Oregon’s hilltop abbey has monk-brewed beer and a Finnish masterpiece

Four volcanoes from one monastery lawn

You drive an hour south of Portland, turn off the highway near a small town, and climb a wooded road to the top of a butte that rises 485 feet above the Willamette Valley.

Mount Angel Abbey sits up here on 350 acres of old trees, wide lawns, and solid Romanesque brick. On a clear day, you can see Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Rainier from the grounds.

Black-robed monks cross the campus between prayers. The whole place feels like it stopped keeping time a long time ago.

Swiss monks who rebuilt twice after fire

Benedictine monks from Engelberg Abbey in Switzerland founded this community in 1882. “Engelberg” translates to “mountain of angels” in German, which gave the hilltop and the town below their English name.

Fire destroyed the place in 1892 and again in 1926, and the monks rebuilt both times. They also started the oldest Catholic seminary west of the Rockies in 1889.

Today about 50 monks live on the hilltop, following a daily rhythm of prayer and work.

A world-famous library nobody expected

In the 1960’s, the abbey librarian traveled to Europe and personally talked acclaimed Finnish architect Alvar Aalto into designing a new library. Aalto agreed to do it for a very small fee.

The building went up in 1970, and it remains one of only two Aalto-designed structures in the entire country, the only one in the western half.

You walk in and find curving white walls, a fan-shaped layout, and skylights that pull natural light deep into every corner.

Three floors hidden inside the hill

Only the top floor sits at campus level. The other two stories and a mezzanine descend into the hillside, so the interior opens up and drops away as you move deeper inside.

Aalto designed all the furniture and fixtures too, making this one of the largest collections of his furnishings in North America.

The library holds one of the most important theological collections in the Pacific Northwest. Jazz legend Duke Ellington performed at the dedication ceremony in 1970.

You can visit during daytime hours on weekdays and limited weekend hours.

A former software engineer brews for God

The abbey opened its own brewery in 2018, making it one of the few monastic breweries running in the United States. Father Martin Grassel, a former software engineer who became a monk, runs the operation.

He grows hops on abbey land, draws water from the monks’ own well, and gives every batch of beer a priestly blessing at each stage of production.

All profits go back to the abbey and to local and regional charities.

Cold beer with a view of hop fields

The St. Michael Taproom sits just down the hill from the main grounds on Humpert Lane.

You can try the flagship dark ale Black Habit, a helles, a farmhouse ale, and a trippel. Inside, there are tables and seats. Outside, picnic tables look out over the hop fields and surrounding hills.

Father Martin produces about 230 barrels a year with just a few helping hands, and monks sometimes walk down to the taproom to chat with whoever shows up.

Bison and Civil War relics in the basement

The museum started in 1888 as a teaching tool for the biology department of the abbey’s old high school, and it lives on the lower level of the monastery building.

You will find mounted bison, elk, bears, and birds from the Pacific Northwest filling the displays.

Rocks, minerals, and fossils line the shelves alongside religious artifacts, antique vestments, and Civil War memorabilia. The collection is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. , and there is no admission fee.

Bells that carry across the valley

The Romanesque-style church sits at the center of life on the hilltop. Monks gather five times a day to chant the Liturgy of the Hours, and you can sit in and listen.

Near the front of the church stands a statue of Mary carved in Austria in a 16th-century style, given to the abbey in the 1930’s. The church tower holds some of the largest free-swinging bells on the West Coast.

A bell tower added in 2007 for the abbey’s 125th anniversary holds eight bells.

Walk past statues from 1889 Munich

Fourteen Stations of the Cross line the entrance road up the hill, with statuary from Munich, Germany, dating to 1889. Pilgrims and visitors walk this paved path in prayer, ending at the Grotto of Mary at the top.

A small chapel built in 1883 sits in the monks’ cemetery and is the oldest structure on the hilltop.

Walking paths wind through open oak woodlands where wildflowers bloom and birds like Western Bluebirds and Lazuli Buntings show up in season. The grounds are quiet, uncrowded, and free.

Coffee and a room with no television

The Abbey Bookstore and Coffeehouse operates out of the Press Building, where you can grab coffee and browse books, gifts, and religious items.

If you want to stay longer, the Saint Benedict Guesthouse and Retreat Center sits on the south slope of the hilltop with valley farmland about 300 feet below.

People of all faiths can book a private retreat with a simple room and meals. The rooms have no televisions, by design, to encourage quiet.

The guesthouse was recently renovated with updated rooms, conference spaces, and terraces.

Vespers then a picnic on the lawn

Each summer the abbey hosts a multi-evening classical music festival. The evenings start with the monks singing Vespers in the church, followed by a short organ concert.

Then you head out to the lawn for a picnic buffet supper with views stretching across the valley. A featured classical performance follows in the Damian Center.

The festival has run for decades and tickets often sell out well in advance, so check early if you want to go.

300,000 people and the tallest glockenspiel

The town of Mount Angel sits at the base of the hill with Bavarian-style storefronts that reflect its German and Swiss roots.

Every September since 1966, the town hosts the Mount Angel Oktoberfest, the largest folk festival in the Pacific Northwest, drawing more than 300,000 visitors over four days for traditional food, music, and dancing.

Mount Angel also has the tallest glockenspiel in the United States, a 49-foot tower built in 2006. The nearby Oregon Garden and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Gordon House in Silverton sit a short drive away.

Visit Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon

You can reach Mount Angel Abbey at 1 Abbey Drive, Saint Benedict, Ore. , about an hour south of Portland.

The grounds, church, library, museum, bookstore, and brewery are all open to visitors, and there is no admission fee for the grounds. The library is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and weekends with limited hours.

The taproom is open Wednesday through Sunday. Check the official website for current hours, retreat availability, and event schedules.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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