Best Craft Beer Bars in Paris

For most of the last century, ordering beer in Paris got you an industrial demi poured with visible indifference, while the wine list arrived in leather. This is the city that professionalised the sommelier and never thought to train anyone on hops. That long neglect is exactly why the beer scene here feels earned rather than inherited.

The turn came in 2012. In September of that year, La Fine Mousse opened near Oberkampf with twenty taps given over entirely to independent brewers. A month later Thierry Roche started brewing at Brasserie de la Goutte d'Or in the 18th, the first artisanal brewery in the heart of the city.

The bière artisanale movement grew in the wine establishment's blind spots: workaday streets in the 11th and 18th, old shopfronts, quartiers the guidebooks skipped. Brewers named their beers after the streets outside rather than borrowed abbeys. The city now supports its own beer festival each May.

Our ranking covers the rooms pouring the best of it. Below, we map where they cluster, how to run a beer night on Paris time, and what to order once you sit down.

Oberkampf and the 11th

The 11th is where Parisian craft beer stopped being a rumour. La Fine Mousse sits at 6 avenue Jean Aicard, a short walk from Métro Rue Saint-Maur on line 3 or Ménilmontant on line 2, with twenty rotating taps and a bottle list that runs past 150 references. It has argued for independent brewing since 2012 and still reads as the movement's front parlour.

The surrounding streets hold the density that makes a full evening possible. The brewery BAPBAP produces in this part of town and opens its taproom for short weekday evening windows, and the walk between Oberkampf and Belleville passes enough beer-minded rooms to fill a night without repeating yourself.

Goutte d'Or and the northern 18th

The Goutte d'Or gave Paris its brewing story back. Thierry Roche opened Brasserie de la Goutte d'Or at 28 rue de la Goutte d'Or in October 2012, and his beers carry the names of the streets around the brewhouse, Château Rouge and Myrha among them. Some recipes pull ginger, pepper and dates from the nearby Marché Dejean, which tells you how local the operation really is.

Further north, Le Supercoin at 17 rue Boinod has poured a defiantly French tap list since early 2012, eight taps backed by a fridge of hexagonal obscurities. Métro Simplon or Marcadet-Poissonniers on line 4 gets you there. À la Bière Comme à la Bière keeps a bottle wall of several hundred references in the same arrondissement, with a second shopfront over in the 20th.

Sentier and the 2nd

Central Paris drinks beer around Sentier. Hoppy Corner opened in April 2016 at 34 rue des Petits Carreaux with fifteen taps, two minutes from Métro Sentier on line 3, and it catches the after-work crowd spilling out of the district's offices.

Around the corner at 1 rue des Jeûneurs, Brew Unique runs the city's first brew-on-premise operation. Mike Gilmore, formerly head brewer at FrogPubs, founded it with Simon Thillou of the pioneering shop La Cave à Bulles, and customers mash in on site, then return about a month later to bottle eighteen litres of their own beer.

The Latin Quarter and the 5th

The market crowd on rue Mouffetard feeds a small but reliable beer pocket. Brewberry has held 11 rue du Pot de Fer since September 2014, running up to two dozen taps a few steps from the Mouffetard food stalls. Métro Place Monge on line 7 drops you closest.

Cross into the 6th and the register changes completely. Comptoir des Canettes, known to regulars as Chez Georges, holds down 11 rue des Canettes near Métro Mabillon, an old Saint-Germain bar and cellar that predates the craft wave entirely. Take it for the room and the history, not the tap count.

South Pigalle, Bercy and the water

Mikkeller Bar Paris gives the 9th its international outpost at 32 rue Marguerite de Rochechouart, twenty taps of the Danish brewer's output near Métro Cadet on line 7. It is the address for the sours and barrel projects that French-focused lists skip.

East along the Seine, The Frog at Bercy Village anchors the 12th at Métro Cour Saint-Émilion on line 14, a brewpub and sports bar from the FrogPubs group, which brews its own range for its Paris houses. Up at La Villette, Paname Brewing Company pours beside the Canal de l'Ourcq with a terrace over the water.

What makes a great craft beer bar in Paris

First, the tap list has to declare a position. The best rooms in this ranking favour independent producers and say so, a stance La Fine Mousse pushes publicly against what it calls craft-washed brands owned by industrial groups. In a market where big lager names still hold most café taps, that discrimination is the whole product.

Second, the staff must translate. Most Parisian drinkers arrive fluent in wine, so a good server here sells a saison the way a caviste sells a Chinon, by comparison and quiet confidence. Ask, and the pour you get will beat anything you would have picked alone.

Third, the room should still feel like Paris. The strongest venues inherited bistro bones, tight tables and worn counters, and kept them, adding taps rather than themes. Plates of cheese and charcuterie, the standard offer at La Fine Mousse, do more for a tasting session than any novelty menu.

Finally, the list should tell you where the beer comes from. Rooms like Le Supercoin build their identity on pouring French producers almost exclusively, while Mikkeller Bar Paris exists to import what the local scene cannot make. Both positions are honest; the bars to avoid are the ones with no position at all.

Planning your night

Run your evening on the apéro clock. Parisians drink before dinner rather than instead of it, so beer bars fill in the early evening, thin out as kitchens seat diners, then take a second wave later on. Arrive at opening for first pick of the stools, or slide in during the dinner lull.

Eat before you settle in, or plan around sharing plates. Most bar-side kitchens stop at cheese and charcuterie, which suits a tasting flight but will not carry you through a long night. The 11th and the 5th both put proper restaurants within a two-minute walk of the taps.

Book only where food is the point. The bar sides of these venues run on walk-ins, while a beer-pairing dinner on the restaurant side of La Fine Mousse is the kind of table you reserve ahead. Brewery taprooms keep short hours; Brasserie de la Goutte d'Or has historically opened to drinkers only on selected evenings, so check before crossing town.

The Métro does most of the work. Line 3 links Sentier to Rue Saint-Maur, so you can drink the 2nd and the 11th on one ticket, and line 4 carries you up to Le Supercoin's stretch of the 18th. In August assume nothing, since independent owners take holidays like everyone else in Paris, and confirm openings before making a special trip.

Paris is not a beer capital and does not need to be one. What it offers instead is a young scene with a wine city's palate: tap lists chosen like cellars, servers who explain rather than upsell, and brewers naming beers after their own streets.

Start at La Fine Mousse to understand the movement, spend an afternoon in the Goutte d'Or to taste where it is heading, and keep Sentier for after-work pints. A decade and a half in, the wine establishment has stopped smirking. That is the real verdict.

Where can I find the best craft beer near me in Paris?

Check which side of the city you are on first. East of centre, the 11th around Oberkampf carries the densest cluster of serious taps, with the 18th's Goutte d'Or and rue Boinod pockets a short Métro ride north. Central drinkers should aim for Sentier in the 2nd, while the Latin Quarter covers the Left Bank around rue Mouffetard.

Our near me finder sorts the full ranking by distance from wherever you happen to be standing.

Which Paris neighbourhood is best for a taproom crawl?

The 18th gives you the most brewery-first crawl in the city. Start at Brasserie de la Goutte d'Or, where the beers take their names from surrounding streets, then walk north to Le Supercoin for its French-only taps and finish among the bottles at À la Bière Comme à la Bière.

For bar density rather than breweries, Oberkampf and the 11th remain the safer bet, anchored by the twenty taps at La Fine Mousse. See the full Paris guide for routes.

Which local independent breweries should I look for?

Start with Brasserie de la Goutte d'Or, brewing organic, unfiltered beers in the 18th since 2012, some spiced with ginger, pepper and dates from its own market street. BAPBAP and Paname Brewing Company both produce inside the city limits, with Paname pouring beside the Canal de l'Ourcq, and Grand Paris and Outland turn up on serious tap lists too.

Any bar or shop flagging its beers as brassé à Paris is doing the filtering for you.

What beer styles do France and Paris do best?

France's signature style is bière de garde, a strong farmhouse ale from the north of the country, historically brewed in the cooler months and laid down for keeping. French-focused lists like Le Supercoin's are where you will find it treated with respect.

Paris's own brewers mostly look forward rather than back. Expect confident IPAs, sours and barrel-aged beers across the city's taps, plus Goutte d'Or's spice-led bottles, which borrow their seasoning from the shops and stalls of the quartier.

When do Paris craft beer bars get busy, and should I book?

Expect two peaks: the apéro hours in the early evening, heaviest from Thursday to Saturday, and a post-dinner return later at night. Bar areas across the city run on walk-ins, so booking rarely applies to a stool and a pint.

Reserve only when eating is the plan, most obviously for the beer-pairing tables on the restaurant side of La Fine Mousse. Midweek visits and early arrivals get the taps largely to themselves, along with staff who have time to talk.

Can you brew your own beer in Paris?

Yes. Brew Unique in the 2nd arrondissement runs the city's first brew-on-premise operation, founded by a former FrogPubs head brewer together with the owner of the beer shop La Cave à Bulles.

You book a session, brew an eighteen-litre batch on their kit from a house recipe or your own plan, then return roughly a month later, once fermentation and conditioning are done, to bottle it. It sits two streets from the craft beer taps of Hoppy Corner, so the day plans itself.