Paris, Je t'aime (ton bière)

Boucaneir at Le Sous-Bock

French Beers: The Mediocre and the Great

La Cave a Bulles: Best Beer Shop in France

Le Sous-Bock: Get any Major Microbrew You Want

Well, it's been a busy couple of days for us Breeds. Besides me fitting in a few hours a day to research my dissertation, we've walked all over this amazing city, sampled some great food, seen some amazing art and architecture, and rested our bones in beautiful gardens. What's more, we've gotten to try some amazing French brews. But, to be honest, it's actually hard to find the really good stuff on tap. We did get to Le Sous-Bock, the place described in Time magazine (in an article written by our own Ben Gerhardstein's cousin, no less) as a "Basque-country-themed tavern in Paris" with over 40 local microbrews. Well, they do have lots of beer, and they cook some good Basque food (especially their Axoa, a basque kind of goulash topped with crunchy potato wedges), but they didn't have much in the way of the real good French stuff. We ended up getting some Belgians that we didn't know about before, since Jenlain and Angelus seemed to be the most micro-brewy it got for French beers. (Also, they had Desperados, the margarita flavored beer of choice over here, but we declined). (Update: tried the Desperados. Tastes like a generic lime-flavored lollipop - you know, the kind banks have in fishbowls and cheap people hand out for halloween - melted on a hot sidewalk and then stirred into a glass of year-old Lipton tea.)

We ended up getting Bière Du Boucanier Golden Ale from Brouwerij Van Steenberge, Mort Subite ("Sudden Death") Oude Gueuze from Brouwerij De Keersmaeker, and Brugse Zot ("Crazy Bruggeian") by Brouwerij Straffe Hendrik. I liked all three quite a bit, but the Boucanier and Mort Subite were fantastic - the Zot was a bit thin and disappointing. The Boucanier was very alcohol-y, but in a good way: hot and spicy. The initial alcohol faded into cloves, herbs and even a touch of honey. It was fantastic... highly recommended. The Gueuze was a lambic-type beer that I've been getting into over here - kind of like a Flanders sour, similar to the good Duchesse. This particular Gueuze, the Mort Subite Oude, had that wild-yeast funk with a sharp cider and pear flavor. Mmmmm. So good for a summer night: a strong flavor but light, crisp, and dry.

So we were just ordering stuff we had never heard of, but it turns out you can get all of these at least somewhere in the States. Kind of a bummer, until I looked up the rest of the beer menu that I could remember. It turns out you could get most of them in the States. But that's the problem with even the best French beer restaurants: there's nothing but broad-distribution brews, even if they have a lot of beers available. It's like going to a beer bar in the states that says it has "microbrews" but that means Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, and Magic Hat. I've given up on finding a Brick Store East.

However... I did find the Holy Grail of French beer: La Cave à Bulles.

Awesome street art in front of the Cave.

I only had a short window of time to get some beers and then meet back up with Catherine, so I peeled off and got to the store... only to find that he closes for a three-hour lunch (which I love) and was due to get back in ten minutes ago. Problem was, he wasn't back yet. I could tell this might be the case for some time, because a delivery dude was sitting there all frustrated with his beer. After twenty minutes or so, Simon the owner rode up on his bike and hurriedly opened the shop back up. I ran in and asked him a bunch of rapid-fire questions, which he was more than happy to answer. I had literally heard of maybe five beers out of the two hundred he had on hand. This is the beer-lover's dream: alone in a store full of medal-winning beers you've never even seen. It was a shame to only have fifteen or so minutes talking with the guy, since he knew everything about these beers - their stories, the region from which they came, the brewers, and even the people who import a small sliver of this stuff to the States. A full report of the beers is coming later, since I need to go at the moment, but suffice it to say that the Biere de Brie line from Ferme-Brasserie De Gaillon and the Page 24 line from Brasserie St. Germain are amazing... more to come.