Food banks don't tend to turn donations away, especially at this time of year. But at Moisson Outaouais in Gatineau, Que., they have enough of one particular item.

"Our agencies have enough bread," said general manager Armand Kayolo as he stood beside bins overflowing with flatbread, muffins and pita.

Every year, Moisson Outaouais receives some 115,000 kilograms of unsold bread from area grocery stores. Most of it does go to families in need, but a significant portion — about 9,200 kilos — isn't quite fresh enough for distribution.

That includes baguettes so hard they could be turned into weapons, and bags and bags of crumbly sandwich bread. Moisson Outaouais typically composts the unused loaves or hands them over to local pig farms for feed.

But in October, some of the stale bread was saved for a different destination: a local brewery.

Pain perdu is brewed with bread that was donated to Moisson Outaouis, but has gone stale. (Laura Glowacki/CBC)

Samy Missaoui, the 33-year-old owner of Brasserie artisanale Gallicus in Gatineau's Plateau district, saw an opportunity to try making beer out of bread, and give back to the local charity at the same time.

"I jumped immediately in it," he said.

Pain perdu — literally "Lost Bread" — is the result, but there's no opportunity lost here. For each bottle of Pain perdu sold, Gallicus donates a portion of the money back to Moisson Outaouais.

"It's always less profitable because we return $1 per bottle to the [charity], but it's also part of our values. It made total sense," Missaoui said.

More than 9,000 kilograms of the bread donated to Moisson Outaouais is too stale to be distributed to families in need. (Laura Glowacki/CBC)

Kayolo agrees.

"Why not transform [it] and then make something better for the environment, something better for people?" Kayolo asked. "We're not wasting. We're not throwing away. We are recycling for a better use."

To make Pain perdu — also French for french toast — Missaoui took about 160 kilos of frozen bread from Moisson, shredded it by hand and mixed it with barley malt. That was transformed into 10 barrels of Pain perdu, enough for roughly 2,400 half-litre bottles. The beer is available for sale in Gatineau.

Samy Missaoui owns Brasserie artisanale Gallicus in Gatineau's Plateau district. (Laura Glowacki/CBC)

Pain perdu has six per cent alcohol content and tastes similar to an India pale ale, but with an unmistakable hint of bready goodness.

"There is this bready aspect and at the end, there is this kind of lightly salty taste coming from the salt they use in the dough," Missaoui said.

The notion originally came out of a workshop run by the union Unifor in April. Jean-Philippe Roy, an employee at a Kruger paper mill in Hull, teamed up with Sebastien Gauthier to pitch the idea to both Moisson and Gallicus.

Missaoui and Kayolo said they hope to keep the partnership flowing and try out a new style of beer in the future.

"For us, it makes us happy," said Kayolo. "It's a good beer."