French Kissing with La Goutte d'Or at La Fine Mousse

Paris's first micro brewery celebrates 1 year anniversary and releases a collaboration beer

FRENCH KISS is a beer made with grapes and French hops, designed in collaboration with the brewery Outland and created for the Harvest Festival of Montmartre in 2013. A true blend of all things that make Paris 'The City of Love.'

La Fine Mousse

Located between the metro stops of Ménilmontant and St. Maur, Le Fine Mousse was a buzz with Goutte d'Or Birthday bash go-ers in a flood of great beer and converted wine lovers. The theme of the night was "I used to love wine, but now I French Kiss."

Tasting

LA GOUTTE D'OR- French Kiss

A: Lush rosy pink color of lips, veiled with a soft haze.

S: Oh honey, honey, honey! Huge sweet honeycomb notes followed by a pomegranate, red fruits, and a slight rosé tang with a delicate hay touch on the base.

T: Sweet, sugar love'in mama! Not much more bitter then a gentle love bite and while the malt stands out unexpectedly, there is no missing the fact that there was grape juice AND fresh grapes used in this baby. Imagine honey and pink grapefruit on a bowl of cereal.

M: Slight mouth coating on a medium body.

O: This beer has all the potential of a blossoming virgin, but isn't quite ready for the plucking. There was a lack of bubbles and sourness to cut through the grape juice and caramel malt. Give it

[caption id="attachment_2032" align="alignleft" width="418"] French Kiss[/caption]

Romain from Outland admitted that the two week fermentation of the beer wasn't as much time as they would have liked and that the pilot batch had more astringent characters. The bottled versions will make for great cellaring!

Home Brew from Guillaume Toussaint

A: Murky apple juice

S: Say what, bacon? There is a smokey smell, like roasting chestnuts.

T: Figs, sugared dates, malty and smoked.

M: That slightly flat effect that home brew often gets, but a clean mouth feel.

O: Guillaume used a huge amount of dates in the post boil and thinks that having let them sit in the wort for such a long time roasted the date pits thus causing the smoked effect. All in all, a pretty cool idea. Bacon wrapped date beer. Test batch #1 get Nitch's nod of approval. Lets do another!

LA GOUTTE D'OR- Chateau Rouge

[caption id="attachment_2038" align="alignleft" width="487"] Chateau Rouge[/caption]

A: Head for days, what a slut. Dense and the color of a red wood

S: Yeast and again, that hard honey hit that the French Kiss had

T: Bitter, floral and hop forward with a smooth cherry touch and delicate spices.

O:. Very much like French Kiss but less grape juiced. Great balance. Each element has a place: malt, hops and sweet red fruits. Very smooth and crowd pleasing. I can see now why so many of the converted wine drinkers love this beer.

Below is Thierry, the brewer/founder/owner of La Goutte D'or with Quentin Blum (enjoying some home made chocolate cake). Mr. Blum is one of Paris's only craft beer import/export merchants and has converted his lovely girlfriend Leone (second from the right) from a wine drinker to a beer and food pairing apprentice. Clemence (on the far right) is Thierry's converted wine drinking neighbor.

"Thierry is passionate about beer but not showy."

-Clemence

Virginity

It was brought to my attention that Nitch, whore of many things, is a coffee virgin.

Tom and Paul from Café Lomi in the 18th were French Kissing and spreading their version of geekiness. Coffee Geeks? Who knew. They've promised to pop my craft coffee cherry- such gentlemen these Aussie expats.

Café Lomi/La Goutte d'Or fusions in the future? The magic 8 ball says, "the future looks bright."

If you speak a bit of French, check out the below video of Thierry and Romain talking about the story behind French Kiss, the collaboration and what it means to be craft beer in Paris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yj1g5BmbMk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Didn't get enough tongue action? Check back tomorrow for more coverage of the 2013 Montmartre Harvest Festival festival including: people who take pictures of things instead of experiencing them, snails as street food and 'Merica.

Thats right 'Merica.

XOXO