Faith led a family of home brewers to share their brews with friends and acquaintances, but social media likes led them to take the next step and brew their beer commercially.

After three years of pleading and dozens upon dozens of likes from fans on X, Facebook and other social media sites, Tridentine Brewing is finally selling its brews commercially.

The tiny brewing company is made up of Trevor Alcorn, his father Jeff and his brother Cameron, and their brews finally are available for sale in Wisconsin, where they contract brew with Karben4 Brewing in Madison. The brewing trio, however, are based in Illinois, outside of Kankakee.

Jeff actually brewed beer with his father in the 1980s and 1990s, but it wasn’t until Trevor discovered the brewing equipment in the basement in 2013 that the three of them started brewing beer together. “We started casually, brewing three or four times a year, but then my father, our brewmaster, retired from his day job, and we decided to take this up to the next level of home brewing,” Trevor says.

Tridentine Brewing started out as one of the more than 1 million homebrewers in the United States, according to the American Homebrewers Association. According to the Brewers Association, craft brewers represent a $28.9 billion market.

They started making more complex styles, and in 2019, they decided to call their brewing endeavors “Tridentine Brewing,” which is named for the Latin or traditional Catholic Mass their family attends. “We wanted a name that paid homage to tradition so we went with Tridentine, named for the Tridentine or Council of Trent from where the Mass was from,” Trevor says.

Though they didn’t plan it, naming their company Tridentine is on trend, with the Latin Mass growing in the United States, with more than 600 churches offering it.

But the Alcorn family didn’t just name their beers. “My brother is a graphic designer so he started to design the labels, and the three of us would collaborate to come up with a theme,” Trevor says. “They were way more elaborate than most home brewers. They were an interesting thing to share and to inspire others to find a way to share their own faith, too.”

So, each of their beers had a back story and an elaborate label. The labels – and names of the beers – were quite stepped up for home brewing, and Trevor, who leads their marketing efforts, would post pictures and photos on social media, and people started asking where they could find the beers for purchase.

For example, they made a Vienna lager named for Blessed Karl of Austria, a man who is one step away from Catholic sainthood. “The response we got from people was so positive, and lots of people wanted to buy it from us, but as homebrewers, we couldn’t sell them,” Trevor says. “People would say ‘Then can we make a ‘donation’ for a beer?’”

They, however, only gave them away to family and friends. But their online fans kept asking them when they might actually go commercial. So, finally, they released their first beer for sale: Cristeros.

Cristeros is a re-release of one of their home brews. “A couple of years ago, a Mexican family who is friends with my father approached him after church one day and asked him ‘Have you ever done a beer for the Cristeros?’” Trevor says. “My father says ‘Okay, I’ll read up on it.’”

The Cristeros, they learned, were a group of Mexicans who stood up against government tyranny against the Catholic Church in the 1920s. “The government was really suppressing the Catholic Church, shutting down churches, executing priests and exiling bishops,” Trevor says. “The people organically rose up, and they brought the government to a standstill.”

The beer, of course, is a Mexican lager. Their second release is Quartermaster Jerry blonde ale, which is named for their grandfather who was a Navy veteran, and their third release is Dies Irae, which means “day of wrath” in Latin, and it is an imperial stout, which references the final judgment.

“Not to be morbid, but that beer gets to what is the purpose of life,” Trevor says. “It’s not dark just to be dark for dark’s sake, but to really focus more on the important things in life.”

Cristeros Mexican Lager and Quartermaster Jerry Blonde Ale are sold in six packs while Dies Irae Imperial Stout is sold in a four pack, with each retailing for $10.99. Fans can find their beer here.

Since their beers have made their commercial debut, Trevor and his family have been focusing on growing their Wisconsin accounts and getting their name out. By the end of this year, they hope to expand their distribution to include their home state of Illinois. “Business is steadily growing,” Trevor says. “The beers allow us to have conversations about our faith that wouldn’t happen any other way. The artwork draws you in, and then people ask questions.”