The Top 20 Best-Rated French Beers

What beer styles or breweries come to your mind when talking about French beers? It’s commonly known that France is THE wine country, but beer isn’t underrated there either.

Actually the most popular beer styles, such as NEIPAs and imperial IPAs and stouts, have certainly established their position in France, too.

There are also some beer styles with origins in France and they are all totally worth trying. Not to mention those sweet ciders that France is specially known for!

So, let’s first see the stats and then get familiar with three different beer styles.

The Best-Rated French Beers in 2021

Heading the top 20 list of best-rated French beers you can find double NEIPAs and one imperial stout. There are also some IPAs, imperial IPAs and one milkshake IPA, so if you’re a firm supporter of at least some kind of IPAs, I bet you’ll find something to try out from these fruity and quite strong alternatives. 

If you have time for only one or two breweries, you should at least have a glance at the selection of The Piggy Brewing Company, which sure is dominating the top 20. There are nine beers in total from this craft brewery from the north of the country, the region of Lorraine. Brewery is holding the best and second best place with New England DIPAs Single Hop Serie – El Maestro and 630 Express.

Another remarkable brewery according to statistics is called Brasserie La Débauche which is holding the third best place on the list with an imperial stout Demi Mondaine and has in total six different beers on the top 20. This craft brewery comes from Angoulême, Charente, which is located in the west side of the country.

The Most Popular French Beers in 2021

The best-rated beers are one thing, but when we look at the stats of the most popular beers, we can really see what kind of French beers you guys are drinking out there. Because, as a matter of fact, the stats have enormous differences between each other.

The most popular beer that comes from France is definitely 1664 Blanc 5.0 % from the Kronenbourg brewery (owned nowadays by Carlsberg). The taste of this juicy witbier comes from fruits like peach and mango. Its average rating isn’t bad either. 

On the second place there is Desperados Tequila, which is not surprising us at all. This tequila-flavored pale lager beer was originally created by a French Brasserie Fischer, but nowadays it is produced by Heineken.

According to the stats, the other most popular French beers seem to be basically different ale styles. Compared to other countries, France also seems to be professional in amber and blonde ales. Mostly, the popular French beers do also have good average ratings.

Some Typical French Beer Styles 

Though France is much better known for its wines and ciders, there are also some beer styles that come originally from France. These are typically still produced in France, but for example, bière de garde as a better known style is also produced in other countries.

Bière de Garde

This is definitely the most famous one of the French beer styles. This strong Belgian-kind-of-ale is traditionally brewed in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a northern region of France. As for the name, beer style reminds of German lager, because bière de garde translates to “beer for keeping”. As for the taste, it’s actually more like saison than lager or Belgian ale. Concerning the huge number of ratings in Pint Please, the most popular bièr de garde from France is La Goudale A L’Ancienne from Brasserie Goudale.

Alsace

Alsace is a traditional beer brewery region, which still produces most of the beer to the French markets. The most famous brands like Fischer and Kronenbourg all come from this region. But there is also a beer style called Alsace, though it’s a little complicated to describe, because it’s not a unique style. There are a lot of variations of this bottom fermented beer. Typically Alsace beer reminds of a pale German pilsner and might even be brewed with a local Strisselspalt hop. 

Cassis

Crème de Cassis is a blackcurrant liqueur that’s originally from Burgundy, and respectively, in the world of beer, cassis typically means blackcurrant spiced beer. So ordering a pint of cassis beer you’ll probably get blackcurrant sour. Burgindia Cassis from Brasserie Larché is one of the most popular new cassis beers and specially recommendable for those who enjoy sweet and fruity vegetable beers.