To the tune of Joan Jett, Justfocus was invited to discover the Kings of Nawak Brewery in Bouville in South Essonne, founded in 2020 by a group of musicians, lifelong friends. They wanted to embark on the adventure of beer accompanied by the crazy legend of King Houb 1st, troubadour converted into a brewer for his troops. That day, we were able to meet Marc, Eric and Stéphane who told us about the fantastic adventure of Kings of Nawak Brewery. Hello Marc how are you today? Well, listen, it's going well and you! This morning, we did the market of Boutigny-Sur-Essonne and now, there are the friends, Stéphane and Eric, who brew four hundred liters of red fruit beer so it's pretty cool! The red fruit beer was originally a beer that you proposed for Valentine's Day, it is now back in the range all the time? Indeed, it was an original beer for Valentine's Day, we had a pretty nice label with our king Houb 1st and pretty little hearts, and we had a lot of positive feedback on this beer. We were asked if we still had it after Valentine's Day and so we reassured people by telling them that this beer was going to be part of our range of beers that we will have almost all the time. 
Originally, before creating the Kings of Nawaks Brewery , you were a music group, what do you play as a style of music? For a little or three years, we have been playing together, we have two compositions of our own. But we mainly do rock covers, it can go from Alain Baschung who is not the most rock to Chili Peppers. Basically, we do Alternative Rock. And in this band of musicians, how many are you? There are five of us in the band, one of our members is not involved in the Kings of Nawak Brewery adventure, and in the brewery, we have a brewer who is not a musician. And so, how did this idea of going from a band to a brewery come about? You have to know that beer is present during rehearsals, it's part of the preparation for concerts and that's maybe where we are the best… No, more seriously, we are beer lovers in rehearsal and for our 40 years to Stéphane and me, our wives offered us a brewing track in Paris. So we did that; And at the exit, we bought the brewing equipment and we immediately brewed as an amateur. It was good, because we really discovered beer by making it ourselves. We saw that there could be other things than what was in the trade, that there was a real difference in flavors and so, we really started brewing our own beers for our rehearsals, then for our friends. And then, one thing leading to another night, we thought, "Here, guys, what if we go? ». And they said yes. So it's gone like that and it's a great adventure that we like even more than we had imagined. Because our regulars who come back with their family and friends, it's great! 
You started Kings of Nawak Brewery during the pandemicand it didn't scare you? Completely, the company was created right after the start of the pandemic and we started selling in November 2020. By itself, the pandemic has not really affected us. For the small production unit we have, we fell well, we felt a real return to the local and to the "breast", we found ourselves rather well, at the right time. However, today, we need to grow and that's where the pandemic is holding us back. In terms of points of sale, where are you? Our beers are initially available at our workshop: 1 rue du Moulin in Bouville just behind the church on Monday and Saturday from 2pm to 6pm or by appointment. Chez Beer's not dead in Dourdan, at Intercaves in Etampes and Itteville, Aux Vins de la Halle in Milly-la-Forêt, Chez Bières à l'Affût in Saint-Genièvres-des-Bois, at the market of Boutigny-Sur-Essonne, La Cave de Nozay, Chez le Bar Bu, friends who have opened a bar in Méréville and they sell our beers by highlighting it is really super cool. Can you first tell us about the beers you sell and the other products on sale? In our beers, we have the range called Nawak so it's a blonde, an amber, a black and the IPA that has just been released. Soon, the red fruit beer that will enter this range, and we have a white beer that is made in partnership with the Château de Farcheville in Bouville. It's a citrus white of which some citrus fruits not all, because they do not have enough production come from Château de Farcheville, and we make our beers with that. 
So the beers are focused on local production? Indeed, we try to be as local as possible without putting barriers. For example, our malts are organic and come from Pithiviers in the Loiret. But hops, they are mostly French, we try to have hops from Bonnelles in Yvelines. It is a craftsman who goes further than organic, it is very well thought out. 
But we do not forbid anything for example in our new IPA beer, it is way-iti hops that come from New Zealand and it is really a special flavor with passion fruit, exotic fruits. So we don't put barriers but we try to make it as clean as possible, to have as little waste as possible. For example, all our cereals are recovered and donated to the Beaumont farm which gives them to pigs and sheep. So we, it's revalued, we're super happy. So you have these four beers, the white and the red fruit beers in preparation, what are the other products? A great Kings of Nawaks Brewery t-shirt with big king Houb 1stbehind and the little king Houb 1st in front, we also have our corkscrews and bottle openers that magnetizein the fridge. We have our "English pint" glasses that are currently out of stock with the brewery logo. Is it in this workshop that you make your beers? Go, I make you the visit, it all starts in – 50000 BC when… No, we're not going to go too far, otherwise, we have it for the night. So beer is water, grain, hops and yeast. Malt is a cereal that has been prepared to transform the starch it contains into sugar. We have blond or roasted malt. We, after what we are going to do with these cereals, we are going to crush them roughly. To make starch more accessible to enzymes. All this, we will put it in a quantity of water and at a certain temperature, we will brew. 
To get the juice from it all. So, we will filter with the juice that will go into the boiling tank. We will boil for an hour to sanitize everything to remove bacteria. Then, we will insert the hops and at the end, we put the hops to flavor. We make a big whirlwind to center the waste. Then, we will recover a clear liquid that we will cool. Then, put it in our fermentation tanks and put the yeasts. So that she works for three weeks to transform sugar into alcohol and CO². Then there is bottling, as we work in atmospheric, our tanks do not keep CO². We will lightly re-sweeten the beer in rejuvenation tanks, then we will bottle right away. Thus, the yeasts will rework, eat the sugar and make CO² again. To have beautiful bubbles in our beers… What is the future envisaged? There is a future with a big question mark because we have just bought bottling equipment. But since we all have a job on the side, we don't have much time for the brewery; While the traffic jam requires a lot of time and resources since we must be many so it is necessarily the weekend. While this is the time when we should have availability for sale and our family too. So, we bought a bottling line that has to arrive, and only, we do not know where to put it. We have a real problem of space. Then has a lot of requests on the barrel, of the 75. Today, this lack of space cannot be answered. We are looking for a place to expand and work more. But at the same time, it's great news! Because we have a lot of positive feedback and we are really happy with this feedback. 
You can find our Kings of Nawak Brewery brewers on Instagram, Facebook and their website. Do not hesitate to discover the article on the open-air museum for contemporary art.
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