus, and I like it when people by my books. Although they don’t contain clone recipes, they have pretty much all the information you need to write your own.
- The least favorable review of BLAM at Amazon.com comes from a reader who was disappointed the book didn’t include clones recipes.
- Books like CloneBrews, 2nd Edition: Recipes for 200 Brand-Name Beers will consistently outsell mine.

I don’t expect that to change, so please don’t consider what follows sour grapes. The other day I flipped through the second edition of CloneBrews at the bookstore, curious what beers are included and about the recipe details. OK, and to see if they perpetuate the myth about clear candi sugar, a discussion we don’t need to revisit.

I was really surprised to see the yeast strain suggested for fermenting Westmalle Tripel is Wyeast 1214, for the simple reason that strain came originally from Chimay (a long time ago, so the Wyeast and Chimay versions wouldn’t be quite the same today). After all, Wyeast sells a strain that originated with Westmalle (3787). I was even more surprised to see Wyeast 1762 suggested as the second choice, since that one came out of Rochefort and its characteristic flavors and aromas are quite different.

(The quick and dirty technical details: Both 3787 and 1214 produce both more of the ester isoamyl acetate — banana and other fruits — and the phenol 4-vinyl guaiacol than 1762. Details.)

The bottom line is that were I trying to clone Westmalle Tripel I’d use Wyeast 3787, White Labs WL530 or see what I could talk Brewing-Science Institute out of.

And as long as I am at it, a few other suggestions. CloneBrews version would produce a 9% abv beer, although the Westmalle label says it is 9.5% and a bottle checked in a lab in 2004 was 9.6%. The CB recipe suggests aiming for a beer with 27 bittering units, while the lab-tested version had 39. And the recipe stipulates a starting gravity between 1.086 and 1.088, a finish at 1.015-1.016.

However, Westmalle begins at 1.081 (19.6 ºP) and finishes at 1.008 (2 ºP). That’s a lot drier, particularly coupled with the additional hops, and a lot more digestible.

I prefer the Westmalle approach. You might like a little sweeter (less attenuated) beer, which is OK. And which reminds me why I don’t mess with clone recipes.

The Brewery Ommegang sour beer mentioned in the previous post now has a name: Ommegang Zuur. Larry Bennett, the minister of propaganda, provides some details abut the beer brewed in collaboration with Liefmans in Belgium:

“It’s a blended Flemish Sour brown. It’s a blend of two Liefmans beers: Oud Bruin, which is open fermented and then aged 6-8 months, and Liefmans Cuvee Brut, a new, fairly dry, kriek-style beer coming from Liefmans. The Cuvee Brut begins with Oud Bruin, then sits on cherries and is aged for a year. It’s then blended with more Oud Bruin and Goudenband.”

The beers are blended to Ommegang’s specs. “The big difference is that Liefmans beers are aged in stainless steel, not wood,” Bennett explained in a email. “So there is less of the acidification caused by the many bugs living in the wood. Though it is still definitely a sour beer.”

Brewmaster Phil Leinhart went to Belgium last October to taste potential blends. The beer will be available on draft and in 750ml bottles beginning in July and likely for four months. “We recently received some of the first trial bottling and it’s pretty damn fantastic. We’re pretty jazzed up to get it out there,” Bennett wrote.

- Goose Island’s highly coveted Matilda will be available in eight western markets this month. The beer’s name pays tribute to the legend of Matilda — the story being that Countess Matilda of Tuscany (c1046-1115) lost a gold ring in the lake. When it was brought to the surface by a trout, she thanked God by endowing Orval Trappist monastery.

The Chicago-brewed beer has won numerous awards since it was introduced in 2005, at both the Great American Beer Festival and in the World Beer Cup. New markets include Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and New Mexico.