A Confession...

I'm not a good Lutheran.

All this talk about "beer" and male bonding at the White House over a beer has made me ponder my own iniquity as a Lutheran.

I have maybe consumed a half-dozen beers in the past year. I have a little fridge in my office that has beers in it from last year's Oktoberfest. Wait, we didn't have one last year! Those beers must be going on two years old. I wonder if they're bad...

See what I mean?

I had a beer with my dad once (when I was maybe 25 years old) at the Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio Oktoberfest. I was pretty proud of myself for getting more than halfway through the plastic cup. My poor Pop!

In fact, I was not converted to beer-drinking until seminary. We had a custom known as Gemuetlichkeit - a German word that means "goodtimeliness" or some such. It is the German version of the Cajun: "Laissez les bons temps rouler!" ("Let the good times roll!"). Every Friday after Vespers, we had a couple of kegs from Mad Anthony's, a local Fort Wayne microbrewery. Seminary students, their wives, and professors would drink beer and talk theology for hours. It was great fun, edifying, and became like another elective class. It also provided opportunities to get to know the men we would be serving with as parish pastors. And it did, as I said, bring me to a conversion of sorts.

But since leaving seminary, I have backslidden into my old Baptist ways.

But then I saw this beer. And, being a traditionalist Lutheran and a student of the French and Latin languages, I had to buy a sixpack and try it. After all, it is Belgian, it comes from L'Abbaye de Leffe, and the beer dates back to "Anno 1240" - which is actually older than the Heinekens in my fridge.

It's a lovely beer. I don't have the technical vocabulary to explain what it tastes like, so I'll just say that I really like it, and you can try it for yourself. If you want an expert review, here is one.

You can read more about it here. The remarkable (and tragic) story of the Leffe Abbey and its tumultuous eight centuries of monasticism and beer can be found here, in this series of short online videos. Pilgrims and tourists can visit the Abbey, and more information is available here.

But even if you can't make a journey to Belgium, you can still vicariously take part in the Abbey's rich history by ordering yourself a Leffe.

As part of my penance, I'm trying to be more vigilant in upholding our Lutheran traditions...