French Craft Beer?

tang1

Apologies if theres a thread on this somewhere already, could not find it. I'm heading to the Vendee region of France in 3 weeks and was wondering if anybody could recommend a few decent French Craft Beers? IPA style preferable but not choosy.

BeerNut

My experience of France has been that the beer scene is very localised and there aren't really any national decent brands, that I'm aware of. In that part of the world you may get Brasserie de Bretagne beers (sometimes in a box set labelled "Bières d'Excellence"). They're a long way from excellent.

Mont Salève's beers do seem to get out and about more than most, and they have some great ones, particularly the pale ales.

For me, French beer is about randomness and experimentation. There's lots of great stuff to be had that you've never heard of and won't see anywhere else. And if not, there's plenty of drinkable Belgian beer in Carrefour.

Mesrine65

http://frenchcraftbreweries.com/brewery/

Saruman

Here are some local Brittany beers I had recently.
http://www.taleofale.com/2015/02/brittany-beers.html

Lucena

Regarding Mesrine's list above:

Bourganel: I've only tasted the beer that had fruit syrup in it, it wasn't nice. Haven't tasted their 'normal' beer, but it seems to me that generally speaking the top brewers don't waste their time on making beer with fruit syrup added to it.

Ch'ti: Grand, nothing amazing.

Les Brasseurs de Gayant: Fairly decent Belgian/Bière de Garde beers, but again, nothing amazing. The Amadeus I found very cloying and a fake citrussy flavour off it, but Ratebeer reviews seem to find it ok.

Brasserie du Mont-Blanc: Lots of fruity beers (rarely a good sign) and some marketing bollocks about having the best beers in the world at the World Beer Awards: http://www.brasserie-montblanc.com/la-brasserie/le-processus-de-fabrication/
I've heard from someone in the industry that their beer was contract brewed in Germany, but whether that's true or not, I couldn't say. Nothing amazing anyway.

Pietra: Had their 'ambrée' once, decent enough beer with a slight chestnut taste. Don't know the rest of their stuff.

Jenlain: Should be available in most supermarkets all over France. Their 'ambrée' is a good comprise between flavour and price, I used to drink a lot of this, but now I find it a little too sweet, but I still drink it occasionally. Their 'blonde' is ok IIRC.

Bières de Bretagne: Got a variety pack as a gift once, some decent beers IIRC but probably expensive for what it is.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In general, France isn't a great country for beer. Very few breweries survived the market consolidation of the 20th century, with the exception of maybe in the north of France near Belgium.

There was a first wave of microbreweries that opened about 10-15 years ago, generally doing nicer beer than the macros, but still very safe, no-one really stepping outside the blonde, brune, blanche and ambrée styles.

The last 5-7 years have seen more microbreweries opening, with at last some interesting beer being brewed. I nearly died of happiness when I tasted my first proper French IPA a few years back!

Other than that, I can recommend:

http://www.brasserie-correzienne.com/

Any of their beers I've tasted have been nice and hoppy, but without going too mental on the hops either. Don't know if they do anything else, like stouts or the like.

Mont Salève: Apparently their beer is excellent (I've yet to taste any), but unlikely to be widely available in Vendée, but you never know. Have some diversity in their range (IPA, Barley Wine, Imperial Stout) which is usually a good sign.
http://www.labrasseriedumontsaleve.com/

Agrivoise: http://www.lagrivoise.fr/ Also some good hoppy stuff in there.

Sorry if you can't find my recommendations in Vendée, I only really know stuff that's local to me.

tang1

Lucena wrote: »

Regarding Mesrine's list above:

Bourganel: I've only tasted the beer that had fruit syrup in it, it wasn't nice. Haven't tasted their 'normal' beer, but it seems to me that generally speaking the top brewers don't waste their time on making beer with fruit syrup added to it.

Ch'ti: Grand, nothing amazing.

Les Brasseurs de Gayant: Fairly decent Belgian/Bière de Garde beers, but again, nothing amazing. The Amadeus I found very cloying and a fake citrussy flavour off it, but Ratebeer reviews seem to find it ok.

Brasserie du Mont-Blanc: Lots of fruity beers (rarely a good sign) and some marketing bollocks about having the best beers in the world at the World Beer Awards: http://www.brasserie-montblanc.com/la-brasserie/le-processus-de-fabrication/
I've heard from someone in the industry that their beer was contract brewed in Germany, but whether that's true or not, I couldn't say. Nothing amazing anyway.

Pietra: Had their 'ambrée' once, decent enough beer with a slight chestnut taste. Don't know the rest of their stuff.

Jenlain: Should be available in most supermarkets all over France. Their 'ambrée' is a good comprise between flavour and price, I used to drink a lot of this, but now I find it a little too sweet, but I still drink it occasionally. Their 'blonde' is ok IIRC.

Bières de Bretagne: Got a variety pack as a gift once, some decent beers IIRC but probably expensive for what it is.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In general, France isn't a great country for beer. Very few breweries survived the market consolidation of the 20th century, with the exception of maybe in the north of France near Belgium.

There was a first wave of microbreweries that opened about 10-15 years ago, generally doing nicer beer than the macros, but still very safe, no-one really stepping outside the blonde, brune, blanche and ambrée styles.

The last 5-7 years have seen more microbreweries opening, with at last some interesting beer being brewed. I nearly died of happiness when I tasted my first proper French IPA a few years back!

Other than that, I can recommend:

http://www.brasserie-correzienne.com/

Any of their beers I've tasted have been nice and hoppy, but without going too mental on the hops either. Don't know if they do anything else, like stouts or the like.

Mont Salève: Apparently their beer is excellent (I've yet to taste any), but unlikely to be widely available in Vendée, but you never know. Have some diversity in their range (IPA, Barley Wine, Imperial Stout) which is usually a good sign.
http://www.labrasseriedumontsaleve.com/

Agrivoise: http://www.lagrivoise.fr/ Also some good hoppy stuff in there.

Sorry if you can't find my recommendations in Vendée, I only really know stuff that's local to me.

Great post, thanks for that.

Carawaystick

Its a long way from the Vendee, but I've had a few beers from http://www.cap-dona.com/ in french Catalonia, the brown is fine, and they had a black beer with rye on special which was tasty.

I've never seen a french ipa.

billythefish99

Carawaystick wrote: »

I've never seen a french ipa.

Here you go.

http://www.colgansbrewery.com/

Its not bad.

BeerNut

I reviewed a couple here.