Father Martin Grassel brews beer in his home. He lives in a monastery.
At the outset, he was simply making homebrew. He produced his first 5-gallon batch in the kitchen of the retreat house at Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon with used equipment that somebody had given him. Now he looks forward to brewing 5-barrel batches for the newest American abbey brewery. That won’t be homebrew.
Benedictine Brewery expects to begin selling beer brewed by the monks in summer 2016. Father Martin and Chris Jones, the director of enterprises who helps him brew on the pilot system the monastery purchased, continue to work on recipes while waiting for a new brewery building to be finished. The original plan was to install a 5-barrel brewhouse in a vacant part of the monastery. However, one location after another proved to be unsuitable. During the summer, Jones took bids for constructing a brewery on land across from the abbey.