Christmas beers are richer, maltier and hoppier than most and contain orange peel plus those traditional Christmas spices of cinnamon and ginger. The region around Lac Bourget is a good place to start a beer tour of the French Alps. Craft beers are to NE France what wine is to Bordeaux and they even have their own Appellation Contrôlée designation. No part of this site may be reproduced without our written permission. They do a menu of decent pub grub and, if it’s a sunny terrace you’re after (this is still France, after all) the Guillotière location has a huge riverside beer garden out front. Le Bouillon Belge. In quaint lakeside Annecy, solo brewer Stéphanie Altermatt is making waves with her boutique brewery ArtMalté (artmalte.com), a tiny one-room operation that turns into a cosy beer bar on Friday evenings. However, over recent years, various alternative ingredients have crept into the mix such as fruit juice, spices and vegetable colours. If you’re just looking for a few souvenir bottles, La Cave à Bulles (facebook.com/lacaveabulles) is the place to go. Your email address will not be published. CAVE a bieres artisanales. bière artisanale Find more words! The beer was then conditioned during the spring and used to nourish and sustain farmworkers later in the year as they toiled in the fields. In the early 20th C there were over 2000 breweries in France. And in the charming canalside village of Chanaz, homebrewer Pascal Moreau has transitioned to selling his beer produced in the tiny self-made Brasserie de Chanaz (brasseriedechanaz.blogspot.fr), including some special one-off brews with wild hops he collected from nearby fields. 5: Perlembourg Bière Blanche 3.9 If you get peckish, Crock ‘n’ Roll (thecrocknroll.fr) around the corner serves artisanal ‘croques’ (French-style toasted sandwiches) as big as your face, as well as craft beers and vinyl records.  The ABV range should be between 6% and 8.5%, so they’re not for the faint-hearted. A lot of Savoy brewers will tell you it’s a good place to brew beer in large part because there is a constant supply of pure water – the essential ingredient in making good suds – but the high alpine climate also lends itself to interesting ingredients, like wild hops and even saffron. However, with industrialisation and the decline in rural populations, interest in the art and tradition of brewing wained and many breweries closed their doors. Image by Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet, Brewing in a converted alpine hut: Brasserie des sources de Vanoise. With more than 2,000 independent brewers, France is the European leader in the business of craft beer, with an astonishing range of flavours available. In hindsight it’s pretty unbelievable I found this on draft at a our local place Kraftbar. Hoppy Corner Paris. Although the number of craft breweries has doubled since 2010, beer consumption in France is a long way from becoming mainstream. The average French person will still prefer a glass of wine with their meal and this isn’t likely to change any time soon. Plus de 100 heures de travail m'auront été nécessaires pour mettre à jour l'historique des brasseries en activité et des brasseries fermées depuis 2000 (). Capital cities are great places for beer culture to grow and thrive, as trends and new cultures tend to be more readily accepted in urban centres, and Paris is no exception. The traditional ‘recipe’ for beer in France is for the brew to contain at least 50% barley, water, hops and yeast. France: annual volume of beer consumed per capita 2011-2018. Thankfully, in the past few decades, there has been a resurgence of interest in micro brewing. Not far away are Les BerThoM (lesberthom.com), which has a selection of draft beers from France and Belgium served in another cavernous space, and the petite The Beers (3 place Saint-Paul; +33 4 72 00 23 60), where the bar staff are friendly and can offer suggestions in English. French Beers. France is renowned worldwide for its vineyards and its tremendous variety of wine. Literally ‘keeping beer’, bière de garde was designed to be a drinkable and storable brew that farmers could brew in the winter (when yeasts were easier to control) and chuck into their cellars to ‘sup on for the next season. Breweries across the country are taking a nod from their Belgian neighbours, finding influence in American styles and hops, utilising their fresh and wonderful home-soil ingredients and even reviving a historic and uniquely French style of beer: bière de garde. Wonderful smallscale micro breweries are scattered throughout France producing a huge variety of award-winning craft beers to delight any beer connoisseur. Beer brewing is a traditional activity in France. Franche brewery, Jura. The following are the highest rated beers brewed in France as they appear in the ranks at … As the French economy became industrialized, small rural breweries suffered and urban breweries grew with the shift in population. Image by Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet, Sample all of Brasserie Galibier's beers at Auberge de Plan Lachat, an alpine hut in the shadow of the col. If you want great craft beer in Bordeaux, Jaqen is by far the best place to go for a wide variety of French brews. Come with an open mind and thirsty palate and you might just find yourself preferring France’s beer to its wine. Where Colorado – the beating heart of the Rocky Mountains – was one of the frontrunners on the American craft beer scene, so the Alps region has been leading the charge in French brewing; in particular, the Savoy region. But as devotees of craft beer know, there is more to beer than simple tradition. Many artisanal and craft breweries in France produce speciality beers for certain times of the year. Frequency of beer consumption in France 2015. Or possibly it’s just because, after a long day hiking up crevices or swooshing down pistes, there is simply nothing better than a cold, fresh ale. The craze for craft beer has not passed this area by. In hilltop Montmartre, Le Supercoin (supercoin.net) is a neighbourhood beer bar that stocks numerous French beers in bottle and on tap, including the fresh brews from Brasserie de la Goutte d’Or just down the road. Most beer sold in France is pilsner lager, mass-produced by major breweries which control over 90% of the market, although there are also traditional beer styles, such as top-fermented Bière de Garde, and a number of microbreweries. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Considered to be the first craft brewery in Paris, la Brasserie de la Goutte … Check out some beers from all around France including big heavyweights like Kronenbourg to smaller breweries like Ardwen Blonde. The tiny Brasserie des sources de Vanoise (brasserievanoise.com) brews three saffron-infused beers in a converted alpine house in the village of Villarodin-Bourget. All rights reserved. Boire! Our group started out by focusing on craft beers in its first depot in the Saint Etienne region, ''Forez Bières Boisson'' and has continued to grow and broaden its fields of expertise ever since. Beverage distributor since 2009, FRANCE BIÈRES was the brainchild of two passionate business partners, ever on the lookout for new flavours. In the early 20th C there were over 2000 breweries in France. Les Trois 8 (lestrois8.fr) is a teeny beer-forward bar that stocks a huge range of French and international beers on tap, and nearby La Fine Mousse (lafinemousse.fr) is both an artisanal beer bar and restaurant where you can pair modern French cooking and brewing under one roof. This unassuming bar situated in a sleepy stretch of northeastern Paris is one of … It has a British pub menu, plus British ales. If we had to pick just one Paris craft beer bar to go to, it would probably be … With that change, diversity and regional styles declined as well. Consumption frequency of craft beers in France 2017. Saveur Bière is France's market-leader for online beer sales, offering an ever growing range of bottled beers, beer pumps, beer glasses, and beer assortments. Brasserie du Mont Blanc (brasserie-montblanc.com) – amazingly, France’s second-largest brewer after Kronenbourg 1664 – was formed by brewer Sylvain Chiron, who learned to love beer on the west coast of the US and later learned to make beer from Trappist monks. Their Ch’ti beer is probably their best known craft beer and is made from local Flanders hops. Paris brewery La Goutte d'Or's Myrha pale ale, hoppy goodness for a sunny terrace. Visit the eco museum section and learn all about the family’s brewing history. A spokesperson for the Brasseurs de France identifies 1985 as the start of France’s craft beer resurgence. Fall is a time to celebrate the release of Beaujolais nouveau wine in November, as well as experience Nuit Blanche, a day in October when major attractions, museums, galleries, … Beverage distributor since 2009, FRANCE BIÈRES is specialised in craft beers, wine, ciders, spirits, cordials and soft drinks in the Auvergne Rhônes-Alpes region. My top 5 beers from France. Our plant's central location in the Tarentaise Valley allows us to supply local craft beer … In preindustrial France beer was brewed to serve a local population, which was also the case throughout the “grain belt” of Europe and North America. (Photo courtesy of Brasserie du Mont Blanc.) I drank my first French craft beer – believe it or not – in Rotterdam. Brasserie du Mont Blanc (brasserie-montblanc.com) – amazingly, France’s second-largest brewer after Kronenbourg 1664 – was formed by brewer Sylvain Chiron, who learned to love beer on the west coast of the US and later learned to make beer from Trappist monks. There are also a couple of craft beer options such as BrewDog. 1.1K likes. France has (finally) discovered craft beer. Chers French Beer Geeks, j'ai le plaisir de vous annoncer que le nombre de brasseries en activité en France métropolitaine vient de dépasser les 1000 unités! They also sell other excellent regional products which you should try. Here is our guide to drinking beer in France, from sun-soaked brasseries to high alpine huts. The Castelain family is one of the best known craft beer brewing familes in NE France. However, beer? The brewing of craft beers in France is rapidly gaining in popularity but will craft beer ever replace wine on the French table? Required fields are marked *. Craft Beer France Importateur et distributeur de bières artisanales. Our beverage points of sale and distribution await you in Andrézieux and Savigneux in the Forez, and in Irigny for the Lyon region. NICE. It’s quite rare to find French craft beers outside of France! Beer brewing is a traditional activity in France. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mountains and beer: was ever there a better combination of two things? The Egyptians reportedly produced the stuff, and Cleopatra used it as a beauty tonic. It was the Rhub’ IPA by Page 24 (brewery St. Germain). Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage. Here are a few of our favorite craft beer shops, from new to established. 4: Brasserie de Bretagne Sant Patern 4. Since beer is quite a popular drink there, the industry seems to be slowly recovering from the effects of the world wars. Published by Statista Research Department, Oct 12, 2020 This bar chart displays a forecast of the sales value from craft beer in France from 2016 to … Our young, dynamic team has just one goal – customer satisfaction. French craft beer: the history. Image by Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet, Deck & Donohue Dry Hopping Is Not A Crime Centennial pale ale at Les Trois 8. Les Fleurs du Malt (lesfleursdumaltlebar.fr) has probably the best selection in Lyon (they also operate a bottle shop not far from Guillotière), with hundreds of bottles in a cellar space along the riverside. And in Pigalle, People Drug Store (peopledrugstore.fr) draws hipsters, grungesters and colourful characters who congregate inside and out front to sip on bottles from the vast fridges, play chess and generally hang about. The epicentre of France’s newly thriving beer-drinking culture is Oberkampf in the 11th arrondissement. In fact, France does have several unique ways of rendering beer, the most notable of which is bière de garde. Also here, Brasserie Le Pirate (facebook.com/BrasseriePirate) has a pirate-themed taproom in an industrial estate and Alpine-themed Brasserie des Cimes (brasserie-des-cimes.com), which is open Monday-Wednesday for brewery tours and tastings. Typically, bière de garde is a top-fermented (so, ale not lager) pale or amber-coloured beer; sometimes – though not always – similar to Belgian-type farmhouse or saison (season) beers. Sweeney Todd’s is a small, intimate British-style pub located near the Garrone. In Lyon, the sun-drenched brasserie terraces of most French cities are replaced by cosy beer-forward boozers with long lines of taps and beer-friendly foods like cured sausage, stews and, every workingman’s favourite, tripe. Superbières – For Super-Beer and Super-Sandwiches One of the most widely seen speciality beer is Christmas beer,  brewed in October for maturation by the festive period. Sapaudia is an innovative microbrewery situated in the heart of the French Alps. Sample it at the brewery everyday from 4.30-6.30pm, or at the lovely Auberge de Plan Lachat (D902 Route des Grandes Alpes, 04 79 59 23 16), a mountain hut in the shadow of the Galibier pass – one of the cols on the Tour de France. 3: Abbaye de Vauclair Rubis 4. That year, there were 25 breweries in France. The brewing knowledge has been passed down through the generations and today their ‘garde’ beer continues to win awards worldwide. They have been transforming water into beer for over 90 years at their brewery at Bénifontaine near Lens and the Belgian border. I can unsubscribe any time using the unsubscribe link at the end of all emails. They were originally brewed in farmhouses in winter  when temperatures meant fermentation was subdued and bugs kept at bay. It is conditioned for between 6 and 10 weeks which gives it its complex aroma and flavour. The craft beer scene in Paris is showing no sign in slowing down, and luckily, shops specializing in this popular beverage are keeping up to speed with the movement with new spots opening up all the time. 1: Trois Chariots Blonde 4.3 . Until recently, beer drinkers in France who wanted to quaff anything with character had to be content with a limited number of foreign-made beers, mostly from Belgium. The Pas de Calais region is known for its traditional ‘bières de garde’ which means ‘keeping beers’. French Translation. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking there is no such thing as truly French beer; that, at its best, French beer copies Belgian beer. Image by Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet. The ales are usually a copper or golden colour and, as the name suggests, they were brewed for maturing or cellaring for a period of time, just like a grand cru red from Bordeaux! Winter in France is filled with winter carnivals, Christmas Markets, and of course, skiing. 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