I’ve Tasted the Eighth Trappist Ale and it’s Gregorious

By Jason Hunt, Certified Cicerone

 

Here’s a classic Beer Trivia question: How many Trappist Breweries are there?

 
If your answer was 7, then you would have been correct a year ago. But in May of last year, the International Trappist Association approved the Abbey of Engelszell in Austria to be the 8th official producer of Trappist beer. Engelszell has now released their first beer: Gregorius.

 

Although it is the newest of the Trappist breweries, Engeszell is actually a very old monastery, dating back to 1293. As a monastery, Engelszell has always been affiliated with the Cistercian order (of which the Trappists are a subset), but it was the abbot Gregorius Eisvogel who established it as a Trappist Monastery in 1925. Gregorius is named in his honor.

 

Trappist beers are prized throughout the beer world, not just for their rarity, but for their outstanding quality. In fact, in order to be a Trappist brewery, strict quality control guidelines must be followed. In other words, even though Engelszell has only been producing Gregorius for less than a year, if it were not of the same impeccable quality as the other Trappist beers, it would not be able to put the official Trappist logo on their label.

 

The beer itself is reminiscent of other Belgian/Trappist–style strong dark ales, but with a more pronounced chocolate character. It uses authentic Trappist yeast, but uses honey instead of Belgian rock candy sugar in the brewing process. Traditionally, Trappist (and other Belgian) strong ales use the sugar to help boost the alcohol content, without increasing the body of the beer. Thus they create beers with the alcohol strength of barleywines, while retaining a more balanced, smooth medium body. With the Gregorius, the monks at Engelszell replaced the traditional sugar with honey, which gives the beer its own unique spin within the pantheon of Trappist beers.

 

The Blind Monk is proud to be one of the first bars in America to serve this delicious, rare brew. Come be one of the first to try this exquisite new offering!