Paris In Review

Well, I've wrapped the trip, but there's one more beer to sample, at the airport baby

Affligem Blonde
State: Chillin, pondering if I can smuggle in Cuban Cigars
Your gonna wanna check out the website, as it has some cool music to blog to.
Served on draft at the airport, it smells of a sweet malt lager. It's straw clear with a white head yet some lace. First draught gives me medium body, slightly bitter with slight bitter aftertaste. Another draught after getting used to it, I can find the slight citrus and low malt. It's not as good as the other abbaye ales. It tasted better and the flavors more pronounced as it warmed up and I started eating a chicken club sandwich. I will say that this one is complex, and I need more work to truly evaluate these complex beers. You can't exactly go back to Old E.


So let's review Paris Beer
Beer Bars
If you are looking for Beer Bars, Paris has you covered. I only went to the ones with many taps, but there are plenty of good places to drink. And if you're an American, there's plenty you probably had not tried even at the bars in the Latin Quarter.

My ranking of the Beer bars goes:
1. Le Gueuze
2. Au Trappist
3. Les Soux-Bock tied with Halls 1900

I give the top nod to Le Gueuze as they had the most International Beer Selection, as well as plenty of French beer. Au Trappist is great if you are into Belgians only. If so, you could stay holed up in there for weeks.

As far as my top three French Beers:
1. La Goudale
2. Ch'Ti
3. Kronenburg 1664

Yup, I'll put a Biere de Garde over a pale lager. My beer experience tells me that Paris and probably France is definetly WINE country. The wine was everywhere for pretty cheap (as long as Dubya wasn't upping the exchange rate). I just find it hard to believe that a country with Belgium and Germany one side, and England on the other, just does not have decent widely distributed beer of their own. One would think some level of Nationalism would kick in, forcing someone to make some really good stuff. The biggest problem I had was the lack of hops in the beer. I can handle the sourness, but I need some hops in there somewhere. As soon as I got back to the States, we grabbed up some Pale Ale just to get that old feeling back. Great vacation, just not the beer.