The only half decent French beers I know are from Brasserie Thiriez (Biere de garde). But, honestly, in my humble opinion, France and beer do not go together well. Better beer pubs serve Belgian beers. I’d stick to wine.
I’m the founder (I used to say president, but we’ve never had elections and I’m not as active as I used to be) of the Paris Homebrewers Club. I’ve seen the French beer scene explode over the last six years, with pretty decent (although not quite “American” numbers), growing from 200 to more than 600 breweries over the last ten years, with a very large portion of that growth over the last four years. Quality used to be an issue, and understanding that volume is important (do not spend 6 hours brewing 5 hectoliters when you could spend 6 hours brewing 50 hectoliters) is still an issue, but there are some truly great beers here.
I could go on for a long time about the craft scene here, but it’d be better to just show you - are you going to be in Paris at all next week?
Cool! I have a big box of hop candy headed to la cave a bulles (today or tomorrow) and should be there by next week. Tell Simon your first piece is on me, haha!
Not this time, but being Belgian I’ve been to Paris many times, obviously. I find most French pubs depressing with biere a la menthe an absolute low but I did go to cidrerie Dupont in Normandy, which is absolutely awesome. From Bretagne I do remember the Cervoise, a beer with seven herbs and honey, which is ““interesting””. And of course there is the ubiquitous Leffe, an export product that almost makes me feel ashamed to be Belgian.
Glad to hear things have changed because I lived in Paris for a year in 2004-5,and I do not have fond memories of French beer. I mostly drank this swill called 1668 or something which was reminiscent of American mass-produced lager. I hung out with some British ex-pats, and there were quite a few decent Irish pubs with decent beer, one in particular called The Frog and Something over by the Bibliotheque National (sp?).