lookat-france travellers’ tales

byDouglas W Nelms

I love English beer. Granted, as an American, most of the time when I walk into an English pub I have no idea what the various beers are. What is a “Best Bitter”, really? But it’s great to just point to one of those giant handles and say, “I’ll try that one,” then watch it being hand pumped into those big pint glasses.

Which is why I jumped at the chance to check out a real English pub while attending a conference in the center of Paris. A friend recommended I try one of the “Frog & Rosbif” pubs, four English pubs where English is spoken by all the staff, the atmosphere is very definitely “English pub-ish,” if that’s a word, and each of the pubs has its own micro-brewery where six English style beers are brewed on site and offered on tap.

Despite France’s reputation as one of the great wine producing countries of the world, Paris does have dozens, if not hundreds, of beer pubs. The majority of these, however, are simply French restaurants, or brasseries, that serve primarily French or Belgium beers, most of which come in bottles.

“There is a massive beer market in France,” said Tory Doody, the very attractive director of marketing for the pubs. And not just young people, she added. “Quite a mixed batch. It used to be that people would order half pints of very cold Kronenberg and things like that. What we’ve done is shown them that it is really great to have a big glass of beer and a wide range of beers that are on tap, not just in bottles, and we’ve shown them that beers don’t all taste the same, that there are a variety of flavors.”

The Frog pubs got started in 1993 when Paul Chandler, current head of the Frog Pubs, and a fellow MBA student opened the first one from an idea they had developed while studying for their degree at Fontainebleau. It was named “The Frog & Rosbif,” or “The Frog & Roast Beef,” which means exactly what you think it means—a rather jingoistic reference by the English and French to each other’s nationality.

The goal of the Frog pubs is to provide a place where Anglophiles can go to drink good English beer, speak English, watch British sporting events such as rugby, football and even major cricket matches and, most important of all, have fun, Tory said.

The Frog pubs led the revolution for a sudden birth of British pubs that have been opening in Paris since the mid-‘90s. These have primarily been Irish and Scottish pubs serving Irish and Scottish beers. But “Frog & Rosbif” was the first. And, yes, I know, Ireland is not British, but everyone thinks it is, so let’s go with it.

They have since opened the “The Frog & Princess,” “The Frog at Bercy Village” and “The Frog & British Library.” Two other “The Frog & Rosbif” pubs have since been opened in Toulouse and Bordeaux, for a total of six. A seventh is planned for this fall in Biarritz, just above the Spanish border on the southwest coast, with an eighth planned for Pau plus one more to be opened soon in Paris.

World Cup

The big push now is getting ready for the Rugby World Cup, to be held in France this coming September and October. The country is expected to be inundated with Anglophiles, virtually all of whom will be looking for British pubs of some sort, Tory said.

“We normally do not promote the pubs in England, but have been promoting in Great Britain for the World Cup. We want the people who are coming over from England, Scotland or Ireland to come into our pubs. People are very internet friendly now, aren’t they? So when they go into a search engine and look for either English or British pubs, we’re going to be there on the front page.”

This works, incidentally. Go to Google and type in “English pubs Paris.”

They are also touting their pubs in other U.K. Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand. “We’ve already gotten in touch with New Zealand offices in Paris, putting out the word that if you’re here you can come into our pubs and say, ‘Hi! I’m here for the World Cup,’ and we’ll give you a bag of goodies, such as a map on how to get around Paris, words to use when you go to a French bar, discount coupons to use in our pubs, things like that. And if they aren’t going to one of the games, they can come into our pubs and watch the game on one of our six screens and the atmosphere is like being in England. We have televisions (throughout the pubs), but we also have large screens that roll down. These are used for any major sporting events—rugby, football, anything. We create a very good atmosphere.

Beers

I went to three of the four Frog pubs in Paris plus the one in Toulouse, and found two of the four to be exactly what I would expect from any pub in England—crowded, noisy, tables tucked into any corner they would fit in, and full of people bellied up to the bar and having fun and, in Toulouse, very much involved in watching a football match that, unfortunately, Liverpool lost. The other two, The Frog & British Library and The Frog at Bercy Village, were larger with more of a restaurant type atmosphere. All the pubs, by the way, serve English pub food. Well, OK, a “duck & foie gras burger” may not exactly be considered English pub food, but they do have fish & chips.

But in all of them, the beer was definitely English in character. The Frog Pubs offer six basic beers, all brewed on site in each bar and English lagers, ales and bitters. While the British tend to like stronger beers, the French clientele prefer the lighter beers, so the pubs offer three of each. Three lighter beers include the Frog Natural Blonde, a cold, fizzy lager brewed with German Hallertau hops, matured for more than a month in the pubs cellars, then served unpasteurized and unfiltered; Maison Blanche, a Belgian style wheat beer made with Czechoslovakian hops, coriander, curaçao & orange peel that give it a bit of a citrus taste; and Ginger Twist, a light amber with a fizzy twist from ginger, lemon and lime.

One of the three stronger beers, and the Frog pubs’ longest running beer, is “Inseine,” a subtle play on words from being served in Paris. One can practically hear the jingle, “Drink Inseine beer, the stale, pale ale with the foam on the bottom. Brewed from the waters of the Seine. If you can drink from the Seine, you can drink Inseine.” But alas, no, that isn’t one of their ads. I just made that up.

Inseine is an amber bitter, using what they call “Styrian Goldings hops” that provide a “balanced aroma and bitterness, making for a light, more-ish pint…with a creamy, tight head.” This is “a best bitter like a Tetley bitter that comes from the Tetley brewery in the north of England,” Tory said.

“Dark de Triomphe”—again that play on words—is the Frog pubs’ stout. At one time, the Frog pubs sold stouts such as Guinness, but have had so much success with this one that they no longer serve anyone else’s. While slightly more bitter than other stouts, it still has the thick creamy head of the better known stouts.

The strongest beer, at 5.2% ABV, is Parislytic, a red beer similar to Kilkenny red Irish beer that is a “great example of strong bitter,” malty and hoppy, and packed with British hops to balance out all the alcohol-producing malt, according to the Frog pubs website (www.frogpubs.com). Being a lighter beer kind of guy, it was the one beer I didn’t even try. But supposedly it “drinks easily and avoids the fruity sweetness that often spoils strong ales.” I’ll take their word for it.

The Frog pubs also periodically brew what Tory calls “the fun beers.” Last November they brewed “Revenge,” an English answer to the traditional and famed Beaujolais Nouvelle wine that had just come out. Anyone could bring a cheap, three or four euro bottle of Beaujolais Nouvelle to the bar and do an even exchange for a pint of Frog beer.
This past summer saw Westminster Abby beer being produced, a blond lager “blended gently with honey,” Dotty said. The beer planned for this coming summer will be “Extra Blond,” a very, very cold lager that will be higher in alcohol, she said.

A pint of beer at the Frog pubs cost 6 euros, which is somewhat less than most Paris beer pubs where you can pay 8 euros and up for a bottle of beer or a “pint.” Most beer pubs, or brasseries, serve by the centiliter, equating 50 cls to a pint. A pint is actually 56 cls, so beware.

A “jug,” or pitcher, of beer costs 20 euros and is 2.3 liters, or slightly more than four pints.

Advanced Technology

One of the more unique services offered at the Frog pubs that I really liked is the “TextoPint,” a system that allows someone to contact the Frog pub on their website and e-mail in a drink for a friend, colleague or pretty much anyone he or she wants to buy a drink for.

You simply go up the Frog’s website, go to “TextoPint,” open an account using a credit card, provide your friend’s cell phone number along with any message you want to send and what you want to order for them, which can be a pint or jug of beer, or a bottle of wine or champagne. A text message, or SMS, is then sent to the friend’s cell phone along with your message and a special code. Your friend shows the code to the bartender who promptly provides what was ordered.

It’s an excellent way to send a message to someone waiting in the pub for you to arrive. “Terribly sorry. Date’s off. Have just gotten married. Have a pint on me.”
“A lot of people are using text messaging to buy friends pints of beer,” Tory said. “We were the first ever to use the cell phone, which is a practical way to offer somebody a gift.”

Frog Pubs is also developing a data base of hundreds of its customers so that e-mails can be sent out providing coupons for special savings, announcements of upcoming events or notices of new beers being brewed, she said.

The Frog Pubs are located at:

The Frog & Rosbif, 116 rue St. Denis, Paris. 01-42-36-34-73
The Frog & Princess, 9 rue Princesse, Paris. 01-40-51-77-38
The Frog at Bercy Village, 25 Cour St. Emilion, Paris. 01-43-40-70-71
The Frog & British Library, 114 Ave. de France, Paris. 01-45-84-34-26
The Frog & Rosbif, 14 rue de l’Industrie, Toulouse. 05-61-99-28-57
The Frog & Rosbif, 23 rue Ausone, Bordeaux. 05-56-48-55-85