User:Rev Lee/sandbox

A specific prayer for beer blessing can be found in the Roman Ritual (Latin: Rituale Romanum) published in 1614. This church manual details all the ceremonies and chants that a priest may perform: sacraments, processions and blessings. The beer blessing prayer can be found under a sub-title, ‘Blessings of things designated for ordinary use’. The prayer asks God to bless the beer that it might be a ‘salutary remedy for the human race’ and that those who drink it with thanksgiving may obtain ‘health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul’. This section of the ceremonial book also contains blessings for cheese, seeds, salt or oats, animals, fishing boats, and tools used by mountain climbers.

In August 2016, Father Lee Taylor from Croydon Minster blessed the beer at Croydon's oldest pub, The Dog & Bull. The short ceremony thanked God for His work in creation and for the fruits of the earth that come to us through the work of human hands.

Blessing beer can be linked to the agricultural festivals that go back many years. In ancient society, working the land was critically important for people, so the Church – being at the centre of theses communities – began to develop blessing rites around the agricultural year.

Not only can the ritual of blessing beer be associated with these great agricultural festivals, this tradition goes back to the monasteries of the medieval period. European monasteries, many of which were brewhouses, prided themselves on being centres of hospitality, and beer would have been readily available to visitors and pilgrims. The monks of Rochefort Abbey in Belgium still brew and bless their beer today.