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I've just moved to France, and I'm in love with craft beer. However, every time I find a brasserie ("brewery"), it's 99% of the time a simple bar that has more imports than the "standard" imports (Tripel Karmeliet, Rince Cochon, things like that). If I wanted any of the Belgian imports (I'm in the north of France), I would just go to a specialty beer store in the area where they're cheaper, or go to Belgium directly.

I want local stuff made by the French - bière artisanale (craft beer) made by the establishment. There are a million and one breweries in the U.S. and they're easy to find by searching "brewery" on Google Maps/other services, but nothing seems to understand brasserie that well... or these establishments are just mislabeling themselves... or I'm searching the wrong thing!

How can I find craft beer breweries in France? What search terms should I use, and how can I filter them by establishments that actual make beer?

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    google for "micro brasserie"
    – Max
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 18:32
  • I googled your phrase "find craft beer breweries in France" and it turned up many avenues to explore.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 18:50
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    The establishments are not mislabeling themselves. The word "brasserie" has had a second sense meaning, essentially, "restaurant," since the late 19th century. See also dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/french-english/brasserie ("grand café où l’on peut également manger") and fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/brasserie ("4. Établissement populaire où l’on vend des boissons, notamment de la bière, au détail, et des mets sans prétention.")
    – phoog
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 19:09
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    In French, a brasserie is actually first and foremost a certain style of restaurant. It does not even need to offer any special beer at all.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 19:15
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    @ChrisCirefice sorry, was just making an irreverent joke about the Belgian company InBev (which owns everything)
    – Jamie Clinton
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 23:16

2 Answers 2

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To have map services like Google Maps find actual breweries correctly, you have to search micro brasserie. That filters out the brasseries, which are primarily restaurants, as @phoog mentioned in his comment.

Searching micro brasserie found the exact types of establishments I was looking for - places that make and sell their own beer!

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Try https://www.ratebeer.com/places/browse/. Their reviews will often tell you what is served.

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    I did take a look at this site, but in fact I was just using the wrong vocabulary in my search. I don't know how up-to-date this website is though - it only shows 1 brewery in Lille when there are actually 3. And in my home city of Grand Rapids, it's missing Jolly Pumpkin and potentially others. Nice site to find good beers though!
    – Chris Cirefice
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 19:27

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