Last orders: Trappist beers at risk as vocations drop away

For nearly 190 years the monks of Westmalle in northern Belgium have been involved in making beer.

- Jennifer Rankin

They began brewing in this corner of Flanders in 1836 to have an alternative to milk or water with their daily bread. Today, Westmalle is an international brand, producing 40m bottles of three varieties of beer a year, mostly for Belgium and the Netherlands, but also enjoyed by beer connoisseurs in Britain, France, Italy and beyond.

Yet uncertainties hover over the future of Trappist beer production when fewer people are drawn to a life of monastic contemplation.

"It must be admitted that the state of most monastic communities is precarious," said Brother Benedikt, the abbot of Westmalle, in a rare media interview in which he answered the Observer's questions in writing, then translated from his native Dutch.