Discover the best place in France for beer lovers, breweries, brasseries & a superb range of beers served with a warm northern French welcome!
The north of France, and in particular Pas-de-Calais, is home to some rich, individual and superbly refreshing craft micro-breweries. It is also where you’ll find one of the largest breweries in France, producing an astonishing 400 million pints of ale a year.
Bottoms up – the beauty of beer production in Pas-de-Calais
With a culture and cuisine that sets it apart from the rest of France, Pas-de-Calais has a reputation for warmth and hospitality and for creating very fine beers indeed. And because this is France, the love of beer obviously isn’t just about drinking it: some delicious and hearty local dishes use the beverage as an essential ingredient. Carbonnade flamande features slow-cooked beef and amber or dark beer and Le Welsh is like a boozy Welsh rarebit drenched in a cheese and, usually blond, beer sauce. There’s even beer tart! What’s not to love?
Wetting your Whistle
Quench your thirst with a locally brewed beer at a plethora of breweries where it’s possible to visit and take part in a beer-tasting, often while seeing how it is made. You’ll also find that nearby estaminets, a style of pub or café, but distinctive to northern France and Belgium, will serve very local beers, usually with food if you want it, in a friendly and informal setting like a brasserie. The range of beers on offer is varied. As well as blond, amber and wheat beers, local breweries sometimes produce stouts and often use aromatic herbs to flavour the various beers they produce.
Some breweries offer seasonal or speciality beers too. A ‘spring beer’ will often be light, sweet and even floral. This beer was traditionally brewed in early December, to be ready to drink in the spring, and was exposed to allow natural yeasts to develop. A bière de garde, literally a beer for keeping, “bière de garde” can be kept longer than a regular beer but it actually means that the beer has been kept longer to allow a double fermentation, is brewed in the autumn and stored, usually until the following year but sometimes for years, to allow complex flavours to develop. Christmas beers, or bières de Noël, are richer and usually stronger, often spiced with exotic flavours and worthy of celebrating. Traditionally brewed by monks, they have a history that probably stretches back two thousand years to pagan winter festivities.
Brasserie Goudale
Based in Arques near the historic town of Saint-Omer, this large, modern brewery is one of France’s biggest, and produces millions and millions of litres of beer a year. With nearly thirty varieties on offer, including low alcohol, seasonal and organic varieties and the renowned Belzebuth range. La Goudale is one of the local favourites, an aromatic blond beer you’ll find in many parts of Europe, not just France. visitez-goudale.com
Brasserie des 2 Caps
This brewery in Tardinghen takes its name from the impressive nearby Cap Gris-Nez and Cap Blanc-Nez, both with towering cliffs that face the English Channel and the force of the weather. The brewery uses locally grown barley, some grown on site, to create craft beers. The range includes the white beer Blanche de Wissant and the Noire de Slack stout. The beers are refermented in the bottle and the brewery’s website includes recipe suggestions for local dishes to make using specific beers. 2caps.fr
Quentovic Brewery
This brewery between Montreuil-sur-Mer and Hesdin has 10 permanent beer varieties and a couple of seasonal ones. It takes its name from an ancient port along the banks of the local River Canche that was destroyed by the Vikings. The brewery was founded in 2014 by brothers who wanted to experiment with different styles of beer to escape what they saw as the industrialised options available to them at the time. For each of their beers, the brothers suggest which food it may pair with, and their brewery has a tap room and shop on site, allowing you to sample their beers before you buy them. quentovic.com/en
Abbaye de Clairmarais
These beers, made on the site of a former 12th century abbey in the countryside just outside Saint-Omer, continue the noble tradition of monastic brewing. The brewery now creates single, double, triple and even quadruple beers, varying in strength and flavour. They use spices such as juniper, blackthorn, aniseed, laurel, rosemary and gentian in their beers, which were traditionally used to make gruit, the ancestor of modern beer. With no permanent shop on site, the beers are sold in local shops, restaurants and bars in Saint-Omer. abbayedeclairmarais.fr/
Saint-Germain Brewery
This brewery was created in 2003 and often collaborates with other local microbreweries to create individual beers. The brewery is based just outside Lens in the village of Aix-Noulette and is named after the village’s patron saint. With stouts, pale ales and bières de garde as well as more traditional offerings, the brewery offers guided tours and tastings and there is a tap room on site allowing you to sample the beers before you buy. page24.fr/en
Castelain Brewery
Benifontaine, just outside Lens, is the location for this microbrewery founded in 1926 and with three generations of brewing expertise. It prioritises quality and a respect for the environment and uses traditional local production methods. The brewery offers five different beers, two of which are organic, each with a depth of flavour and its own unique character. Visits that end with a tasting session are also available. brasseriecastelain.com
Find out more information about beer tourism and loads of things to do in Pas-de-Calais: visitpasdecalais.com
