Beers of Bourgogne

After arriving in Dijon and checking into our hotel on yet another cold, windy and rainy day, we dropped our giant mounds of soggy luggage off in our room and wondered downstairs to the bar to plan our afternoon and the following day.  And to use the free Wi-Fi.

Despite it being happy hour, there was no one there but there was a bucket with 5 bottles of open champagne sitting on the counter of the bar with clean glasses sitting next to it.

We seated ourselves at a small table by the window and waited.  Waited.  Waited some more.  Finally, The Husband got up and went to the bar to pour a glass of, what we assumed was, complimentary champagne.  Sure enough, some small French guy appears at the very moment The Husband delivered my glass of champagne.  Little French man wanted to know what room we were in.  Seriously?

How do you try to tell someone in French that if they don't want people to help themselves, they should a) have a bartender present at the bar and b) not leave open bottles of champagne on the counter with clean glasses immediately adjacent to it?!? Je ne sais pas (I don't know).

So after wondering around the city on a bank holiday (Pentecost) in the rain for a few hours desperately looking any place that was open to grab a drink, we ended up back at the hotel.  We waited about 10 minutes again for the bartender to appear and then got two local brews (330mL for 6€ each) to take back to our room.

According to the brewery website, their beers are made using traditional Bavarian methods and adhere to the purity laws ("Reinheitsgebot") enacted in 1516 .  The Reinheitsgebot is very simple.  It states that beer must contain only malt, hops and water -- no additives of any kind.

Blanche - Weissbier (4.8% ABV)
Brasserie de Vezelay
Saint-Père, Bourgogne, France

Blonde - Pale Ale (5.5% ABV)
Brasserie de Vezelay
Saint-Père, Bourgogne, France

Neither The Husband or I can remember too much that was either remarkably good or remarkably bad about either of these beers.  We finished both of them and I remember commenting that perhaps the French people in Bourgogne should stick to making wine -- because -- as we learned on our wine tour the following day, they do that really really well.

The next day we spotted the other varieties produced by Brasserie de Vezelay in the market.