What's brewing in Brittany

Ted Bruning visits Brasserie Coreff, a microbrwery making waves in Brittany

It’s an unexpected treat to be offered a pint of well-kept ale in a hotel bar. It’s doubly unexpected if the hotel in question happens to be in France. But head for Carhaix in the middle of western Brittany, and book yourself into the Hotel Noz Vad (it’s Breton for “goodnight”) right next to the church, and that’s the treat that awaits you.

You can’t have dinner there – for some reason the hotel has no restaurant. But after an enormous pavé d’entrecôte at the bistro round the corner, you can round off your evening with a pint or two (well, 500ml, but in a pint-shaped glass) of genuine cask-conditioned Coreff Ambrée from the hotel bar’s handpump.

How craft beer came to be available at a fairly ordinary (though very comfortable and hospitable) two-star hotel in one of Brittany’s less touristy towns (for Carhaix, it has to be said, is no Concarneau), is a long story – more than 25 years long, in fact.

The Brasserie Deux Rivières – Coreff’s original name – was founded by two bank employees from Brest, Christian Blanchard and Jean-Francois Malgorn, who discovered beer while (or, more accurately, after) running in a marathon in Cardiff in 1984 (so it was probably Brain’s). The discovery inspired them to start a brewery of their own: according to Correff’s current director Paul Begot: “They saw breweries being set up in Britain and thought, ‘pourquoi pas nous?’” Their research soon led them to that midwife of microbrewing, Ringwood founder Peter Austin, who sourced and installed .....

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By Ted Bruning

Section : Beer Micro

Page number : 34