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‘Starting a business in France? Think it through’

Opening a brewery and traditional pub in the French countryside would be a dream life for many ex-pats. Englishman Steve Skews did just that, but it wasn’t all easy. Find out about the pros and cons of starting a small business in France.

Published: 3 June 2013 15:56 CEST
'Starting a business in France? Think it through'
Steve Skews moved from England to Normandy 20 years ago, and has started a brewery and two traditional English pubs. Photo: Courtesy of Steve Skews.

Steve Skews, originally from Lincolnshire, moved to France 20 years ago with his wife Jane. They bought a farm in deepest Normandy, began producing cider and, it seemed, started the perfect life together. But their dream was blown away in the storm of 1999, which destroyed their apple trees. The two were sent back to the drawing board, and being an ale enthusiast, Steve decided it was time to set up a brewery.

After starting ‘Le Brewery,’ Steve has expanded and set up two English pubs – the Famous Knight and the Secret Knight.

Here he talks to The Local about the trials and tribulations of starting and running a small company in France when faced with the “burden of French bureaucracy and taxes”.

How did you end up in France?

Like many ex-pats who came here twenty years ago I was dissatisfied with the state of the economy and the state of education in the UK, where I had been a teacher for 20 years.

There was an option of moving to France where property was cheap.

Why Normandy?

It was a place where you find the traditional values that are important to me. There’s a real community, it produces local products and there’s a good balance with nature, which I felt was being lost in the UK.

Talk us through setting up Le Brewery.

When we set it up in 2000 we had an absolute nightmare in the first year or two. The system for business regulation is very complicated and it’s getting worse. 

It’s not like in England where you can register a business and you can be up and running half an hour later. In France you have to go through so many different departments and offices. Particularly for a business involving alcohol, where there controls for quality of product, registration of labels, and vehicles have to be specially licensed for distribution.

It’s not just me, the French I know are all struggling because of this burden of paperwork and taxation.  None of the decisions made by French governments over recent years have helped small businesses at all.

They have just hit us with another increase in tax on beer.  We are now paying more than 15 times the amount that wine makers pay. It’s just a joke.

In terms of electricity, if you add on all the extras, then it’s gone up 28 percent over the last 12 months.

When you’re running a small business with small margins, this puts us in a really difficult situation.

Any advice for those starting a new business in France?

It certainly needs a good deal of thought put into it. I don’t want to sound negative about starting a company, but anyone going ahead with it needs to make sure they get in contact with the right bureaucratic departments to make sure they know the obstacles that are ahead of them.

People need to go to their local Chambre de Commerce or Chambre de Métier and seek out what support there might be for the development of small businesses. 

They also need to make sure they have someone French on board if possible to help with the minefield that is the French bureaucracy.

You need real business skills now and you certainly have to have sound financial footing.

Did you have any trouble settling and integrating in France?

I came to France to share the culture of France and not to live in little England. Our pubs are very much English in style but the clients are French.

Both the pubs – the Famous Knight and the Secret Knight – have the ethos of English pubs, there’s fish and chips, real ale and so on, and they are appreciated by French and Anglo customers.

How do you get the French to frequent an English pub?

A lot of the French will tell you that one of the things they like about Britain is the pubs and the atmosphere they have.

So to a certain extent we were already on to a winner. I don’t like the image of some of these places in Spain and didn’t want it to become a spot that English people would take over and turn into a little community.

There was talk a while ago of you selling up the brewery. What are you plans?

Well at the moment I’m running it as a bit of a one-man show. But I’m 63, it’s physical work and I am getting tired.

I need someone to take over full time and I need investment to improve the bottling side of it. We want someone to take it up to the next gear.

We are already exporting beer to 15 states in the US. We’ve got a good product but we need new skills for it to become a real success.

Are you happy in France?

I’m very happy to pay into a system that values education and health, which was one of the reasons I fell out favour with the UK.

Although I’m starting to see the same thing happening France with hospitals and schools closing.

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BEER

How the Covid crisis led to a boom in Swiss beer production

Switzerland now boasts the highest density of breweries anywhere in Europe, with the Covid crisis a major factor in transforming the country into a beer hub.

Published: 20 August 2021 16:06 CEST
Updated: 25 September 2021 07:24 CEST
How the Covid crisis led to a boom in Swiss beer production
The Feldschlösschen brewery. While Feldschlösschen might be the country's best known beer, there are hundreds of smaller breweries worth checking out. Photo: Wikicommons.

When it comes to food and drink exports, Switzerland is best known for cheese and chocolate. While Swiss wine has carved out a niche on the global stage, it is Swiss beer which has recently started to make its mark on the global stage. 

In 2020, 80 new breweries were established in Switzerland. 

Switzerland now has 1,212 breweries – which gives it a higher ratio of breweries to people than any of the other big brewing nations in Europe, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Belgium. 

Just ten years ago, Switzerland had only 246 breweries, while in 1990 there were only 32 breweries in the entire country, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports. 

Switzerland is getting thirstier

The explosion in brewery numbers is a consequence of a change in the Swiss appetite for beer. 

Reader question: Can you drink in public in Switzerland?

In recent years, the classic lager variety has gradually fallen out of favour, with the share of craft varieties growing by 43 percent over the past five years. 

The change is a genuine example of quality trumping quality when it comes to beer consumption. 

In 2010, the average amount of beer produced by each brewery in Switzerland was 11,000 hectolitres, while that is now less than 3,000. 

According to Switzerland’s NZZ, only 14 breweries produced more than 10,000 hectolitres of beer last year, while more than 1,000 breweries produced less than 50 hectolitres. 

While the variety of beers being consumed has expanded – particularly those made in Switzerland – the amount of beer each Swiss consumes has fallen slightly in recent years. 

In 2008 the average Swiss consumed 58 litres of beer, with 55 litres being consumed in 2019 – the last year for which figures are available. 

In 1980, the average Swiss consumed around 70 litres of beer per year. 

The following chart from Statista shows these trends. 

Beer consumption over time in Switzerland (per capita). Image: Statista

This pales in comparison with serious beer drinking countries, with the average yearly consumption in Germany being 140 litres. 

Wine still leads the way however in Switzerland. Of those who consume alcohol in Switzerland, 32 percent drink beer while just under half (49.4 percent) drink wine). 

While anyone bragging of cheap beer in Switzerland might have had a few too many, for people living in Switzerland the costs are relatively affordable. 

In addition to the high wages paid in Switzerland, the Swiss VAT rate of 7.7 percent is the lowest in the OECD, a 2021 study found. 

Statistics show that Switzerland has an above average consumption of beer per capita when compared to OECD countries. 

Just one in five Swiss abstain from alcohol completely, which is low by OECD standards. 

Why now? 

The proliferation of new breweries is obviously welcome for the nation’s beer drinkers, but it seems that Switzerland is coming late to the party. 

According to the NZZ, a major reason is Switzerland’s alcoholic drinks ‘cartel’, which meant that all alcohol was sold in standardised form nationwide. 

The cartel “regulated sales, prices, quality, recipe and range of products for which the whole country was advertised collectively and uniformly,” with the result being bland, mass market beers in each of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. 

The rules were so pervasive that even pub owners were in many cases restricted from choosing which beers they wanted to have on tap. 

Created in the early 1900s, this cartel survived until 1991, when it finally fell. In typical Swiss fashion, it was even kept in power by a referendum which took place in 1958. 

As a consequence of the change, it is now easier than ever to start smaller breweries – which in turn influenced the Swiss palette to move away from the standardised cartel lager and to more adventurous brews. 

Seven beers to try in Switzerland

Whether you’re a beer enthusiast or a sometime sipper, you’ve probably heard of the big market brands like Feldschlösschen, Haldengut and Gurten. 

Here are some lesser known brands which will tickle your fancy. 

Quöllfrisch

While most of the beers on this list are relatively unique, Quöllfrisch is a standard lager type beer with which most people will be familiar. 

However, it’s anything but standard and represents perhaps the best a blonde lager can be. From Appenzell, this beer is relatively easy to find no matter where you are in Switzerland. 

In fact, it’s served on Swiss airlines. 

De Saint Bon Chien

The L’Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien is a truly unique beer. With a strength of 11 percent, the sour beer is aged in wooden barrels that previously contained red wine. 

Highly sought after, the beer comes from Saignelégier in the canton of Jura close to the French border. It is the highest ranked Swiss beer on the beer ranking site ‘Untappd’, with several discontinued beers from the same brewery sitting alongside it. 

Relatively difficult to get, it is available in small bottles or 20 litre kegs. 

Brüll!Bier

Zurich’s Brüll!Bier is one of the city’s best microbreweries.

Unlike many other Swiss breweries which tend to focus their efforts on only a few beers, Brüll!Bier brew several varieties touching on traditional styles, contemporary classics and experimental offerings. 

While the red ale and the helles are excellent session beers, one speciality is the Prince of Ales Yorkshire Pale Ale, which can only be found at the British Beer Corner in Zurich. 

Brewed to resemble a Yorkshire Pale Ale, it’s tasty and delicious – and will go down well even if you’ve never had a YPA before. 

Calvinus

Another beer that can be found in most parts of the country, Calvinus has several different traditional beer styles including a wheat beer, a thick dark ale and a Belgian pale ale. 

Originally from Geneva, it is now brewed in the mountains of Appenzell using only organic ingredients. 

According to legend, it is based on a recipe handed down in Geneva by Calvin the Reformer. 

Ittinger Klosterbräu

An amber ale with a relatively standard alcohol content (5.6 percent), Ittinger Klosterbräu is bitter but fruity. 

The beer is brewed in a former Carthusian monastery on the banks of the Thur river. 

It’s also one of the rare Swiss beers to be made with local hops – which are actually grown by the brewery itself – with more than 90 percent of beers made with hops exported from elsewhere in Switzerland. 

Bier Factory Rapperswil

Rapperswil, on the outskirts of Zurich, is not only a great place to live if you work in the city – but also a great place to have a few beers. 

The brewery has a taproom where you can try many of the beers they brew, including some staples and some experimental favourites. 

One of the best is the Wanderlust Pale Ale, a hoppy pale ale which can easily be a session beer. 

Appenzeller Castégna

Another beer from the beautiful Appenzeller region, Appenzeller Castégna is brewed with chestnuts grown in the southern canton of Ticino which give it a “sweet, chestnutty aroma” according to a rather uninventive online review. 

Brewed by Brauerei Locher, the Castégna is relatively difficult to find throughout the country other than in Ticino. 

It’s a proud vegan friendly beer, whatever that means, and is often served with desert due to its sweet taste. 

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