[Wind blowing through trees] [Church bells] [Monks singing] ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ FATHER ISAAC KEELEY: When I was a senior in college, I had a good friend who knew about Spencer the monastery, and he thought I should come here.

So, he brought me here and basically told me what you do for a retreat.

Brought the book he thought I should read on retreat.

Um, I'm sitting in my room.

And I get to this passage, and it was a quote from Deuteronomy.

And this was, "Go forth from the land of your fathers, uh, from your family [voice breaks] and your father's house to a land that I will show you."

It was as though the room were filled with light and this really kind of ocean of peace within me, a peace beyond anything I had really known or experienced up until that point in my life.

[Footsteps] [Soft organ music] FATHER KEELEY: But that was really kind of the turning point where I said, Hmmm.

I need to come to terms with this.

[Organ music swells over title] [Door Opens] [Crunching of footsteps] [Hum of machinery] [Bottles clanking] BROTHER JONAH POCIADLO: It's written in the rule of Saint Benedict that they are only monks when they are able to live by the work of their hands.

And it's something we take pride in, that we are the ones who are doing the work to support ourselves.

Being able to live here and to live this lifestyle.

You know, one of the vows a monk makes when he enters is a vow of poverty.

And he knows that, I mean, he's giving up living in the world by those such standards.

Gives up a paycheck.

Um, you know, I joke with my director, Father Isaac, saying, "Am I getting a raise this year?"

And he's like, "I think you're going to stay the same.

You know."

It's okay [laughs].

But it's, you know, it's really that we've committed to giving our lives to the monastic endeavor.

It's very powerful within when I realize, like, what I'm actually doing, not to put pressure on myself, like saying, well, you know, if you don't get this filler working right and you can't bottle the beer, then the beer can't sell.

And then, you know, our community's in trouble.

But it's the sense of like, this is the industry; we're kind of throwing most of our chips in right now to hopefully support the monastery and generations to come.

[String music] FATHER KEELEY: Around the year 2000, the Abbot thought we should take a look at some strategic planning.

Uh, the World War II generation was very mature.

You know, it's a whole different world.

Health insurance.

We didn't have a date, but you could foresee that the day could come, that we couldn't afford to live here.

We were running out of options.

Brother Brian put forward his beautiful idea of we should be brewing beer.

He'd been telling us that for a decade or two by that point.

And the idea was, you know, maybe we could do a brewery like the Belgian monasteries have been doing.

You know, maybe that would be the solution.

So then, that's when I was really asked if I would assume a kind of leadership role.

And, you know, we do have this vow of obedience... ...kind of covers these things [laughs].

It does.

So, I said, wow, you know, I'd better... I felt motivated to say, "alright, I'll give it my best."

For me, it was kind of simple.

Like, a whole generation spent their lives building the place and getting it to where it was.

It's hard to walk away from that.

And the people who did that.

[String music fades] [Upbeat rhythmic music begins] ♪ ♪ FATHER KEELEY: We're at the Boston Seaport World Trade Center, where Beer Advocate is having their Brewer Invitational event.

We bring in nice beers, but we always bring in something new for this event.

So, our new beer is Spencer Monks' Reserve Ale, which is a quadruple.

So, in the Trappist world, that's kind of like, you know, it's singles, doubles, triples, quadruples.

So, this is really a big beer.

Well, we've been telling everybody we're going to introduce this beer at this event.

So, yeah, I think there'll be some people interested.

BEN ROESCH: Oh.

FATHER KEELEY: That'd be kind of my take.

BEN ROESCH: People have asked me about it.

Just knowing that I know you, people have asked me about this beer and they're excited about it.

FATHER KEELEY: The problem with tonight is, you know, you get a two ounce pour.

Ehhh!

[Upbeat rhythmic music continues] FATHER KEELEY: Too cold.

♪ ♪ BROTHER POCIADLO: As you can hear, this is usually not my daily dosage of sound effects um, in the monastery.

So, the silence is absent.

Um.

It's not as quiet.

There's multiple voices happening at the same time, which is always um, a very heavy weight for me to wrestle with through these beer festivals.

I'm happy that Boston is about an hour and 15-20 minutes away because that ride back is almost like a good little transitional space to kind of decompress and uh, enter slowly back into a more silent, solitary lifestyle.

FATHER KEELEY: You know, before I entered the monastery, you would not say I lived a wild life [laughs].

And the great thing is you cannot foresee what's going to be asked of you.

So, if I had any idea that I would be like the person who has to kind of found the brewery and get it going.

If I had known that 40 years ago, I would have run.

I would have run off to another monastery.

I would have said, "Forget it."

You know, I would have to say, maybe God has gotten more done in the last 5 to 7 years when I've been on this project, and getting really stretched--than if I could have just gone on living my really quiet, traditional, contemplative life.

Um, I mean, that's the truth.

Uh, I wouldn't think that would be the case, but I have to say, it is.

[Sound of traffic] [Church bells] [Monk plays organ and sings] ♪ In our thoughts, help us to endure courageously ♪ ♪ the misfortunes of life ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Lord have mercy ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Let us commend ourselves to the love and protection ♪ ♪ of the Mother of God.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Lo, Mary has born us a Savior ♪ [Monks continue to sing and voices overlap] ♪ This is the lamb of God ♪ ♪ ♪ [Wind through grass] BROTHER POCIADLO: The context of our brewery being a monastic brewery contributes a very unique gift to the craft beer scene.

That sense of survival, the monastery surviving, is really part of the catalyst to drive you to do what you're doing.

And, you know, for me to say, wow, I don't want to see this monastery turn into a golf course or a country club or whatever, I want to be able to ensure that kid who's maybe not even born yet, you know, 30 years down the road when he feels that kind of attraction or draw to come here, that there is that possibility um, that we're still around.

[Machinery hums and water spraying] BROTHER POCIADLO: It's the sense that you're taking the real goods of creation: barley, hops, water, and yeast.

When we come together and say, what new beer are we going to do?

Someone may have an idea and someone else introduces some other facet, and then before you know it, it's almost like a musical piece where you have all the different instruments coming together.

Certainly sometimes, you know, the drum sounds the loudest; other times it's the horn or whatever.

But together, you're making hopefully beautiful beer, as much as beautiful music.

[Vivaldi's "Autumn"] FATHER KEELEY: Almost all American craft breweries have some capacity to welcome visitors to their brewery.

And because we're a Trappist brewery, the brewery is located in a part of the monastery not open to the public.

So, since we can't do that on a daily basis or a weekly basis, we do it once a year.

And because we only do it once a year, we really had sort of an overwhelming response.

♪ ♪ [Crowd noise] FATHER KEELEY: One of the things I ask all the monks to do, like now, I'm in work clothes, But for Saturday, I ask everybody to wear their habit because I'm aware of the impact that has on people visiting.

Wow.

They really are real monks that wear real clothes, that look like monk clothes.

They do these things... And also, the sense that, wow, and they're not all that different from us [laughs].

So, that's really important.

Monks are pretty ordinary people trying to work out a way of life.

Um... not... Well, if you get off the surface level, not too different from anybody else.

[Vivaldi's "Autumn" continues] FATHER KEELEY: There's this kind of hunger for the sacred and different people are going to be aware or not aware of that in different degrees.

The thing that's universal is a desire for meaning.

The beer is an easy connection with a place where there's some God connection for people.

There's an excuse to come to a place like this.

GUEST: So, how did you... land on that?

FATHER KEELEY: How did I land on... GUEST: Like, deciding at 28 years old, this is what I want to do?

FATHER KEELEY: Oh, okay.

So, I was teaching theology and religious studies.

GUEST: Okay.

FATHER KEELEY: I thought that'd be a way I could live out my kind of religious conviction, and it snuck up on me.

I was getting ready to do a doctoral program, and I just said, wow, you know, this isn't going to be... it's not going to be big enough.

GUEST: Hmmmm?

FATHER KEELEY: And it kind of it was nice, you know?

You have a whole career.

It would have been a comfortable life.

But I said, wow, this God thing is bigger.

But anyhow, over the next six months, I talked myself into coming here for a weekend.

GUEST: Okay.

Next thing you know [laughs].

FATHER KEELEY: It started happening.

GUEST: Yeah.

FATHER KEELEY: Yeah.

[Crowd noise] [Birds chirping] FATHER KEELEY: I'm really grateful to be able to kind of bring people in and share this with them.

But for us, you know, as monks, we sort of see ourselves in this river of life.

[Church bells] [Silence] FATHER KEELEY: So, rather than pride, you know, the role is to hand it on, carry it, maybe improve it.

[voice breaks] [Soft pensive music] FATHER KEELEY: Yeah, then turn it over.

I mean, you know the value.

So, if you wanted to be proud [laughs], but there is a real sense of, you know, this isn't ours to keep.

It isn't mine personally.

[Wind blowing] [Monks chanting fades in] [Chanting continues]