Fasting on beer? Rethinking Lent

If it’s Friday and it’s Lent, it’s a day of fast and abstinence for believers.

And if you’re still casting about for ideas for a Lenten fast, you could do worse than J. Wilson did several years ago: He fasted on beer as monks of old did, and wrote about the experience in a CNN blog and a book.

His journey was recounted in a report this week by the Catholic News Agency.

With the blessing of his boss at The Adams County Free Press in Iowa, Wilson drank four beers a day during the week and five on weekends, he says.

His goal was to live on beer and water for 46 days, the traditional period of observance (Sundays included) by the 17th century monks outside Munich where Wilson got the idea.

Wilson says that to make it through Lent the monks of Neudeck ob der Au developed a rich-and-malty doppelbock that was packed with carbohydrates, calories and vitamins. “Liquid bread” was its nickname.

A home brewer and self-proclaimed “beer geek,” Wilson hooked up with the head brewer at a restaurant and brewery in West Des Moines and concocted a batch for his Lenten experiment.

For the first two days he was hungry, he says. “My body then switched gears, replaced hunger with focus, and I found myself operating in a tunnel of clarity unlike anything I’d ever experienced.”

He was tempted by smells, he says. “But the willpower to carry out my objective brought peace to the ‘Oh man that cheeseburger smells good’ thoughts.”

And though he says he lost 25 pounds by the time it was over, his fast provided a “long-overdue tune-up and detox” (ironically). He adds, “I’ve never felt so rejuvenated, physically or mentally.”

What he learned, he says, is that the “story of the monks fasting on doppelbock was not only possible, but probable.”

“It left me with the realization that the monks must have been keenly aware of their own humanity and imperfections.”

We’ll drink a doppelbock to that.

This story was originally published March 3, 2017 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Fasting on beer? Rethinking Lent."