Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

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killer
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Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by killer » Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:48 pm

Wasn't sure where to put this but here we go...

If there any francophiles ! (or anyone willing to have a go !)
A partner and I are setting up a small brewery in France… In fact the brewery already exists – it is registered and legitimate business but produces a tiny volume of beer. We are just ordering all the bits and pieces and in about 3 months we should be able to output about 4 – 5 hL a day. My brewing partner will be quitting his day job around that time to work full time on the project and the plan is to brew two days of the week initially and then keg the majority of the beer.

My partner is a bit of a dreamer and has placed the emphasis on locally (in as far as is possible – French Malt and Hops) produced products with minimal distance travelled, minimal Carbon footprint and in as environmentally sound a way as possible. His (life) partner is a landscape gardener and she has set up a group which encourages the growing of hops in local gardens and public places. The idea is to use them in some of the beers. The idea is very community driven. The name of the brewery is MIR (Made In Romainville – a neighbourhood outside Paris). I arrived a little bit later to the project. While he has a handle on the administrational side of the thing, I have a fair amount of experience with brewing (dad was a brewer) and working with French microbreweries.

We are looking for any support (in the form of votes) that anyone might be able to give. To be clear – while we have set up a crowd funding page we’re not looking for any financial support – but we have set up a project to recover unsold bread from local bakeries (it is France !) with which we will brew a stout (early experiments are quite successful – the high salt content suits this type of beer). Our project was selected as a finalist for La Fabrique aviva, so if we finish in the top 200 projects we receive 2000 euros. We’ll probably buy a large hop/ bread freezer with some of the money. If we receive a lot of votes, that amount could increase.

https://lafabrique-france.aviva.com/vot ... ue/30-1346

They give financial support to these type of community orientated ideas.

If anyone is interested I’ll post some more about the direction the brewery is taking, as well as some of the established and experimental hops we have received from Alsace… I’m particularly keen about a hop called Barbe Rouge (RedBeard). It is a very Red Berry/ Bubblegum hop that may well form the basis of our hoppy pale ale.

Cheers,

Cillian

Manngold
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Re: Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by Manngold » Fri Mar 23, 2018 11:04 pm

That was a really interesting read. Best of luck. The stout sounds interesting and I love the community nature!

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IPA
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Re: Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by IPA » Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:28 am

In my experience of living and brewing in France for the last eighteen years what French drinkers prefer is English and Belgian beer. A local micro brews a beer called Barbe Rouge and it is awful as are the rest of their beers. So I think success would come more easily with good basic brews not with following the North American path of change just to be different. The French used to brew decent beer many years ago long before Biere de Luxe was offered by the big brewers as the only choice. If you want a bit of nostalgia why not offer up a Grisette or any other beer or style of yesteryear. Pelforth Brune whether you like it or not has been going strong since Les Annees Folle . Even that however has been re formulated recently and is no where as good now.
Whatever you do I wish you success in the venture but please remember that your taste in beer may not be that of your customers and they are the ones who are buying.
"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." Dean Martin

1. Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming... "f*ck, what a trip

It's better to lose time with friends than to lose friends with time (Portuguese proverb)

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TheSumOfAllBeers
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Re: Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by TheSumOfAllBeers » Mon Mar 26, 2018 4:04 pm

Make sure you understand the economics of it 3-4 hL is about 2.5 BBL. I believe 5 BBL ~ 6.5 hL is the break even point to extract a livelihood, and that's presuming you are working it at full tilt.

My experience of French beers and microbrews is similar to IPA - different and wierd for the sake of it, often with production problems. When it's good, it's never as good as the closest equivalent style from Belgium

killer
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Re: Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by killer » Mon Mar 26, 2018 4:26 pm

Thanks for chiming in !

IPA - I agree with you completely... The reality is that more than 90% of beers sold here are still "standard" mass produced beers - be it 1664, "blanche", ambrée or the crappy new aromatic beers with tequila or berry flavourings added. We will be producing a couple of standard beers which fit in with what the locals want - we'll use some alsacien hops (maybe strisselspalt or aramis). Clean drinkable malt forward beers. I enjoy them too. We'll have a couple other standard styles. I know at least 5 micros who sell a lot of "Blanche" - they all have the same yeast - for one 40 hL brewery it represent 30% of their sales even they have a range of about 15 beers. The brewer/ owner doesn't even like the beer (he prefers big hoppy beers) but the locals love the boring 7% blanche and sink pint after pint... the flavour is 99% yeast dominated. 3 micros I spoke with in Brittany told me the same thing - people ask for it so we brew it.

That said, If you want to make a name for yourself rapidly, a mastery of current fashionable beers helps. I brewed and kegged a NEIPA for a brewery event and people went crazy for it - and this wasn"t a crowd of hipster bobo parisiens - they were just locals coming to upport the brewery. I do like these beers though - though not at any cost - I've reworked my recipe for these beers about 20 times to get to something I really enjoy which stll has malt and texture. The muddiness is an unfortunate side-effect.

TSOAB - Margins over here are higher than in the UK. I know a few people living off 2 hL production. If you brew well, and most importantly social network well you can get a decent price. A huge advantage is the large amount of festivals going on - where brewers turn up with their own serving gear. Or even local village festivals which are very common during the summer. You can jump from say 4 euros a litre sale price to 14 euros a litre for a "fashionable" beer... So 6 30L kegs is well over 2 grand even including the cost of the festival (often free for a village fest). The waste of beer at these events by people who cannot manage line, keg and serving pressure is mind-blowing however...

Touchstone
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Re: Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by Touchstone » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:19 am

I wish you luck with your venture, you may find some pointers from the o clock Brewery in Bois d’ Arcy , near to Paris.They are brewing some fantastic beers mainly with American hops, the world is beating a path to them as am I when I visit my daughter who lives just around the corner from them

killer
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Re: Support for a New French (Oo-Er!) Brewery

Post by killer » Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:52 am

Cheers Touchstone,

I spent two days with O clock last year helping them with water chemistry (I'm a chemist) ! They do make good beers...

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