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Fizzy French Lager beer, well that's what we
call it in our house. French bottled bieres, you either love
them but either way they're here and looks like they're here
to stay.
Even before the trade barriers were swept away in 1992 the
duty free allowance for beers and ciders was fifty litres
encouraging Channel hopping instead of popping to the offie.
Since these restrictions were lifted, hiring a van and
nipping over to the hypermarkets of Calais and Boulogne
seems to have become something of a national pastime. Even
the local supermarkets appear to be full of crate upon crate
of the stuff. In among the endless lists of labels some are
worth looking out for. These can be divided into three
types:-
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First up there is biere blonde,
the classic fizzy French lager beer. It is light, crisp,
golden and very fizzy. ABV is normally about 5%. The best
biere blondes come from the Alsace region on the
France-German border. The Kronenburg brewery in Strasbourg
produces many of them, not all of them under their own name,
so a supermarket own-brand from Strasbourg is most likely to
be Kronenburg.
Next comes my personal favourite, biere brune, older than
the more popular fizzy French lager beer and stronger with
an average ABV of about 6.5%. Biere brune has a lot in
common with German altbeer with its darker colour and
heavier flavour. Our closest equivalent would be a nut
brown. Most popular and with good reason is Pelforth Brune,
well worth a try. |
Last, but not least, is biere rouge, more a
barley wine than a beer and increasingly hard to find in
what appears to be an internationally led lager conspiracy.
So, if you are thinking of hopping over The Channel for your
Christmas booze, remember that while you are saving yourself
a few quid, you're not doing a great deal for the British
brewing industry. Mine's a pint of bitter.
Beer Warrior in France was Andy McIntosh
Dec. '95
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