Three breweries on the plan of St Gall
The Plan of St Gall is a large drawing on five sheets of parchment, made in the early ninth century, probably at the monastery of Reichenau, and kept ever since in the abbey library of St Gall in Switzerland. It shows an ideal monastery with a church, cloisters, workshops, a hospital, a school, gardens and farm buildings. It was never built as drawn, but it records what a well-run house was expected to contain.
It also contains three breweries. One was for the monks. A second served distinguished guests, and a third was for pilgrims and the poor. Each had its own brewhouse next to a bakery and a granary, and the quality of the beer was meant to follow the standing of the drinker.
Why monasteries brewed
Water was not always safe, and beer made from boiled wort was a dependable drink. Monasteries also had the grain, the fuel and the labour, and they were obliged to offer hospitality, which meant feeding and watering travellers in numbers. Over the following centuries many abbeys became large and respected producers, and some of them still brew today.
The plan is a reminder that brewing was routine work before it was a trade. It sat in the same group of buildings as the bread oven and the mill.