Trappist Beer Travels and Ancient Brews

Not that I don't like Dr. Pat's work, because I do, but the Trappist Beer Travels book sounds amazing.

With their younger populations dwindling and revenue from traditional sources waning, many cash-strapped monasteries are turning to brewing to sustain themselves.

Not only that, but many Trappist Breweries don't have monks exclusively brewing the beer. Most are brewed by laypeople or at least have laypeople involved in the process, with the monks basically being "showpieces".

 

For those of you interested in Ancient Brewing and are members of the American Homebrewers Association I would strongly recommend that you access the following presentations from HomebrewCon (NHC) online at the AHA:

· 2016: Ancient Beer Brewing in the World of Wine: Bronze Age Greece through Alexander the Great by Travis Rupp

· 2015: The Beginnings of Beer in the Ancient World by Travis Rupp

I am not a big history buff but I attended both of these presentations and I found them to be fascinating.

Cheers!

Edit: For you non-AHA members you can view a short video presentation by Travis Rupp here:

https://archive.org/details/The_Beginnings_of_Beer_with_Travis_Rupp

 

For the folks interested in the Ancient Brews book, here is a link to a relatively recent pod cast that discusses a number of interesting topics.

Podcast with McGovern