Alexandre de Terwangne
It is now more and more common for a brewer to make his beer with bread. This manufacturing technique of Belgian origin is a real eco-responsible revolution in addition to being innovative.
The brewing world is an eclectic and modern world in constant renewal. In recent years, a novelty of Belgian origin has been taking over French breweries, becoming a real phenomenon: bread beer. The recipe is not a mystery, the bread simply replaces the barley malt, which provides the sugar necessary for the alcoholic fermentation of the beer.
Besides, beer and bread are a story that goes back a long way. Indeed, being one of the oldest drinks in the world, beer was already brewed with bread thousands of years ago, even if there is no consensus on the exact year of appearance of this technique. This is evidenced by traces found in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq, Syria and Kuwait) alluding to “liquid bread”. At the time, beer consisted of letting pieces of bread ferment in water using wild yeasts. A mixture based on cereals, spices or even honey was then made. With the discovery of hops and new preservation techniques, beer brewing evolved considerably, particularly in the Middle Ages thanks to the knowledge of monks.
An eco-responsible beer with millennial roots
But then why make a bread beer today? According to those who brought it up to date, the interest was twofold: “The idea came to us from an activist who discovered that bread was the food most wasted by both traders and individuals. And it turns out that before, beer was made from bread, so we wanted to find this method of production again. We have always been interested in positive impacts and experiments», says Sébastien Morvan, co-founder of Brussels Beer Project, the first brand to rehabilitate this type of beer in 2015. Indeed, according to the Ecological Transition Agency (ADEME), 1.3 million tonnes of bread are thrown away each year in France alone, or 5.2 million baguettes. The Belgian company collects unsold bread from bakeries, but it is not stale. “We recycle 2.5 tonnes of bread per year», welcomes the entrepreneur.
This concept of collecting unsold items is the same for the creators of PerlinPainPinte, another bread beer. The project was also linked to the desire for an environmentally friendly product. This is evidenced by their slogan: “For eco-responsible cooking”. These Swiss business economics students created their brand in 2021 as part of their bachelor’s degree. “We wanted to create a sustainable product which is good and which above all pleases. We don’t think we’ve ridden a trend wave because at the time we created our beer, it was relatively little known in Switzerland.», explains Thibaud Jacquod, one of the three founders of the project.
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«The goal was not to make a beer that is just eco-responsible but that people force themselves to drink», admits Luca Maglia, another member of the project. According to their description, PerlinPainPinte is halfway between a lager and a white beer, giving “a thirst-quenching beer with a fairly fruity nose. More “all bread beers can taste different» says Sebastien Morvan of BBP. Theirs is “on bitterness, with saltiness, a fairly hoppy side and an amber visual aspect“. Moreover, bread as an ingredient goes so unnoticed that it could be included in the production of other types of beer from Brussels Beer Project, “to recycle even more bread».
