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donderdag 6 augustus 2015

When in Rome: HoppySlosh Goes on Holiday(*)

*) not actually to Rome though.

Ah. The holidays. Pack your baggiest shorts, your floweriest shirt and your toelessest sandals, head down south and soak up some rays.

And some local cheap ass lager while you're at it.
Well not if you're me, you don't. My sandals may be toeless, but my shirts are plain and I like my beer authentic thank you very much.

Because there has to be some proper beer in Europe, right?
On my last visit to De Struise, I met Cécile and Benoit, a French couple of beer geeks who've quit their jobs to chase the dream and sell beer. As I may have hinted at before, France is considered to be very much a third world country in terms of potable beer where most Belgians are concerned. Needless to say, I was happy to make their acquaintance and promised to stop by their beer shop in Nîmes on my way down to Spain this year.

Promise is like a pie crust, but when I tossed the idea to the Missus extending the duration of our annual 2-day road trip to the Spanish Costa by an unknown length of time "because honey, they sell beer! In France!", she did not bat an eye. "Of course we're going to see them, dear. It'd be lovely to meet them".
I have such an awesome wife.

Yes you are, honey.
So off to France!
Et un peu vite quoi! Hein?
Benoit was off with the kids when we stopped by on the way down to Spain, but Cécile was happy to point me towards the aisle containing the French beers.

Not my pic because the camera was -where else?- waaaaay down at the bottom of the trunk.
Turns out the French have been busy, and there are quite a few microbreweries enthusiastically cooking up beers which are decidedly un-French. IPAs, always the heralds of budding craft brew movements the world over, are becoming common, and there were even a couple of porters on display. With limited space left in the car, I let Cécile help me decide on six bottles of various but always French origins (°) and then it was time already for us to take our collective leave, with promises to return on the way back home.

°) because, really, when you're in France, in a store like this, you bury your misgivings and buy French beer. Even if they stock some awesome international beers, and even if they have some Belgian beers you'd much rather find around the corner at home.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I dutifully and with no small amount of personal satisfaction worked my way through this small stash, sitting beside the swimming pool, in the residual heat of the longest and largest heat wave sweeping Spain (and most of Europe) since the invention of recorded meteorology.

Suffice to say it was a bit hot.

From Curemonte in the Dordogne hails Brasserie Corrézienne,  with an impressive array of beers in their portfolio. HopHopHop is (du-uh) a hoppy American Pale Ale which, besides a rather forward resinous twang, brought loads of grapefruit and pine. A very smooth brew, and an excellent eye-opener: the French know beer!
No.
I meant beer.
They also do a double IPA called Dordogne Valley, which blew me away.
Rich tropical fruit, pineapple and mango. Juicy and smooth with a bitter kick at the finish. I found it to be almost New-Zealandish with its fruit-basket punch, and while the label only mentioned Chinook, Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo, the website also mentions Nelson Sauvin which could explain a lot.

Or else it's the secret ingredients they chuck in the mash.
Matten, from Matzenheim, near the German border, did a collaboration brew with the (now sadly liquidised) Brasserie Fleurac. Highway to Ale (°) is a 666-themed IPA, with Brewer's Gold giving it a very British character, leaning more towards a Barley Wine à la Old Foghorn than an IPA as we know it. A bit monocline perhaps,but pretty decent.

°) Zee French are not zee onlee waans oo laik laffink wif zee French accent, eh?

Smack in the middle between Die and Gap we find BhB, a cocky bunch (°) of upstarts brewing all sorts of crazy like they were Brew Dog with a baret.

°) David D and his myriad of fractured personalities.

Rudimentary Peni is a hoppy wheat lager (who does hoppy wheat lagers? In France?) which smells like Skittles and tastes like spicy watermelon. Awesome beer, and great gift for anyone called Rudi.
Grätzer is (du-UH-huh) a grätzer(°) with a wheaty-lemony smell which belies the mild but pronounced smokey tartness underneath.

°) a nearly extinct Polish beer style. Think smoked weizen, only different.

BhB is one of the only breweries in the world who pair beer with music, and each comes with its own recommendation. De gustibus etcetera but if turn the volume down a bit, you're left with two excellent beers from a brewer I'm very keen to meet and whose beer I'd very much like to have available here.

Brasserie de Sulauze lies not far from Marseille. I got their Pan Pan Cul Cul, a dangerously quaffable rye IPA. Piney and citrusy in the nose, with spicy rye on the tongue. Exessive carbonation made this turn out a bit weak in the body, which was a shame because it's evidently a good recipe.

So. Six beers to re-introduce me to French brewing anno 2015, and I'm hooked. Take into account the fact that France is a nation built on tradition and conservativeness (°), and you may appreciate the relative novelty of these beers. Sure, there are more innovatives brews aplenty to be found elsewhere, but try finding anything like decent IPA in France without actually knowing in which village the brewer lives. France's beer revolution is still very much in its grassroots phase. A small number of renowned breweries aside, most are still very much local, and very much trying to establish a foothold, which isn't easy in a country whose inhabitants are used to Pastis, Pelforth and 1664.

Or, à dieu ne plaise, panaché.
We stopped by the store again on the way back home, with the camera even deeper enconced inside the trunk, but again, Cécile and the now-present Benoit were very hospitable, and we left with another (modest but precious) cargo of French beers, forever ambassadors to not only the Global Beer Cause, but also to L'Arene des Bieres. Seriously, if you're ever anywhere near Nîmes, drop by and give them your love.

You'll be reading more about French beers as soon as they've recovered from the journey and have found their way into my glass.

Until then,

Greetz

Jo


1 opmerking:

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