Faced with a decline in income from its farming activities, the Trappist monastery of Mont-Saint-Bernard (in Loughborough in central England) with about twenty brothers has decided in recent years to abandon milk and focus on alcohol.
The monks sold their cows and took five years to build a state-of-the-art brewery that can now produce 300,000 bottles per year.
The beer, « Tynt Meadow », named after the piece of land on which the order was redesigned two centuries ago, which draws at 7.4 degrees, is now appreciated by a large number of wine lovers but not really by its producers.
« On feast days, Christmas and Easter, we can drink it, » says Brother Joseph. But as monks, we are not heavy drinkers ».