La Suzannaise

It was a couple of years after we moved here that I heard about a small artisanal brewery being set up in Ste Suzanne, just up the road.   Not long after, I started seeing the beer for sale in local bars; not in all bars, but in more and more as time went on.  It's available in the restaurant down the road (La Taverne des Grottes) and in the village bistro (run by volunteers, open whenever it seems like a good idea).

They started out with a limited range of beers, just the blonde to start with, I think, but the range has expanded to include such as dark beers very like English beers, and wheat beer, etc.  These are just the kind of beer I like; full of lavour, locally available and high quality.  Little micro-breweries like that are just what is needed in this time of increasingly global uniformity.

I learned a year or so ago that the owner was ill, and more recently that he has died of the cancer he was fighting.  A sad loss.  And today, down the road in the restaurant that stocks his beers, I learn that the the brewery will shut definitively.  Another sad loss.

I bought one of the last 3 remaining 6-packs of bottles in the restaurant.   The owner added a commemorative beer glass "La Suzannaise".   I shall savour the beers, and drink to the highest quality afterlife for the brewer.   And thank him for his all-too-brief, but valued contribution to the quality of life here.