Tag Archives: French beers

Briarde Blonde, Brasserie Rabourdin

Briarde Blonde, Brasserie Rabourdin 

https://www.brasserierabourdin.com/

Brewed by Brasserie Rabourdin
Style: French Blonde
Seine-et-Marne, Courpalay, France

Hugues and Geneviève Rabourdin founded the brewery in 2001, and produce Bière de Brie with barley from their family farm in Courpalay, in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Located in the heart of Brie country, an agricultural region that has always been considered the grain store of Paris. 

Diversifying into the beer market, they first started offering their beer in local markets and direct to sellers. After training at the IFBM (Institut Français des Boissons, de la Brasserie et de la Malterie) and with the installation of the brewery on the farm, the first Brie beers were  produced, by the duo, in June 2001. They stick close to their roots using the local produce sourced from their own farm and with respect to their surrounding environment. All beers have an organic certification produced from pure natural farming.

In 2009, Estelle and Hubert Rabourdin took over the family business with the desire to develop the brewery onto pastures new, expanding the brewery and offering more in the range of craft beers, specifically the La Briarde beer in 2010, and also an IPA and a White Brie beer (which sounds interesting!). Their award winning beers now sell to the rest of the Île-de-France region and onto all of France. 

Review: 33cl small glass bottle of Briarde Blonde, Brasserie Rabourdin: 5.7% vol.

Comes in a very stylistic jet black bottle, looks the business. very nice. 

On pour first thing you notice is that not a whole lot comes out! Not much from the small bottle, which is a damn shame!

What does come out, is a very hazy and cloudy, golden coloured beer with a smallish white head, with a frothy look, but overall it is a decent looking brew.

Very fruity aroma, not bad.

Tastes very spicy, getting hit with those tastes at the back of the throat.

Hops are also very sweet. All a little sickly, but still manageable and goes down smooth.

Second bottle was in the fridge and came out very cold, which kind of killed the taste. Me bad. Resulting in a very tasteless (but cold) beer!

Overall it is an easy beer to drink, light and enjoyable enough for sure, but not going to set the world alight. Relaxing and refreshing but not getting enough from the small bottle for me to return to in the future!

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post

Excelsior Lager

Excelsior Lager

Excelsior Lager

www.tcb-beverages.com/en

Brewed by Champigneulles (TCB Beverages)
Style: Pale Lager
Meurthe-et-Moselle France

Excelsior LagerNot much info on this beer online, needless to say that’s the way they like it in cheap discount beer land, just buy the fucker and dont worry about it. 

Brewed for the supermarket chain Lidl, and sold at a relatively cheap price. This is bargain basement beer!

Yet the name “Excelsior“ is Latin for “ever upward” and represents superior quality and of excellence! 

Review: 500ml blue can of Excelsior Lager: 4.0% vol.

Can find it with 4.1% to 3.9 % in strength, depending on the region. 

Coming in a pretty cool looking logo of a Knight’s sword, in a nice blue can. 

Excelsior LagerAroma is pretty shit, in fact it smells a bit like shit, had the aroma of a fart! Lagery smell, and very metallic on the nose. Not great!

Looks good on pour, a nice frothy white head, nice and creamy, and a golden coloured beer on show. Not bad. Head maintains well, and some good lacing apparent. 

Get a lot in the can.

Bit of an off taste found initially, not great at all……….

Overall, it is a bit tasteless, and any taste you do get is bittersweet and lacking in flavouring.

Second can, it improved a little, and was slightly easier to drink, a bit smoother and nicer on the old stomach, but still lacking any real depth to the beer. Malty and a little hoppy, but overall not a nice beer at all. Very forgetful and not worth trying again, cheap as it is and all………..

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post

Ardwen Hop's Cure

Ardwen Hop’s Cure

Ardwen Hop’s Cure

www.ardwen.fr/en/

Brewed by Brasserie Ardwen
Style: Tripel
Launois-sur-Vence, France

The Ardennes in northeastern France, close to the Belgian and Luxembourg border, is a sparsely populated region mostly covered with dense forest, small mountains and not much else.

Ardwen Hop's CureMad as it is, this area at the beginning of the 20th Century, was France’s leading region for brewing beers with no fewer than 230 breweries, mostly small enterprises. It might be due to the lovely fresh waters and rivers emanating down from the hills and valleys in the area.

But the two World War’s put a sharp stop to a lot of this and brewing was beginning to look a thing of the past here. That was until, in 2003, some locals came together to start up some brewing in the area after all those barren years. That brewery was called Ardwen, using the local knowledge of the past in their pursuit of rekindling the traditions of yesteryear. Production followed shortly after, and with it some immediate success winning prestigious beer awards in France (Golden medalist at 2007 Concours Général Agricole).

In tribute to the locale and its legends, the logo of the Brewery represents Arduinna, the protective Celtic goddess of the dark and uninhabited Ardennes forests, riding a wild boar, the emblem of the region, and an animal that is still hunted to this day in the locale.

All of Ardwen’s hops, yeast and malt are grown locally, and these beer ingredients are combined with fresh, pure countryside water to produce their award winning brews.

This is my second tryout with a beer from Ardwen, as I had a bottle of their Ardwen Blonde a while back which I thought was a nice beer overall, smooth, went down well, got the malts, some fruits and the caramel, and overall found it a pleasant brew. 

Review: 0,33l brown bottle of Ardwen Hop’s Cure: 8.0% vol.

Ardwen Hop's CureHop’s Cure was brewed to celebrate the 1000th brew of the Ardwen brewery, a landmark moment that the brewery should be well proud of. Called Hop’s Cure  as the beverage gave strength and courage to those who drank them, a remedy to cowardice, needed in the dark forests of the Ardennes, what with all those bloody crazy wild boars running around the place!

This beer by Arden, was a winner for France in the World Beer Awards, winning a gold medal in best French beer in the World Beer Awards golden ale category.

Massive, massive white frothy head on the pour. Really big, a lot of carbonation, all alive and fizzing away. Head is far too big.

Otherwise the colour is amber. Head maintains very well, of course, with a lot of lacing.

Ardwen Hop's CureEventually settles down, looks much better once calmness kicks in.

Second bottle, get a very white frothy head, and more cloudy in appearance, dark golden.

Is a good-looking beer for sure in that its head maintains, good bit of lacing and deep in colour.

Smells good, very fruity, very hoppy, strong yeasty smell on the nose, all nice

On the taste I found it very hoppy, a very deep tasting hoppy beer that was very strong on the stomach. Too bitter, and too spicy. Get the roasted malts and the caramel, but the hops kill the other flavours in this beer. 

Bit too intense in the taste for little old me, not pleasurable at all, very difficult to drink.
Also gave me a slight head the next day!

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post

Uberach Juliette

Uberach Juliette

Uberach Juliette

http://www.brasserie-uberach.fr/

Brewed by Brasserie d’Uberach
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Uberach, France

Uberach JulietteBrasserie d’Uberach (Uberach brewery) is the name of an independent microbrewery founded in 1999, founded by Eric Trossat. Eric was a former engineer in a nuclear power plant in Normandy, but lets decide later if his beers have an explosive kick (boom boom!). Getting his qualifications in the brewing process, he produces craft beers out of his base in Uberach, in north-eastern France.

Uberach offers about twenty specific beers including organic beers which represents half of its volume. The brewery enjoys a strong regional base, are distributed in Alsace, in neighboring departments, in the Paris region and in a few specialized stores throughout France. In 2017 they have even decided to try their hand at producing whiskey!

The logo of the beer represents the old shoe factory that housed the brewery initially. 

Review: 50cl bottle of Uberach Juliette: 4.8% vol.

Uberach JulietteBottle from Lidl France. Interesting logo of two people kissing, striking. Was a little bit pricey, considering its in Lidl, 3 Euros plus for the bottle, albeit a big bottle of beer.  

The beer is brewed every year on the occasion of Valentine’s Day.  

On pour got a hazy looking beer that produced a shitty enough white head and was dark orange in colour.  

No lacing, no real head, flat in fact, not a looker by any means. Is this representing the ugly bird at the end of the night? Depressing in looks. 

Oh fuck me, a very fruity and perfumy smell on the nose. It is very in your face, very pointed, and exactly like a perfume you would buy in the shops, did I make a mistake? 

Getting the smells of a rose and fruits, particularly the smell of apricots and peaches which are both, of course, passion fruits!

Uberach JulietteIt is a very nice aroma though, flowery and unusual but nice. Bit of an aphrodisiac, felt a bit horny after it!! LOL

Taste is a bit similar to the smell, which is fine for an aroma but not so fine to be drinking. I mean who drinks perfume?

Beer is a bit of a let down, bit flat in the taste, disappointing. A date that showed promise peters out.   

Found some coriander and was very yeasty too. 

Bit of a harsh taste to it too, like it is blocking the floral and fruit notes from expressing themselves, that would be the patriarch! It must be the ginger that is a list of the ingredients. Oh boy I do hate ginger, that explains why I didn’t enjoy this one. 

One to drink slowly, leaves a bit of an “urgh” taste in the mouth.

What’s the point? Gimmicky, bit of a taste and that’s it. A cheap date that was unfulfilling……..

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post

Trois Chariots Blonde 

Trois Chariots Blonde

Trois Chariots Blonde 

www.brasseriedesutter.com

Brewed by Brasserie De Sutter
Style: Blonde IPA
Gisors, France

Trois Chariots Blonde Two brothers, Antoine and Frédéric, with a deep passion for beer and with their agronomy and brewery diplomas in the bag, founded the Brasserie De Sutter in 2008. 

In 2012, they moved production to Gisors, in Normandy, north France, to a larger more efficient operation with greater output. 

The name of the beers, Trois Chariots, comes from history. In 1307, the Knights Templar are arrested by order of the King of France and the treasures of the Templars are moved out of Paris, concealed with the help of three trolleys. The brewery likes to use three different styles of hops in their brews, hidden away unintrusive to the casual drinker who will surely get a nice surprise when sampling the gems of the brewery, or something like that!

Review: 33cl bottle of Trois Chariots Blonde: 6.3% vol.

Trois Chariots Blonde Bought in Lidl France. Picture of a chariot on bottle.  

A cloudy looking dark orange colour with a small white head on pour. Some carbonation.

Did not get a whole lot in the bottle, which is always a bummer. 

Getting a nice red hue in the colour after a while, which is attractive to see. 

The smell, well oh my word, it is very strong on the nose, but very pleasant. I am getting a lot of dark fruits, some spices, caramel, and also quite a hoppy aroma. The best aroma I have had off a beer in quite a while. Lovely stuff. 

Trois Chariots Blonde Initially on the taste I found it to be a bit dry in the mouth but the more I got into it the more the fruits and the hops came to the fore. It tasted not too bad at all, very long tasting and lies on the tongue for a while, a deep taste in the mouth. Also the sweet malts and fruity notes also make an appearance, but truth be told this beer is all about the hops. 

The hops were well nice and perfect, full bodied, and hitting the spot exactly. Lovely to swill around the mouth and it is a beer to enjoy over time. One to sip. 

Very good, enjoyed it, a slow burner but loved it. The hops were fantastic, very, very tasty, great. Recommended.

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post