Bap Bap Beer Paris

There is a growing number of real ale (or craft beer) breweries in Paris and BapBap is one of them. It’s in the up-and-coming Oberkampf part of the XIth arrondissement, quite near Republique and the Bastille.

The brewery has a “tap” room where they offer a good choice of beers – at least eight were available during our visit. These were at surprisingly reasonable – for Paris – prices of around five or six euros for the 50cl measure. The range included a good variety, including pale ale, IPA, a biere de ble and a porter. All of these were in the “sensible” ABV range of 4-6%. However, they also offer a session pale ale with a modest 3% which was quite tasty. The staff we met were friendly and they allowed me to try a few beers before making my choices.

If you don’t want to drink a 25 or 50cl measure they offer a four-drink selection in slightly smaller glasses at a special price – a nice touch.

This was our first visit although the brewery has been growing successfully for the last four years. We were there on a Saturday afternoon in early February. Not the busiest time of the day, or year, but there were plenty of people.

Like many other of the real ale and craft beer taprooms and bars we’ve visited they tend to have a “minimalist” approach to the decor to say the least. This may, in fact, be what passes for hipster style in these parts but there’s no harm in that!

BapBap does tours on Friday (in English) and Saturday (in French) afternoons. These last for around 90 minutes and the price (15 euros) includes a sample of four of their beers. Compared to the price of other tours I have seen in France and the UK, this seems like reasonable value.

We didn’t take part this time but one of the tours started while we were there, and it seemed popular. We managed to take a sneaky peek through the door as they went through to the brewery. It looked like it was much larger than the bar or its frontage suggests.

BapBap is a good place to try some craft beer in Paris. It’s another place we’ll be going back to when we have time.