Saint Vincent Beer

Ruins of the brewery site beside the gristmill and Saint Vincent Lake in 1982

Saint Vincent Beer was a beer brewed by the monks at Saint Vincent Archabbey, in Unity Township, Pennsylvania, from 1856 until 1918. The monastery was founded by monks from Germany and they brought a tradition of brewing beer with them to the United States. In 1852, Pope Pius IX granted the monks permission to brew beer and sell it wholesale after they had a disagreement with Michael O'Connor, the Bishop of Pittsburgh at the time over the monk's brewing of beer.

In 1856, a brewery was established on archabbey property and the first Saint Vincent Beer was produced. This dark Bavarian-style beer sold well. At its height, the monastery was producing 1,119 barrels of Saint Vincent Beer per year; much of it was sold to the general public. The sales and widespread availability brought attention to the monastery from the Catholic temperance movement. Francesco Satolli, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States at the time, wrote to Leander Schnerr, the third archabbot, asking for the brewing to be stopped. Temperance advocate and Catholic Priest, George Zurcher released Monks and Their Decline skewering the archabbey for being in the business of producing alcohol. The New York Voice released a piece of yellow journalism about the monks.

The pressure was sucessful. By 1900, the archabbey has stopped brewing Saint Vincent Beer for external sale due to the negative attention. For the next 18 years, the monks continued to make Saint Vincent Beer for internal consumption. When Aurelius Stehle was elected Coadjutor Archabbot in 1918, the brewery was closed. The brewery, located next to Saint Vincent Archabbey Gristmill, was used for storage until it burned down in 1926. The walls were removed from the site in 1995 when the gristmill was renovated.

Background

In 1848, Boniface Wimmer and a group of novices came to Unity Township, Pennsylvania to establish a Benedictine community. Wimmer came to the United States from Bavaria, Germany and brought the practice of abbeys brewing beer with him. The next year, Wimmer gained ownership of a tavern and brewery in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Michael O'Connor, the Bishop of Pittsburgh at the time, objected to the monks owning a tavern and a brewery. Wimmer agreed to close the tavern, but wanted to keep the brewery. Due to his objection to the brewery, O'Connor refused to make the community that Wimmer founded a priory. Wimmer appealed to Pope Pius IX on a trip to Rome, but was denied. Through pressure from Cardinal Giacomo Filippo Fransoni and King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the monks gained permission from Pope Pius IX in 1852 to brew beer "providing that every disorder is avoided". Included with the permission to brew beer was the permission to sell it wholesale.

History

The brewery buildings sat in what is now the parking lot for the gristmill

In 1856, a brewery was established on the grounds of the monastery and the Saint Vincent Beer was first produced for consumption by the monks. The brewery was located in a small log building next to the Archabbey's gristmill. The beer could be found at a bar on the Pittsburgh Pike in 1857, but widespread sale of Saint Vincent Beer did not happen until after O'Connor resigned as Bishop in 1860. The beer sold well and could be found as far away from Latrobe as Baltimore and New York City by 1868. To meet this demand, a new two-story brewery building made out of brick was constructed next to the old one. This was the start of the golden age of Saint Vincent Beer which lasted until 1888. In 1868, the monastery was selling about 900 barrels of Saint Vincent Beer per year; production peaked at 1,119 barrels in 1891. On each barrel of beer the archabbey made $3 (equivalent to $60 in 2020) on the $14 wholesale price. During the golden age of Saint Vincent Beer, several additional buildings were constructed on the brewery site including a malt house, two ice houses, cellars for storing the finished beer, and a cooper house where barrels were produced by the monks.

Due to the size of the brewery, it started to gather the archabbey negative attention from the growing temperance movement. The Abstinence Society started to pressure the monastery to stop brewing beer in 1892. The same year, the second archabbot, Andrew Hintenach, resigned after only four and a half years due to internal divisions in the monastery over brewing Saint Vincent Beer. In 1895, Ferdinand Kittell, a parish priest in Loretto, Pennsylvania, asked Leander Schnerr, the third archabbot, to stop selling the beer. Schnerr declined, pointing to the permission the monastery received in 1852 from the pope. Unfazed, Kittell petitioned Francesco Satolli, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, to stop the archabbey from selling Saint Vincent Beer since the monastery was not under the control of the local diocese. Satolli did not forward Kittell's letter to Pope Leo XIII, but wrote to Schnerr asking him to stop the large-scale production of beer due to the "evil of intemperance" and the work of the Catholic temperance movement.

George Zurcher, a temperance advocate and Catholic priest, released Monks and Their Decline in 1898. Zurcher's pamphlet skewered the archabbey for brewing Saint Vincent Beer instead of joining the temperance movement. In it, he mocked the post-nominal letters of Benedictines, OSB, claiming that they should stand for "the Order of Sacred Brewers" and claimed that the monks were the reasons that many lay Catholics continue to get drunk. This brought the monastery into the popular consciousness outside of Pennsylvania. After being prompted by Martin Ignatius Joseph Griffin, a prominent historian of the Catholic Church, the New York Voice released a "sensationalized exposé" about the archabbey, college, and brewery. The monks responded to the attention with silence and the media lost interest in the story.

Due to the bad publicity and pressure from temperance groups, Saint Vincent Beer was rarely seen outside of the archabbey after 1899. The monks, however, continued to brew beer for internal uses. In 1918, the brewery was closed when Aurelius Stehle was elected Coadjutor Archabbot. The next year, on January 29, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified making it illegal to produce alcoholic drinks and starting Prohibition. Officially, the brewery building was used as storage for the farm, but monks probably made some bootleg beer as well. On January 13, 1926, most of the brewery buildings burned down in the middle of the night. The ruins of the brewery complex stood until 1995 when they were demolished during the restoration of the gristmill.

Beer

The beer was a dark, hoppy Bavarian-style beer. The grain for the beer came from the archabbey's fields. It was malted on site and then fermented with water and hops. The young beer was then aged in open vats and then barreled into casks made by the monks for shipment.

There are several conflicting accounts of what became of the recipe for Saint Vincent Beer. Omer Klein, a Benedictine priest and the archivist of Saint Vincent College, claimed in 1976 that the recipe was never written down and was lost when the brewmaster died. In a 2009 NPR segment, a monk, who was only named as "Father Thomas," made the claim that the recipe was not lost but it is "not accessible" to the public. Both refute the idea that the recipe was sold to the Latrobe Brewing Company or another brewery.

References

Bibliography

• Abell, Aaron I. (1960). American Catholicism and Social Action: A Search for Social Justice, 1865-1950. Garden City, NY: Hanover House. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
• Lamendola, Lauren (2010). "Trouble Brewing at St. Vincent". Western Pennsylvania History. 93 (3): 50-59. Retrieved November 16, 2021.
• Oetgen, Jerome (2000). Mission to America: A History of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the First Benedictine Monastery in the United States. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.