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France isn’t a beer nation—that’s a reality. France attracts roughly 75 million worldwide vacationers yearly. They arrive for the wine and scrumptious bread and viennoiseries, not for beers as they might be when visiting neighboring nations corresponding to Belgium or Germany. A part of France’s beer historical past is lacking, a lot in order that historians have issue accumulating an correct image of beer consumption there by the centuries.
“Beer, prehistoric and historic, stays poorly identified regardless of its extensive consumption. Because the Gauls didn’t go away any writings, we now have no direct testimony from them about their nationwide drink,” writes archeologist Fanette Laubenheimer in her e-book Boire en Gaule. “Thankfully, others have taken it upon themselves to tell us, however they provide the skin viewpoint of foreigners within the nation, for whom beer is a curious and ‘barbaric’ drink.”
What we all know for certain is what is going on at present. France has the best variety of breweries in Europe, with greater than 2,500 corporations registered as such—greater than earlier than the World Wars. This represents large development over the past decade, since there have been solely 500 breweries in 2013, round 30 within the Eighties, and about 100 within the Fifties. (But, France’s sturdy wine tradition nonetheless overshadows this rising curiosity in craft beer.)
Whereas you’ll find breweries everywhere in the nation, historic beer areas situated simply above the northern restrict—good for hop rising—corresponding to French Flanders within the North and Alsace within the East are nonetheless going sturdy (80 p.c of French hops are produced in Alsace).
France additionally exports 1.2 million tons of malt every year, which makes it the largest malt exporter globally—one in 5 beers on the earth is made with French malt. Maybe France’s most vital contribution to beer, although, isn’t uncooked components: Louis Pasteur’s research on beer in 1873 ushered in pasteurization, and with it, a brand new period of security and freshness for brewers around the globe. Is France’s beer tradition and significance as irrevelant as individuals assume?
Whereas French individuals may lack beer schooling, they nonetheless very a lot get pleasure from ingesting it. In accordance with a current survey, beer is their favourite alcohol (although it ought to be famous that on this survey, wine and Champagne are separated into two completely different classes). With a thriving craft beer scene and regardless of financial difficulties, beer professionals are longing for its future.
Not Our Terroir
Regardless of being the fifth-largest beer producers in Europe with 2 billion liters produced in 2022 (the primary one being Germany with 7.6 billion liters), French persons are far behind in terms of ingesting it. They’re virtually final on the record of per-capita beer consumption in Europe, with solely 33 liters a yr per inhabitant. Solely the Greeks drink much less beer per particular person.
Tommy Tempo, co-founder of Brasserie VIF in Burgundy and a local of Bethel, Connecticut, says he’s nonetheless amused by how occasionally French individuals drink beer in comparison with his American counterparts.
“They drink half pints, what’s that?” he says with amusing. “Within the States, for those who do a barbecue or a picnic, you convey a six-pack! In France you will have a Pastis or a rosé-piscine.” (The latter is the very French summer season delight of having fun with rosé wine by a swimming pool.)
Tempo shares how troublesome it was for him to search out good beer when he moved to France, not by way of high quality, however accessibility: “After I visited my dad in Connecticut, I discovered Cantillon extra simply than in Burgundy.”
That’s a paradox, he says, when you think about France’s attachment to good meals and good alcohol—the French artwork de vivre. Beer nonetheless doesn’t appear to qualify as such.
Charlotte Joly, a beer sommelier in Paris, says that the curiosity for beer is growing for individuals exterior of connoisseur circles. “French persons are actually pleased with French craftsmanship and abilities. That’s what they’re trying to find in craft beer: the terroir, the authenticity,” she says.
Nonetheless, whereas virtually any French particular person can record the completely different wine cépages, they’ll reference beers by their colour (blonde, brune, noire, rouge) somewhat than their fashion, one thing that’s nonetheless laborious for Tempo to grasp. “I’ve clients that ask me for a blonde beer, however for those who have a look at the ten beers I brew, seven would qualify as blonde whereas all being very completely different,” he says.
A mode so simple as a pale ale received’t communicate to most French drinkers. “There’s a common rejection in terms of utilizing English phrases,” Joly says. “With craft beer, you may be seen as an elitist snob.”
Even native beer types corresponding to saison or grisette—whose traditions span each France and Belgium—are unknown to most. “France has forgotten its beer historical past,” Tempo says. “Earlier than the World Wars, there have been 13 breweries in Beaune and now persons are asking me why I brew beer in a wine area.” (The famed wine area of Burgundy was even an vital area for rising hops within the Nineteen Twenties with its personal selection, Tardif de Bourgogne.)
For beer professionals, this additionally brings challenges. With the rising monetary curiosity surrounding craft beer, specialised distributors, bars, and outlets are opening throughout the nation with out some primary information concerning the product. That is typically the case regardless of academic efforts from beer organizations (corresponding to Brasseurs de France and Syndicat Nationwide des Brasseries Indépendantes) for each professionals and customers.
“There’s a number of issues with beer distributors who don’t have chilly storage or bar house owners who don’t know inventory and serve beer correctly however concentrate on craft beer anyway,” Tempo laments.
The Craft Conundrum
In France, craft beer means many issues to completely different individuals. Legally, a craft brewery doesn’t exist. However a “petite brasserie indépendante” (small impartial brewery) does. To be thought-about as such, a small impartial brewery have to be “legally and financially impartial” and never produce greater than 200,000 hectoliters (round 167,000 barrels) a yr.
That’s loads, contemplating that 75 p.c of French breweries produce fewer than 3,000 hectoliters a yr (1,900 barrels) and that solely 10 breweries in France brew greater than the 200,000-hectoliter restrict.
So, for those who’re over the restrict, you’re thought-about an industrial brewery. It’s a time period that doesn’t communicate to Magali Filhue, managing director of the brewer’s union Brasseurs de France.
“Opposing craft and industrial breweries doesn’t make sense to me,” she says. “Some will say {that a} pasteurized beer is an industrial one however I can consider a very small brewery that pasteurizes its beers. There’s simply completely different markets and completely different customers.”
Joly additionally struggles to outline what makes a craft brewery. “I’d say that the standard of the uncooked supplies takes an enormous half in my definition, in addition to originality and the need to brew extra advanced recipes.” Nonetheless, she admits this will additionally apply to some huge breweries working with regionally sourced components and having their very own analysis and growth division tasked with creating new recipes.
For those who ask beer superfans, you’ll see that how craft beer is outlined is vital, and that there’s a transparent distinction between the French expression “brasserie artisanale,” or the Franglish “brasserie craft.”
A “brasserie artisanale” is a brewery having small, native manufacturing and principally making conventional beer types with Belgian inspiration, corresponding to a trippel.
Then again, a “brasserie craft” has extra of a nationwide aura and takes its inspiration from American beer types with hoppy recipes and new types corresponding to pastry bitter and pastry stout—something hazy, candy, and decadent. The label may learn “Double IPA DDH Citra Cryo,” which can make little to no sense to most beer customers in France. (The beers are additionally principally packaged in cans, that are nonetheless rejected by many French drinkers who affiliate canned beers with tasteless industrial beers.)
Whereas the brasserie artisanale appeals to most of the people, bringing them into craft beer with types they’re aware of, the brasserie craft is tailor-made for “ beer geeks” and follows world beer developments—in 2022, craft beer represented 10 p.c of the beer bought in France. Totally different beers for various customers.
Again To Fundamentals
The French craft beer scene was constructed on this opposition, with a want to distance itself from conventional beer recipes that principally got here from Belgium—even when Belgian beers have an excellent popularity to most French customers.
On a visit to New York final October, Joly says she was stunned to discover a fridge filled with Cherry Chouffe in a craft beer bar. “Chouffe is seen as the alternative of a very good beer for French beer geeks, due to its industrial manufacturing, the quantity of sugar, and the factitious aroma,” she says. (That description might additionally apply to the pastry stout and pastry bitter the identical beer geeks love a lot.)
Even when the excitement round something hazy and pastry remains to be very a lot occurring in beer circles, plainly brewers are beginning to return to what they have been working from: custom.
As within the U.S., with increasingly breweries yearly comes extra competitors. As such, solely advertising your beer to attraction to beer superfans isn’t a wise enterprise transfer in the long term. This demographic may be very small in France—7 p.c of beer customers see themselves as connoisseurs—and it’s a subgroup that will get bored simply and follows developments somewhat than being loyal to a specific beer or brewery.
Some craft breweries are actually launching core ranges to attraction to a wider public, with acquainted and conventional types. Others are interesting to wine lovers, incorporating French wine heritage into their beers with wild ales, grape ales, or spontaneously fermented beers.
Tempo says that this variety is the strongest high quality of the French beer scene, with brewers unafraid of experimenting and attempting new issues. “We’re fortunate to have easy accessibility to wonderful uncooked supplies like barley or orchards with previous fruit varieties,” he says.
With wine gross sales declining yearly—in supermarkets, beer gross sales now exceed wine—Filhue thinks that the beer business should seize the possibility to showcase its experience and high quality to customers.
France isn’t a beer nation. Nevertheless it has the potential to be and French beermakers are working to make it occur on a regular basis. They only should persuade French those who it’s value it.
CraftBeer.com is totally devoted to small and impartial U.S. breweries. We’re printed by the Brewers Affiliation, the not-for-profit commerce group devoted to selling and defending America’s small and impartial craft brewers. Tales and opinions shared on CraftBeer.com don’t indicate endorsement by or positions taken by the Brewers Affiliation or its members.
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