Vestry
A church in Oslo, eight windows and a brewing year built to match. The source of the inspiration that built the brand.
The Church
There is a church in Oslo with eight stained glass windows that depict eight saints of the north. While sitting in that church I began to wonder about the figures — the lives they led and the virtues they embodied. I was also thinking about taking up brewing, and looking for a way to set it on firmer ground. It soon became clear that those windows and the saints within were to be my guides in creating a range of beers that would serve as a homage to them. I would imbue my work with the virtues that made these men and women worthy of veneration.
The Calendar
Three values drawn from those eight lives shaped the range. Measure came first. A Czech beer hall pours two things, light and dark. That sense of proportion and sufficiency started the range with two year-round staples. Observance added four more. To observe a season is to keep it as a rite, and each season is met with the beer that belongs to it. Solemnity added the final two. A Solemnity is the highest rank of feast day, and two of them carry a beer of their own: Easter and Christmas.
The Name
Solemnity is also where the name comes from: the idea that a celebration can be serious and light-hearted at once. Bieritus Sanctus plays on Spiritus Sanctus — the Holy Spirit — and I think it says what beer is supposed to be. Beer is not the subject. It is the occasion: what gathers people, and what keeps them at the table long enough to talk. It is light-hearted in form and serious in essence.
- Object
- Subject