Breaking the ice with a cold one

As a beer connoisseur I came to Paris curious about what their beer selection would be. When I visited Italy and Greece a couple of years ago I was very disappointed with the beer, but I thought that France might be better considering that they supposedly have the finest cuisine and wonderful wine. Since I’ve been here I’ve been trying each new beer I see, and attempting to ask the waiters about the flavors. It’s interesting because it doesn’t seem like most of the waiters know much of anything about the beer they are serving and act confused when I ask them about it, as if the question is simple, what size do you want? I’ve been to several different café’s with the same experience, but a couple of weeks ago I ran into a waiter in a small restaurant in Le Marais who seemed more engaging and excited that I wanted to talk about beer. He spoke pretty good English and stood at the table for quite a while talking about the beers that they serve and asking what my favorites are. I didn’t recognize any of the beers on the list, but decided to go with something that the suggested. It turned out that this beer was not exactly my taste, but much better than anything else I had tried here.

I went back to the same restaurant about a week later and was happy to see that the same waiter was working. He recognized me and immediately asked what beer I was drinking. I tried to explain to him that the one I had last time was fairly good, but still not exactly what I wanted. With mainly hand motions and facials expressions I attempted to relay to him what I was looking for and suddenly he got it. In a moment he brought out a tiny bottle of beer called, Grimbergen. With a smile he popped the top and handed me a cold one. The beer was good, it wasn’t amazing, but it was good. The beer actually had flavor, which was new. So glad I found the lone beer-lover in Paris.