The Amiel brewery in St Girons (France)

The former Amiel brewery in St Girons (Ariège, France)

The Amiel brewery was founded in 1867 by Jean-Baptiste Amiel, a coffee, liqueur, wine and beer merchant based in St Girons in the Ariège department. By the end of the 19^th century and up until 1914, there were around 2,000 breweries in all the provinces of France, including 8 in Ariège, a southern department in the Pyrenees. The divide between the northern brewing world and the southern wine world did not exist. This divide dates from the second half of the 20^th century. It rhymed with industrial concentration and the disappearance or closure of all the breweries in the south of France, until the revival of craft breweries over the last twenty years or so.

1 - A brief history of the Amiel brewery

Jean-Baptiste Amiel (1814-1871) ran a drinks shop on the ground floor of his home at 12 Blvd Noël Peyrevidal (as it is known today) in St Girons. He made his own soft drinks, coffees and liqueurs, and in 1867 set up his own brewery alongside the public house. This small brewery grew in importance in the town. Amiel beer began to make a name for itself. It was brewed with water from a spring belonging to the family. His son Julien Amiel (1844-1917) took over the business, followed by his wife Marie Lasserre (1853-1926). The brewery survived the difficult years of the First World War without too much damage, unlike its northern counterparts, which were bombed or looted by the Germans troops in search of copper. The only downside was that the mobilisation of soldiers, mainly young men from the southern provinces, resulted in a real drain on the workforce.

The brewery got a fresh start at the end of the war under the management of Emile Lasserre (1885-1961), Marie Lasserre's nephew. Mr Marfaing, a master brewer, was hired. He came from Alsace-Lorraine, newly attached to France by the Treaty of Versailles. He brought with him the technique of German-style bottom-fermented beers [1]. They were in vogue at the time.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the brewery acquired adjoining plots of land on which the current buildings on Place du 8 mai 1945 in Saint Girons were erected. They were built according to the modern plans of the brewing industry at the time. The various workshops were arranged over 5 levels: the attic was used to store malt and raw grain; the 2^nd floor housed the crushing mill; the 1^st floor housed the brewing room; the ground floor housed the fermentation, filtration, cask filling and bottling vats; and the basement housed the storage vats. This vertical organisation follows the gravity flow of raw materials and liquids (grains, hot water, hot wort, decanted wort in a large tank, cooled wort with a Baudelot cooler, fermented wort and beer stored in the basement, filtered beer before bottling).

The only snag was that the Second World War halted the supply of equipment ordered from Lorraine before the war. It was not delivered to St Girons until 1944. The new brewhouse was inaugurated in 1945. The local brewery became a regional one. Emile Lassere had two children, Auguste (1913-2001) and François (1920-2014). The Amiel brewery became Amiel-Lasserre Père & Fils in 1947, then Amiel S.a.r.l. Around fifteen people worked there until the 1960s. The beer was delivered by cart, then by train to the Bas-Salat and Haute-Garonne regions, or by tram to the Bentaillou mines in Sentein.

Auguste and François Lasserre left to learn their trade at the Ecole de Malterie-Brasserie in Nancy and became brewery engineers and master brewers respectively, the qualifications required to be authorised to manufacture and market beer in France at the time [2].

After the Second World War, the Amiel brewery expanded regionally in a beer market that had become national and increasingly competitive. A number of different qualities were produced, including Blonde de Luxe, Amiel Pils, Bière Bock, Brune, Silva, Vicburg and even some customised labels for the food chain. The barley came from Alsace, the hops were Czech and the water came from the family spring.

In the 1960s and 70s, industrial concentration became the rule of the day. National beer brands became established with the emergence of marketing and advertising campaigns. In the 1960s, there were just 5 independent breweries left in the south of France, and only 2 in the 1980s.

The brewing of Amiel beers ceased in 1976. The brewery Amiel (then Sarl Brasserie Amiel) turned to distributing the fashionable brands requested by its customers. Its business as an independent wholesale distributor flourished. The "Sarl Brasserie Amiel" is still the region's beer specialist, installing and maintaining draught beer equipments in cafés and restaurants, etc. It then went on to set up a Cash and Carry self-service outlet selling drinks, food and hotel equipment, which is still in business today. In 1997, the "Sarl Brasserie Amiel" sold its distribution network and customer base to the Kronenbourg Group. The national brands were in turn bought out and grouped together by international capital. In 1986, the Kronenbourg Group, owned by the group BSN, merged with the SEB Group (Société Européenne de Brasserie). This holding company pursued a policy of national concentration of beer distribution and the closure of regional beer production sites still in operation. The Scottish & Newcastle Group bought Kronenbourg in 2000, acquiring the distribution network of the Amiel brewery. In 2008, Scottish & Newcastle was acquired by Heineken and Carlsberg.

In 1977, the brewery buildings fell into disuse. But, exceptionally, they were not destroyed because they still belong to the descendants of the Amiel family. The installations and the brewing equipment they housed have remained in situ to this day, with the exception of a Kieselguhr filter donated to the Stenay Beer Museum (see below).

2 - The brewery and its brewing facilities in 2023

Fig. 1: Amiel brewery building in 2023, "place du 8 mai 1945" in St Girons

Fig. 2: the brewhouse under its glass roof

The Amiel brewery building and its technical installations are a truly exceptional ensemble. It is a perfect illustration of how a brewery was organised in the mid-20^th century. Its vertical layout reflects rationalisation, work organisation and the quest for regular production throughout the year. This is the classic layout adopted by industrial breweries in the first half of the 20^th century. The flow of raw materials (malt, raw grains, hops) goes from top to bottom, meets the hot water in the brewhouse, and ends in the fermentation tanks and then the cellar where the finished beer is stored.

 Amiel brewery. the malt crusher above a crushed malt storage

Amiel brewery. Storage for raw grains

Amiel brewery. the brewhouse: a mashing vat and its racking tank

Amiel brewery. The brewhouse: a bird's-eye view over 3 levels

Amiel brewery. The brewhouse and its 2 masonry vats for cooking the wort

Amiel brewery. the brewhouse: view upwards of the masonry hearth enclosing the cooking vats

Amiel brewery. The Baudelot cooler for the wort before fermentation

Amiel brewery. Down to the fermentation and storage vats in the cellar

Amiel brewery. The former fermentation vats: made of wood on the left, food-grade fibre cement on the right, with air cooled through the ceiling

Amiel brewery. The former fermentation vats as seen from above (wooden on the left, food-grade fibro-cement on the right)

Amiel brewery. The former beer storage tanks in the cellars of the Amiel brewery

End of pics gallery

3 - A beer museum in St Girons?

The Amiel brewery building and its surviving technical plant are of great heritage value. Preserving these material witnesses to a flourishing industrial past is both a cultural and historical matter of urgency.

Cultural urgency: industrial heritage deserves as much attention as the artistic heritage of historic monuments. In France, industrial sites (mines, salt works, paper mills, forges, mills, ovens, etc.) have been preserved, promoted and integrated into tourist trails. The public's interest in these production technologies is demonstrated by the "Journées du Patrimoine" (Heritage Days  organised every year in France since 1984).

Historical urgency: the technical installations of the Amiel brewery and its building are complete and in good condition. They provide a practical and educational demonstration of how a brewery worked in the mid-20^th century. Safeguarding this technical heritage is essential. The old breweries of the 20^th century have almost all been destroyed. Brewing beer in the south of France is an almost forgotten story. The town of Saint-Girons is fortunate enough to have one of its last remaining testimonies.

To date, there are only three preserved brewing heritages in France:

• The museum in Stenay (Meuse) housed in a former malt factory. The Amiel brewery has donated two of its oldest treasures to the Musée de Stenay: a Kieselguhr filter (diatomaceous earth for fine wort filtration) and the old register of the brewery's first brews.
• The museum in Saint Nicolas-de-Port (Meurthe-et-Moselle) is housed in a former industrial brewery that suffered the same fate as the one in St Girons.
• The Vosges Brewery Museum in Villers-sur-Illon (Vosges), housed in the former "Grande Brasserie et Malterie Vosgienne".

All these beer museums are located in the north or east of France. Brewing has a long history in the South of France. This region deserves its own beer museum.

Interview of Mr. Jean-Marc Hebrail and tour of the brewery Amiel in July 5^th 2023.