Local Brewery Attempts to Brew Beer Using Only Gregorian Chant – Results…Divinely Murky

The esteemed (and frankly, slightly unhinged) brewers at ‘Hops & Hosannas’ have announced the completion of their latest, and arguably most ambitious, project: a Belgian Tripel brewed *entirely* using the vibrational energy of Gregorian chant. Yes, you read that correctly. No hops. No barley. Just monks. Well, recordings of monks, anyway. Apparently, the lead brewer, a Mr. Bartholomew ‘Barty’ Finch, believes the sonic resonance of ancient liturgical music will ‘unlock the true essence of fermentation.’ I attended the tasting this afternoon, bracing myself for either enlightenment or a truly terrible stomach ache. It was…both. The resulting beverage, dubbed ‘Benedictus Brew,’ is a pale, unsettling gold, and smells faintly of beeswax and existential dread. The taste? Imagine a cloudy apple juice that’s been lectured at by a philosophy professor for three hours. It’s…complex. And surprisingly, it *does* have a slight effervescence, which Barty attributes to the ‘spiritual uplift’ of the chants. Several attendees reported experiencing vivid, albeit confusing, dreams after a single sip. One woman claimed to have briefly understood the plot of Wagner’s *Ring Cycle*. Another insisted he could communicate with squirrels. I, personally, just felt a profound sense of longing for a properly hopped IPA. Barty, however, remains undeterred. He’s already planning his next experiment: a stout fermented using only the collected sighs of disappointed theater critics. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting that one. It’s bound to be a masterpiece of melancholy.