Beer in France

As some of you may know, I’m currently out of the US on a research trip to Paris, France. The old stereotype about French beers and French beer drinkers are largely true, in that both of them suck. Seriously, so many people drink beer in Paris cafés, but they’ll take their little half-pints of Kronenbourg (the French equivalent of Budweiser) or Panaché, and nurse it for about an hour-and-a-half, at which point they’re happy to pay their three euros and leave. My father once told me, as a rule of thumb, that he never drank beers that came from the French parts of France...if they come from Alsace, Lorraine, or French Flanders than fine, but anything else is sacrilege. I couldn’t agree more.

Or, should I say, I couldn’t have agreed more. If you’re looking for a good French beer in the grocery stores, you’re out of luck. If, on the other hand, you’re willing to move beyond the grocery stores and the traditional French café/brasserie, you might be pleasantly surprised to find that the Microbrew revolution has finally made its amphibious assault on the shores of France.

It used to be that tourists who were looking for a good beer had to go to the numerous English/Irish pubs across town. My favorite was the Bombardier, Place du Panthéon in the 5th arondissement. It was always nice to get a hand-pumped bitter and sit outside on the terrace in front of the Pantheon and the St. Etienne-du-Mont (in itself a wild mixture of weird 16th and 18th century French architecture), but the 8 euro asking price sorta turned me off. Even the relative bargain of 5 euros during happy hour seems steep considering that some British pubs have lowered the price of a Pint to 99p (with the exchange rate being what it is for foreigners, that’s about 1.10 euro or $1.35). So my appetite for fresher, better and cheaper beer was tickled, and what will follow in the next few days is a critical analysis of some of the better brewpubs that I have run into here in the City of Lights.

For the hangers-out at the BNF François Mitterand, this pub is very noticeable because you will pass it every day on your way from the Métro to the library (corner of Tolbiac and Avenue France). While most would agree that this pub is in a terribly un-Parisian neighborhood (tall, glass buildings recently built over dockyards and train tracks), the beer here is quite nice. Most of the beers are in an English or German style, but there names are a collection of jeu de mots, or play on words. InSeine (insane + Seine) is by far my favorite of the group. It’s a lightly hopped English amber ale with a mild, smooth introduction and a relatively malty finish. I have to admit, coming from California where hops and explosive flavors were the thing, I wasn’t quite used to the more mild and subtle taste of the classic English bitter (in the same way it takes getting used to the difference between Californian and French wines). However, the toned-down flavors do allow you to appreciate to quality of the malt and presence of grain rather than the overwhelming sense of sugars that come in the Californian variety.

The atmosphere is alright...you have the option of sitting out on the sidewalk, and even in the coldest of Parisian winter days there are people huddled outside enjoying a beer and a cigarette. On the inside, it’s a cross between a Starbucks, a French Brasserie, an English Pub and an American Sports Bar. Go figure that one out...They do offer a good selection of Football (Futbol, that is), Rugby and American Football games on big screens but if you’re not interested, you can settle into one of their armchairs and chat with your friends or read alone. The beers are a little expensive, to be sure, but their Happy Hour price of five euros/pint is worth the trip in a city where that’s about as cheap as you’ll find.