Church marks 750th year with beer

Awesome.

Friday, November 27, 2009, 23:00

CELEBRATIONS to mark an East Devon church's 750th birthday will take place next week.

Ottery St Mary Parish Church will celebrate 750 years on Friday, December 4, with a candlelit service led by the Bishop of Exeter, the Right Rev Michael Langrish.

The service, which begins at 7.30pm, will reflect on the church's past, celebrate its present role and look to the next 750 years.

The church choir will be joined by choirs from other local churches at this communion service.

After the service, there will be refreshments available including a beer, The Bronescombe Ale, brewed for the occasion by O'Hanlon's Brewery, Whimple.

The beer has been named after Bishop Walter Bronescombe who, on the feast of St Andrew in 1259, arrived in Ottery St Mary and dedicated the Church of Sancte Marie de Otery.

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also this is cool:

Church ales were events, not drinks, fundraising happenings designed to raise money for the parish: similar fundraisers by newly married couples were called “bride ales”, from which, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, our modern word “bridal” is derived.

”Bridal”, now an adjective, was originally a noun, “bride ale”, meaning “wedding feast”, with “ale”, the drink word, taking on the extended meaning of “celebration”. The same semantic extension is seen in the Irish expression for feasting, “coirm agus ceol”, which literally means “ale and song” (well, what else does a celebration consist of?).