The style of beer you'll find at Le Merle Noir is light and slightly hoppy. Seasonally, you'll find fruit beers hand-picked by Merle Noir brewer Arnaud.
History of the brewery:
I'm Arnaud RIGONI, full-time brewer at Brasserie du Merle Noir, located in Rimbach-près-Guebwiller since March 2022.
Following a burnout, I chose to radically change my career path and make my hobby my main activity. For a year, I was helped by my friends at the Humpaloch brewery, who taught me the tricks of the brewing trade in large volumes, as well as those of running a business. Working with local craftsmen to assemble and process my products (Alsatian cereals and hops, labels printed in a neighboring village, harvesting from orchards and forests in the Guebwiller region, etc.) is the main reason I love this job. In terms of taste, I have a preference for malty beers, but working a light beer with fruit is something I love.
The style of beer you'll find at Le Merle Noir is light and slightly hoppy. Seasonally, the beers you'll find here are mostly hand-picked fruit beers.
The first beer brewed at Le Merle Noir was made under chaotic conditions: a single tank for all the brewing, no water heating system, and a broomstick and bucket for all the tools. So I started by building a fire with logs, then brewed with the famous broomstick I still use today. The final brewing stages and the transfer to the fermentation tank were hellish. In the end, the beer was not only a technical success, but also a tasty one. This blonde ale was then renamed "L'Étincelle", not only because it was cooked over a wood fire, but also to inaugurate the brewery. L'Étincelle is and will be brewed once a year around Ascension Weekend in a public way (everyone is welcome and everyone can brew) to ring in the opening of the Biergarten for the entire summer season.
The Biergarten is open every day at all hours, but I'm there on Saturday afternoons and all day Sundays. Events have been created around the place: giant barbecue, wild boar on the spit. Future plans for 2024 are based on the installation of a giant screen for movie nights, Mario Kart tournaments and karaoke.
Visitors can of course buy beer directly from the brewery, having made sure I'm present, but you'll also find me on sale at Cavavin, rue de la République in Guebwiller, and at the grocery-bakery in Jungholtz, next to the fire department. I'm also present at the weekly markets in Guebwiller on Friday mornings and in Thann on Saturday mornings.
