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Paris Beer Festival: The FestivalA hand holding up a glass of stout, people in the background

Paris Beer Festival: The Festival

Published on 24 May 2025

While the Paris Beer Festival actually is a whole week of activities, it culminates in a more classic beer festival—brewery stands in a big hall, where you get your tasting glass filled—in the weekend at the end of that week.

But first… Coffee! I found a tiny roaster in the Marché Beauvau, not far from the festival venue. When I got to Early Bird, I was unexpectedly welcomed with a thick Irish accent, and some really nice coffee and cake.

The Marché Beauvau covered market. And a normal market in front of it…
A cortado, an espresso, and a piece of cake on a bar. Early Bird branded insulated behind them, and the espresso machine covered with stickers

The Paris Beer Festival festival was at Ground Control, a venue that was both an event space and a food market. That meant it was also open for people not interested in the festival, leading to a very mixed public. Since no beer list was published in advance, I spent the first hour checking out all the brewery stands, adding beers to try later to my list…

Keeping well fed is essential when drinking that many beers, so after finishing my list, I had a butter chicken naan wrap from Burning Naan.

Beer stands and lots of people
A glass of beer in front of stacked beer cans
Hand holding up a small, filled Craftmaster beer glass

It was a Paris/Brussels hasher who brought this festival to my attention, and he was there as well. He introduced me to some other Paris hashers, who I’ll see more of tomorrow.

Before diving into the imperial stouts, I definitely needed another meal, so I got myself a nice truffle carbonara pasta from Solina.

Some weird, hand cranked, wall mounted telephone
Glass of beer on a railing, some greenery behind it, and a woman sticking out her tongue
A hand holding up a glass of stout, people in the background
An industrial building, crowds of people in front of it

When there was only fifty cents left on my cashless card, I decided it was time to call it a day, and headed back to the hotel. More beers tomorrow!

A cartoon of a fencer attached to a cable, attacking two surprised people in trainers

Day 9 – Milano

Published on 2 June 2019

Our last day in Italy turned out to be the hottest as well, ironically in the most northern Italian city we’re visiting: Milano. From our B’n’B on the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, we went to the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit in the technology museum: Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci”.

The Piazza del Duomo was even busier than usual, because there was a big stage for the Festa della Repubblica celebrations, so we quickly headed to the Porta Ticinese and Naviglio Grande area for some beers at Tutti Fritti and Al Coccio.

When all other bars we were interested in turned out to be closed, we went to the Hops Beer Shop, before going south again for our own last supper—ossobuco and cotoletta alla milanese—at Osteria del Binari.

After two more beer stops at Bere Buona Birra and Hop, an antique tram brought us back to our B’n’B for our last night in Italy…

Day 8 – Napoli

Published on 2 June 2019

Today we visited the Museo Archeologico di Napoli, to see all the stuff they moved out of Pompeii. As a future archaeologist, learning about the importance of the correct recording of all finds, it is quite frustrating to see that for many of the finds from Pompeii, they now have to guess where exactly it was actually found… Still, nice to see so many famous mosaics and frescoes for real at last!

For lunch we had a real pizza napoletana, and a pizza fritta, at Starita. Indeed, my Scottish friends: “We’re gonna deep fry your pizzas”, is no threat at all, for the Neapolitans!

After lunch, we did a bit more sightseeing, since we hadn’t seen much of Napoli in daylight yet. Ugly apartment blocks and quadracycles immediately reminded us of Oostende, but we have to admit, the sea view was quite a bit nicer!

Our last stop was NaBeer, one of the newest—and probably smallest—craft beer places in Napoli, serving beers from local brewery VentiTré on draught.

After that it was time to catch our Italo train to Milano. Since the price difference at the time of booking was negligible, we even even had the pleasure of enjoying this almost five hour trip in Prima class!

Once checked in in our Milanese accommodation, we briefly popped out again to visit one of the Birrificio Lambrate bars.

Day 7 – Pompei & Erculano

Published on 31 May 2019

Our first day in Napoli, we didn’t actually spend a lot of time in the city, but on the sites of the Pompei and Herculaneum excavations, checking at least one thing of my bucket list.

When we returned to Napoli in the evening, we first visited Ventimetriquadri for some top quality coffee. For dinner we had a cuoppo di terra from Friggitoria Vomero.

Then it was time for—not surprisingly—beer, provided to us by Murphy’s Law, Hoppy Ending, Mosto, and Il Birraiuolo. This little pub crawl also learned us that Napoli is quite big, and the height differences can be huge!

Day 6 – Roma II

Published on 30 May 2019

On the second and last day in Rome, we first visited the Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme to see their nice collection of Roman statues, mosaics, and frescoes.

After some pizza al taglio, we then went to see the Ara Pacis, and the Claudius exhibition in the same museum.

West of the Tiber, we checked out coffee place Pergamino and beer bar Be.Re., that strangely enough seemed to be two parts of the same business…

A last visit to BrewDog Roma to have our beer visas stamped, and we had a couple of beers as well of course.

After a excruciatingly slowly served dinner, we quickly picked up our bag at our B’n’B, and eventually still managed to catch our train to Napoli.