Posts Tagged ‘Elisabeth Pierre’

Le Guide Hachette des Bières – A Book Review

Wednesday, December 10th, 2014
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Elisabeth Pierre and Her Book <i>Guide Hachette des Bières</i>

Elisabeth Pierre and Her Book Le Guide Hachette des Bières

Elisabeth Pierre, who calls herself a zythologue (zythologist, or connoisseur of beer, in English), has just written an encyclopedic book called Le Guide Hachette des Bières. Breathtaking in scope, this 360-page, French-language tome (Hachette, 2014) covers just about every topic that an aficionado of French beer could hope for in a guide—from the origins of the beverage to the names of specific breweries, ratings of their beers, and specific suggestions of foods that would best accompany the beers that she rates.

Elisabeth hails from the Franche Compté region of France, where she had the occasion to visit a local brewery as a child. The wonderful aroma of malt and hops that she experienced there influenced her profoundly. Years later, with a university diploma in classics, she abandoned a teaching profession to take a position with the Brasseurs de France, a federation of French brewers.

From the start, she organized beer-and-food-paring dinners and had the occasion to meet top chefs with whom she explored different ways to pair beer with food.

She has been in the industry about twenty-eight years and now works as a consultant. While a consultant, she became interested in the revival of microbreweries in France that began about eighteen years ago. Her guide reflects this interest.

The first section of the book is titled “Connaître les bières.” It is devoted to the place beer holds in the history of civilization. Among the topics covered are beer ingredients and the process of fabrication.

In this section, we learn that the transformation of cereals into beer can be traced back 7000 years B.C. in China, and 6000 B.C. in Mesopotamia. While we now accept hops as an essential ingredient in beer, it wasn’t generally adapted until around the 15th century. Beer today is now recognized as a beverage that consists of four essential ingredients: water, barley, hops, and yeast. To transform beer into its many different varieties, brewers substitute different cereals for barley, roast the cereals to different degrees of darkness, use different varieties of hops and yeast, and add different flavorings, such as honey, orange zest, and spices. The process of transformation is complex and the resulting beverages are infinitely varied in color, texture, aroma, and taste.

“Connaître les bières” also provides suggestions on how to read a beer label, where to purchase beer, how to store it, and how to appreciate its visual, gustative, and olfactory qualities.

The second section of the book is titled “La sélection du guide Hachette des bières – 800 bières à découvrir.” Here, French artisanal beers take center stage.

To present the French beers, Elisabeth divides France into five beer-producing regions, each with several sub-regions. For each sub-region she describes and rates beers of the microbreweries that are found there. Her rating system is straightforward: only beers that she determines are “successful” (no star), “very successful” (one star), “remarkable” (two stars), “exceptional” (three stars), or “favorites” (three stars plus ♥) get a mention. Beers that only scored “with a default” or “average” by her standards don’t get mentioned at all.

I found this part of the book to be fascinating, because the descriptions of each of the beers are quite detailed. We learn, for example, that the one-star beer La Loroyse (produced by a microbrewery called Les Brasseurs de Lorraine) has sweet flavors at the start that become spicy and fruity, and finishes with a persistent and pronounced herbal bitterness. Furthermore, we learn that this beer would go well with a pepper steak and a Saint-Nectaire or Ossau Iraty cheese. While the information that is conveyed here might not be immediately useful to readers who can’t readily purchase a bottle of La Loroyse, it teaches us that good beers are complex and that each has different structures of flavor that we should seek out the next time we open a bottle. We also learn that certain beers go well with certain foods, and that care should be taken to match them when we sit down to have a beer with our meal.

The final parts of this section are devoted to Belgium, Quebecois, and foreign beers. Only three American microbreweries are mentioned: Left Hand Brewing Company in Colorado, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Nevada, and Brooklyn Brewery in New York. Elisabeth is particularly enthusiastic about the beers from this latter company— she rates four of their beers as three star (one of which is a “favorite”) and two as two star.

At the back of the book is a helpful glossary and two indexes, one that lists beers by name and one that lists breweries by name.

A very good knowledge of French is required to read this book. It is probably the best source of information on the extensive variety of French, Belgium, and Quebecois artisanal beers that is on the market today.

Le Guide Hachette des Bières is available in North America from Amazon.ca.

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An Evening of Beer and Food Pairing with Elisabeth Pierre

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013
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Elisabeth Pierre

Elisabeth Pierre, Bièreologue
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

I’ve had the occasion to blog about Elisabeth Pierre, bièreologue, before. Apart from her work as a consultant in the beer industry, she organizes tastings of artisanal beer around different gastronomic themes. On a recent Thursday evening I got a chance to attend her first-ever beer and food-pairing dinner. Called “Diner – Bières et Mets,” it took place at Tempero, a restaurant that I recently reviewed for the Discover Paris! newsletter Paris Insights.

Alessandra Montagne

Chef Alessandra Montagne (left) in the Kitchen
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

While Alessandra Montagne and her husband Olivier (not pictured) were in the kitchen preparing a great four-course meal, Elisabeth was in the dining room explaining that we would get to taste five beers that evening, each one specially selected to accompany the dishes that we would enjoy. Why five beers when there were only four courses? Because the main course was a pork dish that was prepared three different ways. Two different beers would be served with it.

Here is how the dishes and the beers were presented:

Starter – Velouté de moules (velouté of mussles) paired with Le Tournemine Real Ale du Berry.
Main course – Porc en 3 façons (pork prepared three ways) paired with La Yote Ale Blonde du Berrye and Combe aux Loups, a brown lager.
Cheese plate – Chèvre et Bleu (goat and blue cheeses) paired with L’Inquiète Stout du Berry
Dessert Royal au chocolat, glace au malte (rich chocolate dessert with a scoop of malt-flavored ice cream) paired with Griottines Cervoise.

Royal au chocolat, glace au malte

Royal au chocolat, glace au malte
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

I enjoyed all the dishes and all the beers and thought that the pairings had been well conceived. But if I had to choose a favorite pairing it would be the Royal au chocolat, glace au malte paired with the Griottines Cervoise, a wheat beer flavored with Morello cherry. The chocolate was smooth and rich, the ice cream had a surprising malt flavor, and the beer had a wonderful not-too-sweet cherry taste.

Jean-Simon Landry

Jean-Simon Landry
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

Two other beer industry professionals were present at the dinner. Jean-Simon Landry represents a microbrewery in Quebec called Le Naufrageur. He passed through Paris after having attended the Festival Mondiale de Bière Europe, held in Mulhouse, France in mid-September.

Johann Villedieu

Johann Villedieu
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

Johann Villedieu of Plaisirs et Qualité announced that his company will soon begin distributing artisanal beer to Parisian restaurants. This was indeed good news, because I have often tried to order craft beers in restaurants only to be told that they were not served there.

A good time was had by all!

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Visit Elisabeth Pierre’s Web site La Fille de l’Orge for information (in French) about her upcoming activities centered around the appreciation of beer.

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Beer and Chocolate Tasting with Elisabeth Pierre

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
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Elisabeth Pierre (whom I’ve blogged about before) held a beer and chocolate tasting on Valentine’s Day and we were there!

Elisabeth Pierre Talks about Beer and Chocolate

Elisabeth Pierre Talks about Beer and Chocolate
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

The tasting was held at a beer shop called La Moustache Blanche. In case you don’t know what a moustache blanche is, here is a picture of the owner, Guillaume, proudly displaying his:

Guillaume

Guillaume
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

We tasted many different beers paired with white, milk, and dark chocolates. Below is a photograph of the beers that we tasted.

The Beers That We Tasted

The Beers That We Tasted
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

And below is a photograph of an Italian beer called 32 Tre+Due that you have to open first with a bottle opener, then with a corkscrew.

Opening Beer with Corkscrew

Jean-Pierre Opening a Bottle of Beer with Corkscrew
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

Here is a picture of the table set for the tasting. Note that the mustache emblem of the beer shop is prominently displayed in the background. It almost looks as if the Esquire Magazine man is benevolently watching over the event.

Table Set for Tasting

Table Set for the Tasting
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

We were supplied rating sheets for our tasting notes.

Beer-tasting Notes and Frothy Head of Beer

Beer-tasting Notes and Frothy Head of Beer
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

And we tasted…

Kate, Angelique, and Pascal

Kate, Angelique, and Pascal
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

And tasted…

Carolyn

Carolyn
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

And sniffed to capture the aromas of the brews…

Matthieu

Matthieu
Photograph by www.DiscoverParis.net

And the verdict? I enjoyed most of the beers, including one that Matthieu identified as having an aroma of crème de rose. He named that right away while I was struggling to describe it.

For the most part, I didn’t care for the taste of chocolate with beer. I prefer beer as a refreshing beverage by itself or served with African, Indian, or other spicy food. I did, however, find that 32 Atra, a brown beer made with roasted barley, went well with dark chocolate.

For Monique, the beer-chocolate pairing event got her sit down and taste a variety of beers for the first time in her life. And we’ll drink (in moderation) to that!

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Beer…It’s Not Just a Guy Thing Anymore

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
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Sorry to break this to you guys, but beer isn’t just a guy thing anymore. Nor has it been for quite some time!

Meet Elisabeth Pierre, bièrologue, a French woman who is an expert on beer, and more specifically, artisanal beer. We had the occasion to meet her at Qui Plume la Lune restaurant in Paris where we asked her to talk about her career while we captured it on video. In the video, she talks about how she first became interested in beer, what she does as a beer expert, some of the top chefs with whom she has collaborated, and the history of beer brewing in France.

Pour yourself some suds, sit back, and enjoy the video!

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