Yankee Brew News Archive

New Hampshire College Honors Brewing Alumni With Beer Festival

Originally Published: 08/96

By: Kerry J. Byrne

Harvard University produces presidents and the University of Miami (Ohio) is famed for its football coaches.

But tiny St. Anselm's College in Goffstown, New Hampshire has something on both those institutions: it has developed the brains of brewers who make some of the best beer in the country.

No less than five Anselmnians, as they like to be called, are brewers. Greg Noonan (Vermont Pub & Brewery), Ray McConnell (Emerald Isle Brew Works), Tony Vieria (Brew Moon), Jim Killeen (Nutfield Brewing Company) and Greg Kelly (Atlanta Brewing Company) are all graduates of the small liberal arts college of approximately 2,000 undergraduates.

Just as important as the brewers it graduates is the pride the school takes in its brewing legacy. For the second consecutive year, alumni weekend at the school included a brewers' festival featuring the work of these five men. This year alumni weekend took place June 7, 8 and 9 and all but Kelly were able to attend. The Atlanta resident, busy preparing for the Olympics, did send some his beer, however.

Organized by the school's alumni office and set up under a large tent, the mini-festival gave a chance for these five to display their brewing skills to former classmates and other alumni. "We'll probably continue to run this again," Dennis Lynch, St. Anselm's director of alumni, said. "It was very, very popular both years."

McConnell says that an affinity for beer and brewing is part of the heritage of the Benedictine monks who founded the school in 1889. "We're the brewing Anselmnians, in the Benedictine tradition," said McConnell. "That's the Benedictine thing. They made things. They were self-sufficient. They had all kinds of animals, vegetables, farms. They didn't have a brewery in (New Hampshire), but I'm sure that they brewed beer at the Benedictine monastery in New Jersey."

Brother Malachy of St. Anselm's College said the brewery was actually at St. Vincent's Archabbey in the well-known brewing town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He said the Benedictine monks came to the United States from Matten, Bavaria, where it was a "custom that they brewed their own beer."

McConnell reportedly suffered a family crisis when his son, Matt, committed heresy by attending Boston College, a Jesuit institution. "Those Jesuits, they just philosophize," said McConnell. "They were into education, not beer." Several Boston College alumni disagree with McConnell's assertion that Jesuits are not interested in beer. In fact, two Yankee Brew News writers and devoted beer lovers (including this writer) are graduates of Boston College. St. Anselm's makes people who make beer. BC lovingly develops in its students--through time-honored traditions such as keg stands, beer funnels and 12-hour tailgate parties --a healthy respect for beer and the beer sciences, which manifests itself in the printed word.