Its beers include Blonde au Cassis (blackcurrant blonde), La Blanche de Blanche (wheat beer) and Ambrée Numéro 2 (amber with cloves and cardamom).

In the rampart-ringed viticultural “capital” Beaune, Belenium, founded by three friends, is the medieval town’s first artisanal microbrewery. What’s more, its eco-friendly cans are designed by a local watercolorist. To the south, Brasserie des Trois Fontaines collaborates with farmers to cultivate barley and Burgundian hops, and resurrects old recipes using local ingredients like eau-de-vie de marc brandy in bottle-fermented beers.ĭeep in grand cru wine country south of Dijon, “nanobrewery” Modéliacus employs a sustainable ethos (right down to crackers made from spent beer grains) in brews such as its hoppy Bière de Recotte: a favorite with grape pickers during the vendange (wine harvest).įurther south along the Route des Grands Crus, VIF takes its cues from bottom-fermented German beers (such as Leicht, a low-alcohol Kölsch) and American craft ales (like L’Ouest, a Californian-style pale ale).

Also to the southeast, Independent House uses local ingredients to make international styles like American IPAs, English stouts and Dutch lagers. Just outside Dijon to the southeast, Brasserie Elixkir specializes in blondes, IPAs, tripels and stouts (some barrel-aged). Today, there are dozens of creative enterprises on Burgundy’s (re-)emerging beer map, and a bottle will certainly set you back less than the region’s most famous vintages. And it’s thriving, thanks to a blend of know-how developed from wine making, regional add-ins like blackcurrant and gingerbread – and revolutionary new ideas. It’s only in this century that artisanal brewing has been revived. Yet the region’s breweries evaporated once industrialization arrived in the 1950s. With the fertile land producing cereal crops, brewing took off. Cervoise was the pre-beer brew of choice for centuries, until the early 15th-century Duke of Burgundy Jean sans Peur (John the Fearless) created the Ordre du Houblon (Order of Hops), instituting the use of hops for their antiseptic and aromatic qualities to stabilize the output. Today, Burgundy’s burgeoning brewing landscape is a sort of return to these ducal roots.

Medieval monks made wine here during Charlemagne’s reign for the church and aristocratic Dukes of Burgundy, whose vast territory extended to Flanders. Vines were first planted in Gallo-Roman days. In any case, wine is all but impossible to avoid: viticultural heritage seeps all across Burgundy. Maybe you've heard of Burgundy’s wine trails, such as the prestigious châteaux along the Route des Grands Crus, with their exceptional reds (made from pinot noir grapes) and whites (chardonnay). Burgundy is famous for it's vineyards © PHB.cz (Richard Semik)/Shutterstock You've probably heard of Burgundy's famous wine trails.

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