Tripel Karmeliet

This article first appeared in Mass of Ages; the magazine of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales

by Sebastian Morello

For reasons with which I won’t bore you, over the past few years I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Belgium. Established as a modern monarchical state not two centuries ago, then comprising almost a solely Catholic population, it’s now the centre of aggressive, secular progressivism on the Old Continent. Nonetheless, symbols of the country’s historically Catholic identity can be seen everywhere.

Especially bound up with its Catholic history is Belgium’s beer culture, with many of its most treasured beers being brewed by monasteries—especially Trappist abbeys—to this day. But one of my favourites, and one which accompanied some of our festivities over Christmastide recently, is not exactly an abbey beer. Tripel Karmeliet has all the aesthetics and tastes of an old lowland monastic ale, but in fact its story is rather new.

In 1791, 39 years before the Kingdom of Belgium came into existence, the Flemish brewer Jean-Baptiste Bosteels founded the Bosteels Brewery—which continues to be run today under his descendants’ management. This brewery makes one of my favourite beers, Kwak, known for its special ‘coachman’s glass’. (The Kwak glass is so highly prized that when a friend of mine ordered a Kwak in a pub, he had to give the barman his boot until he’d finished his beer and returned the glass.)

In 1993, Antoine Bosteels, who hadn’t long joined the business, came up with an idea for a ‘tripel’, which is the traditional lowland word for any strong pale ale— the origin of the term, no one knows. A few years later, he discovered a beer recipe dating from 1679 which was once used to brew beer by the Carmelites in Dendermonde. The beer that the friars had made from this recipe was almost identical to the 3-grain oat, barley, and wheat ale that he had been developing for his tripel. Hence, in honour of the beer’s heritage—of which he had hitherto known nothing—he called it Tripel Karmeliet. Since its launch, Tripel Karmeliet has won numerous gold medal awards; last year it was awarded yet another gold medal at the World Beer Awards.

It inspires inner recollection to think of the mystical theology for which the Carmelite Order is famous being incarnated and poured into the chalice as that gold elixir bubbles and froths into a thick white head of foam. Some commentators have characterised the Carmelite way of ‘nada’ as too Dionysian, in the Areopagite sense of the via negativa rather than the Nietzschean sense of the Hellenic wine god (remember, it’s beer we’re talking about in this issue). Hence, Carmelite spirituality has been questioned as possibly too disconnected from the embodied experience of truly incarnational, Christian spirituality. But this characterisation may be mistaken.

As the great English Benedictine Abbess of Stanbrook Abbey, Dame Anselma Brennell (1891–1967), noted in her book entitled Mediæval Mystical Tradition and Saint John of the Cross, the Carmelite Order’s second father—for the Order’s members have traditionally claimed that their first father was Elijah the Prophet(!)—had a love for God’s presence in creation that rivalled even that of St Francis:

“St John of the Cross, poet and nature lover, who used to take his novices out to the lonely countryside and then bid them disperse and pray; who sings of the hills, the forest, the meadow-land spangled with blossoms, the wooded valleys and the streams … but although such admiration can lead to intense prayer this can only be provided the subject does not rest in the natural beauty, but rises forthwith from nature to the Creator.”

The goodness and the beauty of creation, then, should raise our minds and, more importantly, our hearts to the Creator, of whom creation is an emanation. God speaks to us through the glorious cosmos which He has made, and into which He has personally entered.

Perhaps that’s why monks and friars make wine and beer. Yes, such products support the upkeep of their monasteries and friaries, but a fine fermented drink also has catechetical and devotional properties. A glass of artisanal booze discloses the goodness of the Creator, and the interior restfulness that arises from pouring it into oneself is illustrative of the grace that comes from without to transform from within.

Tripel Karmeliet, with its beautifully sparkling colour of rich gold, is a small but precious intimation of that Living Flame of Love, the experience of which was so transformative that John of the Cross was unable to finish his description of it for fear he might make it seem less than it was.

The beer should be served cold, and yet its high alcohol volume is warming. (Its alcohol content is, oddly enough, the same as that of Belgium’s Mass-attending population: 8.4%). Amid the silky texture that comes from the purity of its ingredients, hints of vanilla, citrus, honey, marmalade, and spiced oranges rush to the fore as one swigs. It is the perfect accompaniment to spiritual reading and late-night meditation.