Craft brewery and bakery produce new stout flavoured bread

French Village, a leading Northern Irish artisan bakery and restaurant business, has teamed up with Belfast craft brewer Yardsman to produce a stout flavoured traditional Irish wheaten bread.

Both businesses are based in Belfast and started collaboration on the bread a few months ago. The bread is baked by French Village using Yardsman's successful Original Double Stout, which was launched by Hercules Brewing Company in 2015.

French Village has been baking bread, cakes and patisserie since 1981. It now also runs three restaurants in the city. It also has successful wholesale and event catering operations.

The bakery, which had been using another well-known stout to flavour its wheaten bread, decided to switch to a local product and turned to Hercules craft brewery. The newly launched wheaten bread with Yardsman Original Stout has proved "tremendously popular" with customers. "We use the stout instead of wheaten in the bread for a rich and moist flavour," the bakery says.

Niall McMullan, the founder and managing director of Hercules Brewing company, which produces a range of beers, adds: "We were delighted when French Village approached us to supply our popular double stout for wheaten bread, one of Northern Ireland's most loved breads. It's a great boost for us and also gives the bakery a wheaten bread that's deliciously different."

Yardsman Original Double Stout is a small batch craft brew that's now available in bars and hotels throughout Northern Ireland and increasingly in the Republic of Ireland.

The stout is brewed with freshly roasted barley and a range of high quality coloured malts, as well as Irish hops and water and is filtered through Irish linen. The stout is then nitrogenated, which creates the creamy white head and a settled, clear but dark ruby black body. It adds delicate chocolate and coffee flavours to the bread.

As with all products in the Yardsman range, Yardsman Original Double Stout is completely free from all chemicals, preservatives, stabilisers and animal bi-products and brewed using the four natural ingredients of hops, barley, water and yeast, making it completely vegan-friendly.

As well as stout, Hercules Brewery has developed a portfolio of beers, including ales and lager, since its launch in February 2014. It recently launched an American pale ale.