Brewing beer

In part this is because of the way beer has become industrialised over the last century, with standardised production greatly reducing its diversity and gustatory appeal. And yet beer is an age-old beverage whose roots lie in ancestral savoir-faire and rich and diverse soils all around the world.

However, since the 1980s there has been a renaissance of small, local, artisanal breweries. This community of brewers and amateurs is reintroducing diversity into beer by employing a variety of techniques and above all a wide range of ingredients. This guide invites us to join the movement and redis- cover how innovative beer can be as we meet the small-scale brewers who are setting up shop all over France.
They include Charlotte and Alexis Champoiseau, who founded the Jean Brasse artisanal and organic brewery in the heart of the Gers in 2015. In this book, they share their recipes, advice and useful addresses for becoming an amateur brewer and joining a dynamic network of initiatives dedicated to craft beer. In our cuisine but also at the scale of our regions, it is possible to make and drink beer differently. So let’s drink to the challenge and to many an evening spent setting the world to rights over a pint of the very best.