I was pleased to discover that there were numerous craft beer bar options in Nantes, certainly sufficient for my one night stay. This was Amère, which combines a craft beer shop with a bar and therefore allows customers both to drink beer immediately and to purchase additional beer for later, a business model based on understanding people properly.
The selection of cans and this seemed well curated with local and international breweries. I like the combination of familiar and entirely new to me, although it was too hot for me to traipse any of these cans around the city for later.
The beer board offered another respectable selection, although this was also when I discovered that my phone had no signal. This made checking Untappd to establish which beers I had already tried rather more difficult and required me to rely upon memory, instinct and the vague recognition of colourful labels. These are essentially the methods used by humanity before mobile data, although it is hard to imagine how civilisation survived without being able to confirm immediately that a beer had been rated 3.74 by 486 strangers. Many people just don’t understand the stress of ordering a beer without Untappd.
Despite the lack of Internet, I correctly guessed that I hadn’t had this beer before and it’s the Rouge Soleil from Fauve which is a small French brewer. It was a gently tart beer with cherries and fruit, all rather agreeable.
The bar area was clean and bright, with the service being friendly and prompt, although the lack of air conditioning meant that the temperature was on the hotter side. The outside seats were all full, which did limit my options somewhat. The venue also has a darts board cutting right across it, which is perhaps the only thing that was a little uncomfortable, but I liked the whole vibe in general.
Anyway, I liked this bar and the whole atmosphere of the arrangement, it’s always lovely to see craft beer done well. The venue is Untappd verified but they don’t display their craft beer list on the app which is a little unusual, but I was pleased with the options that there were. The only significant difficulty was leaving after one drink, but Nantes contained several more craft beer bars and I had responsibilities to the wider research project.