La Nébuleuse: to infinity and beyond the brewery

Microbrewery Fridays - Arthur Schneiter

Behind the vats and the abundant creativity of Renens' prolific brewers lies a community galaxy, propelled by a sincere desire to share and help one another, and a desire to democratize brewing. craft in French-speaking Switzerland. How does it materialize, and what are its main thrusts? I met up with Kouros and Camille in their friendly taproom in Le Closel to discuss this over a glass of mousse.

We've already told you about the Nebula one year ago, was born in 2013, and Zeppelin has since gone from strength to strength, joining the elite club of successful microbreweries, the kind you take home to your friends living abroad to give them a taste of your region.

A community behind the brewery

But the brewery doesn't stop there. It wants to spread the good word, and inform, educate, raise awareness, and make brewing knowledge available to everyone, from the novice to the expert. home brewer to the seasoned brewer, from the amateur to the enthusiast, can evolve, meet, exchange, support and learn together. The movement craft is still a young movement in Switzerland, it needs to be democratized, matured and given wings. This is precisely the community objective that La Nébuleuse has set itself, above and beyond any commercial logic. Because behind the company are passionate people, who want to remain passionate and continue to convert more and more people to their noble cause.

To this end, a few years ago it launched the now-famous BrewHub, a platform for coworking for small brewers who want to take on a larger production run and get to grips with the realities of professional brewing, with equipment, space, training and a place for exchange at their disposal. The experiment, although it unfortunately came to an end due to lack of time and resources, created a great deal of excitement within the brewery, with 1000 hectolitres brewed, and led to a BrewHub pack. The latter has given unprecedented visibility and influence to the microbrewers involved in the project, but above all it has created a real network of brewers on a human scale.

The Zeppelin crew has more than one trick up its sleeve, and several projects are set to get underway over the coming year. Firstly, a collaboration between their resident Professor Sunflower, Phil, and the EPFL. This purely scientific project aims to study the indigenous yeast strains in the Aubonne Arboretum basin, in order to find the most interesting yeasts - in terms of quality - for brewing, and to improve the state of knowledge on their genome. Phil holds a doctorate in molecular biology and has made a number of contributions to the brewery, notably in improving the mineralogical profiles of the water used for brewing, but also in raising public awareness. Indeed, this ambitious project is set to culminate in a scientific publication and a series of workshops and entertainment in situ, at the Arboretum, on the theme of yeast.

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It's also in this spirit that a series of audio capsules is soon to be launched on the brewery's website. The aim of these podcasts is to share experiences and opinions on the craft in Switzerland, and more generally to popularize the discourse, synthesizing knowledge to reach everyone, revealing to as many people as possible what lies behind the creation of beer, without positioning themselves as experts. But they are also aimed at amateur brewers, giving them advice on how to launch their business, with all the obstacles and difficulties that this entails.

The movement craft

Having themselves been lucky enough to be surrounded by other enthusiasts and to receive help, they now want to pass on this know-how and what they've learned from their experience. On the one hand, because it's stimulating and allows them to keep a foot in the real world. microbrewing. On the other hand, because exchange and sharing go both ways, and everyone benefits. The same collaborative and educational approach is already in place via the blog, to better understand what's been going on behind the scenes for a number of years.

Collaboration is in the movement's DNA craft, Over the past few years, we've seen the emergence of a number of local structures for enthusiasts to exchange ideas. Part of the group Swiss Homebrewers on Facebook, a place for exchanging information, experience and equipment, a real support network for Swiss amateur brewers, the idea of an association was born and bore fruit a year and a half ago. L’ALBA, Lausanne's amateur brewing association, organizes public brews, seminars and conferences, and even courses on the various ingredients of beer.

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These educational formats and amateur platforms fill a gap in our country, where there is still no official training in brewing to speak of, and where craft beer still represents only 3% of the market, even though Switzerland leads the world in terms of the density of microbreweries per inhabitant (these figures should, however, be put into perspective with the volume of production). Despite this boundless energy and a hyperactive craft scene in our regions, there's still a lot to be done. You, the reader, are welcome to join this movement. Whether you're a hobbyist, a brewer in your garage or just curious about the world around you, feel free to come and sit down at the same table as those who keep the craft alive. craft in Switzerland.

Image credits: La Nébuleuse (via Google Maps)

Write to the author: arthur.schneiter@leregardlibre.com