Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 9, 2022
Saint Vincent Beer was a dark lager brewed by monks at Saint Vincent Archabbey in Unity Township, Pennsylvania, between 1856 and 1918. It was brewed with the permission of Pope Pius IX after a dispute with the local diocese. The brewery was in a log cabin near the gristmill and supplemented by a brick building in 1868. Production peaked at around 1,100 barrels in 1891. Its popularity brought the monastery to the attention of the Catholic temperance movement. In 1895, Francesco Satolli, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, wrote to Archabbot Leander Schnerr asking for brewing to be stopped. A media campaign and criticism in Father George Zurcher's Monks and Their Decline led to the end of external sale by 1900, although the monks brewed for internal use for another 18 years. After the brewery was closed in 1918 by Archabbot Aurelius Stehle, the buildings were used for storage until they burned down in 1926. The recipe may have been lost, sold, or never written down. (Full article...)