There comes a time in every monk’s life when they have to stand up and be counted – and that’s precisely what happened to the monks at the Abbey of St. Sixtus of Westvleteren, where the foundations of their Abbey were declared structurally unsound. 29 Trappist monks, with an average age of 54, lived at the Abbey, and just like many other Trappist orders, brewing their own extremely special beer – Westvleteren 12 – purely to get by. Benedictine rules, you see. Four of them dealt with the actual brewing, while eleven more were involved in the bottling and labelling process.
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