Sunday morning: time to drink a good trappist beer

Sunday morning, what do you usually do? Well, I usually have a late breakfast, sometimes I go for a walk, or maybe play video games with my husband. But on a beautiful Sunday morning from 2015, I did something different. I was in Belgium and I went to a Trappist monastery: Westmalle.


The monks there make a beer that you can only have there, its name is Westmalle Extra. They produce this beer just twice a year, for internal consumption, because during Lent they can't eat, but they can drink, so they make this "liquid bread" for themselves. It is a refreshing beer, with flavors like green fruit and apricot.

Nowadays you'll probably find Westmalle Extra in a bunch of places, however those are bottles bought directly at the monastery door and that people sells in their own pubs or stores. At the Westmalle restaurant (and store) it's possible to ask for a Extra too and the restaurant is in front of the abbey.

So, Sunday morning, the mass in the abbey is over, the restaurant opened, we entered, the waiter came and asked our order. A little bit embarrassed, we look around, all those senior couples arriving at the restaurant, coming from the mass, so we said almost whispering that we wanted two Extras.

We ordered the Extra not only because it is sort of exclusive, but mainly because it has just 4,8% alcohol and we were concerned about those seniors seeing us drinking beer that early hour of the day.

Minutes later, we looked around and the seniors were all drinking beer too. And not an  Extra! They were having Dubbels (7% alcohol) and Tripels (9,5% alcohol)! I know it's stupid and prejudiced to think that seniors shouldn't drink beer so early in the morning. But that was a self prejudice too, because I was judging ourselves (in my mind) by drinking at 10 am. And after all, that was just a silly thing, I'd learned a lot about life quality and happiness on that trip.

https://www.trappistwestmalle.be/en