What Is Abbey Beer? The Tradition That Began Before Belgium
Ask most beer drinkers where abbey beer comes from, and they will say Belgium. The fuller answer begins nine centuries earlier, on a mountainside in Italy.
The Short Answer
Beer brewed in the monastic tradition
Abbey beer is beer brewed in the monastic tradition — originally by monks, within the walls of an abbey, as part of a way of life built on self-sufficiency, hospitality and work. The style most people associate with it today is Belgian: rich, bottle-conditioned ales like the dubbel and tripel, developed and refined in the monasteries of the Low Countries. But the tradition itself is far older than Belgium's famous breweries, and it did not begin there.
529 AD · Cassino, Italy
Where the tradition began
In 529 AD, Saint Benedict founded the Abbey of Montecassino on the mountainside above Cassino, in what is now Lazio, Italy. It was the first house of the Benedictine Order, and it was here that Benedict wrote his Rule — the framework of prayer, work and community that would shape Western monasticism for the next fifteen centuries.
Self-sufficiency sat at the heart of that Rule. Monasteries grew what they ate and made what they drank, and historical accounts suggest that between the 5th and 6th centuries the monks of Montecassino cultivated barley on the estate and brewed beer — with some sources citing it as Europe's earliest recorded abbey beer.
As the Benedictine Order spread north across Europe, the brewing went with it. The monasteries of present-day Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands inherited the practice and, over centuries, perfected the styles the world now knows.
A Common Question
Abbey beer and Trappist beer — what's the difference?
The terms are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. "Trappist" is a protected designation: it can only describe beer brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery, under the supervision of its monks. "Abbey beer" is the broader tradition — beer brewed in the monastic style and heritage, whether by monks themselves or by brewers working on monastic land, in partnership with an abbey, or in continuation of an abbey's brewing history.
The Style
What defines abbey beer
Abbey beers share a family character more than a single recipe. They are typically top-fermented ales, often bottle-conditioned — carbonated naturally by a secondary fermentation in the bottle rather than injected gas — with depth, warmth and structure. The classic expressions include the blonde, golden and clean; the dubbel, dark amber with rich malt character; and wheat-forward styles brewed for refreshment through the working day.
Destroyed · Rebuilt · Reborn
The tradition, rebuilt
Montecassino's own brewing history was not unbroken. The abbey has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once in its fifteen centuries, and the estate's farmland and brewing lay dormant far longer than its walls.
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529 AD
Saint Benedict establishes Montecassino Abbey; historical accounts suggest the monks would soon cultivate barley and brew on the estate.
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1944
The Battle of Monte Cassino reduces the abbey to rubble — one of the longest and bloodiest encounters of the Second World War.
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1964
The abbey is painstakingly rebuilt and reconsecrated by Pope Paul VI — its walls, its water and its traditions restored to the mountain.
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2018
Brewing returns: Birrificio Montecassino transforms the once-abandoned Albaneta land and its derelict farmhouses into a working microbrewery, drawing rock-filtered spring water from within the hillside and growing barley on the estate once again.
Our three beers each carry a strand of the tradition: Alba, a golden blonde ale; Aurea, a wheat and citrus beer; and our Dubbel, an abbey-style ale brewed in the Benedictine manner. All are naturally carbonated, brewed in Italy on the estate itself — and delivered anywhere in the UK.
Or read the full story of the estate on The Brewery page.