13 July 2004 Blog Home : July 2004 : Permalink
On Friday while we were doing the weekly shopping I noticed some beer that purported to come from close by - Menton in fact. This was somewhat of a shock as I live in the South East of France and France is not precisely renowned for its beers. Actually there are good French beers but they almost all come from the region that borders Flanders (Belgium) and tend to be of similar styles.
The beer cost more than I normally wish to pay for my booze - but not outrageously so - so I bought a bottle of the brown Abbé des Anges varient. It looks like the picture on the right and was most toothsome when it was opened Saturday night. So much so that my wife who normally eschews non-yellow beers drank half the bottle.
This led to a problem - lack of tasty beer - and thus on Sunday we embarked upon a quest - see if the brewery was as cool as the beer it produced. A check of the website gave directions. It turned out that the brewery was not IN the town of Menton but in one of the little villages behind it called Castillon. So after a 45 minute drive towards the Italian border dodging the morons on the Autoroute (its tourist season so there were plenty to dodge) we arrived at the Menton exit and headed up hill away from the coast. Passing through the village of Monti we decided that when we win the lottery we will buy a restuarant here to be called Python, but I digress.
Viaduct on the way up to Castillon
View looking down towards the sea from Castillon
After winding this way and that the road promised that Castillon and its brewery were 300m on the right. At this point there was no sign of anything more urban than a couple of olive trees and a ruined cottage, but a couple of wiggles later the village appeared and we found a spot in the Parking Publique. A short stroll around the village to locate the brewery and then to see if the village was worth photographing and to work up a thirst. Castillon, built on the side of a steep hill, has to be one of the neatest French villages in existence, full of flowers and not a dog turd to be found. Its also got lots of artist's galleries and cafés (rather like a small St Paul de Vence) - but somehow it failed to inspire my wif to photography - perhaps because not even mad dogs were out of doors in the early afternoon sun.
The brewery is also small, its brewing part is essentially one large room in a three story building with a café on the top and unused space underneath (option for expansion?). Next to the brew room is a shop and a veranda where patrons may sample beers (as they can in the café above). The brewery produces 4 sorts of beer - a lager, a white beer, a (hoppy) amber and the afore mentioned brown. We tasted the white and the lager that afternoon and both were pleasant in a yeasty Belgian sort of way (think Hoegaaden for the white and Leffe blonde for the lager). It also produces some lemonades and sodas but I have no idea about their taste. Unfortunately the price at the shop is not much cheaper than I could get in Auchan (€41 for a case of 24 mixed 33cl beers) but they do taste good and the scenery is spectacular.
Brewery Entrance
Brew room
Memorial to the liberating US/Canadian Troops Sept 1944