Engelszell Abbey

Engelszell was founded as a Cistercian house in 1293, dissolved by Joseph II, and refounded in 1925 by Trappists expelled from Alsace - making it the only Trappist monastery in Austria. The church was rebuilt in the 1750s and is rococo: Johann Georg Üblhör's stucco and a ceiling fresco begun by Bartolomeo Altomonte and completed after wartime damage by Fritz Fröhlich, in a modern manner that is visibly not eighteenth-century, which the abbey does not disguise. Trappist practice includes supporting the house by manual work, and the community has produced liqueurs and cheese for decades and, since 2012, beer - one of a small number of breweries worldwide entitled to the Authentic Trappist Product mark, which requires brewing inside the walls under monastic control.

What you actually see

• Austria's only Trappist house - refounded in 1925 by monks expelled from Alsace.
• A rococo church - Üblhör stucco with a fresco finished in the twentieth century.
• Trappist beer - brewed inside the walls under the order's authenticity rules.
• Liqueurs and cheese - the older products of the community's manual work.

When to go

April to October; the shop keeps its own hours. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The monastery itself is enclosed - only the church and shop are open. The community is small and elderly. Beer production is limited and can sell out. Photography inside is restricted.

Nearby

Passau is upstream in Germany; the Schlögener Schlinge is downstream.