All Kinds of Families

November 1, 2005 By Julie Johnson Bradford

Ultimate authority rests with the Father. The brewers are all brothers. But in these breweries, there are no blood relationships.

The monastic breweries are a family tradition of sorts—with buildings, properties, and brands—that predates the rise of the family brewers of the Industrial Revolution.

The six Trappist monastery breweries of Belgium represent a multi-generational brewing tradition, held together by values that differ from the strictly commercial market in which they thrive. Like the secular family breweries connected by bloodlines, these spiritual families stress principles that go beyond the bottom line.