France is not a country noted for it’s beers. In the North East there is the border with Belgium, a country famous for producing it’s own style of traditional beers. Most English visitors to France enter via the Northern ports of Calais and Boulogne before heading south through an area known for it’s ‘Biere de Garde’ or Beer for keeping. To the far west, Brittany has become an interesting destination for the beer drinker especially during the summer months when a number of micro-breweries around the coast seem to spring to life. There is however a large area in between; South of Caen, Le-Havre and Cherbourg that is as yet devoid of it’s own breweries yet still a good agricultural area and on the main tourist routes into France. This is Normandy and it is still largely unserved by it’s own breweries. Normandy and Orne have a large population of British people all year round both as permanent residents and seasonal tourists. Local French people are also known to have an interest in a good ‘half litre' and there are even true ‘pubs’ around the region that sell the premium Belgian beers and would surely be interested in a good local product. It was this thinking that drove Steve Skews and Steve Green into asking themselves ‘why don’t we set up a brewery?’.
Steve and Jane Skews have lived in an Old Cider farm in Normandy for a number of years. This farm was also one of the ancient forges of Normandy and was producing in the 11th Century so could have played a part in forging the weapons for the Norman Invasion of England. The storms of the Winter of 1999 also destroyed a large part of the orchard so cider apples would be in short supply for a few years. Steve and Sue Green, (Jane’s sister) live in Wickwar near Bristol. Wickwar has sprouted two breweries of it’s own – not entirely due to Steve living in the village but he has been a keen customer of one of them for a number of years.
The two Steve's discussed the idea over a long evening and decided to formally investigate the feasibility of setting up a new brewery at the farm. Their initial investigations and visits to neighbouring breweries – 200km away, suggested it could work. The next step was to employ a consultant and get the opinion of a qualified third party. David Smith used to be head brewer for Sam Smiths and now operates as a brewing consultant. David visited the farm in late 2000 to assess the viability of setting up a micro-brewery. His report listed a number of hurdles to overcome but showed that a brewery could be installed and operated in some of the buildings on the old farm. To call them buildings was a loose interpretation as considerable work would be needed to make the site suitable but again it was not impossible.
By this stage, the two Steve’s had become very keen on the idea and started to see themselves as on a mission to introduce good beer to Normandy. Steve Skews started to make contact with the French authorities at this time to see what regulations would apply and how the business could be set up. Apart from the difficulties with the language, there were numerous permissions and licences required before a brewery could be established. Jane played a valuable part in this process as she has the best French language skills and gradually one by one the hurdles were overcome.
The laws in France related to brewing are somewhat different to the UK and many of the French authorities in Normandy simply did not know what regulations applied. It had been decided that to establish the business, the brewery needed to be up and running by April 2001 in order to reach the Summer fetes and tourists in the region. This meant setting up a company, buying and installing brewing equipment, establishing recipes and launching within 4 months. Ambitious, but not impossible.
During December and January, Jane and Steve spent much of their time dealing with the French officials in order to register a brewing business and understand the regulatory requirements. The authorities in France seemed to have no clear guidelines for the regulatory process so getting approval to proceed was a time consuming and demanding exercise not helped by the language barrier. It was only eased along by the fact the farm had been producing cider for many years.
In parallel with the French negotiations, the two Steves along with David Smith, were locating suitable brewing equipment. Time and cost would not allow buying new plant, so a search for second hand equipment was started. The two Steve’s visited a number of potential breweries before deciding on one particularly suitable brewery. The Worldham brewery near Alton in Hampshire was seen as the right choice. This was of the ideal brew length and in a good location for transportation to France as it was also close to Portsmouth. The brewery at Worldham was a 10 barrel plant with certain extras that allowed it’s use as a 5 or possibly 15 barrel plant. This was a good flexible and future-proof solution for a new company setting up in a new market in a new country.
Once the deal was completed with Hugo Sharpe, the owner of the Worldham brewery, the next and again not trivial task was to relocate the equipment to France. A team of engineers, electricians and other much appreciated helpers assembled at the Worldham brewery for a cold weekend in mid January to dismantle the existing brewery. The brewery at Worldham had evolved over many years and it was hard to believe the building was not built around the pipework rather than the pipes fitted into a building. Much of the plant had also been welded into the building structure so the task was challenging. Somehow, the entire brewery was dismantled and loaded onto a number of containers for shipment to France by the Monday morning. Much gratitude must be expressed to Geoff Price and Pete Kirkham for their part in this exercise.
At the French end of the journey, the ‘road’ to the farm was not suitable for the lorries containing the brewery to proceed, so a local goods yard was the next destination. From there, a convoy of farmer’s tractors and a muck spreader would complete the journey. The brewery had arrived!
The new home for the brewing equipment was originally a line of stable type farm buildings. This was deemed suitable as a line of buildings would allow for the different temperature areas such as fermentation, boiling and storage areas all in a line related to the production process. Areas above the main work areas would support a grist mill and malt store.
The brewery aims to launch in May with two beers at launch. One a lighter golden coloured beer to appeal to the french taste and the other a more hopped darker ‘ale’. The first will be named Norman Gold with an ABV of 4.9% and the other named Conquérant with an ABV of 5.5%. A third beer will be phased in later and named after Bishop Odo. This later beer will be a darker stout like beer at an ABV of 6.8%. All of these details are subject to possible change as we near launch..
This article is being written while the equipment is being re-assembled and will be published as the product becomes available to market so much will have happened by the time this is read. In the meantime, more information will be available from the brewery website: www.le-brewery.com. Visitors are welcome any time by appointment and again maps can be found on the website. Alternatively, ‘Le-Brewery’ can be contacted by telephone on +33 233 377 726 or by by fax +33 233 377 727 or in the UK on fax 0870 161 7566. E-mail is available direct from the website. E-mail addresses are (English) ukoffice@le-brewery.com or French lebureaufrancais@le-brewery.com.