Le Bon Marché (La Grande Epicerie)

Visited September 2023. I get the impression that this shop is one of Paris's fancier department stores, the equivalent of Harrods or Selfridges in London. The food hall has a separate entrance across a side road from the main shop - although it looked like the two buildings were connected by a bridge on a higher floor, and like Selfridge's or Harrods the food therein is rather fancy and very expensive (but quite exciting for foodies). I didn't expect too much from the beer selection here, but it's clearly improved drastically since previous reviewers visited. It's on the ground floor, round to the left from the entrance (beyond the chocolate, tea and biscuit areas) and takes up quite a large space - a couple of fridges, several wall shelving units and a couple of free standing display units. I'd guess there were about 150 different beers here at least, plus a smattering of ciders. The selection definitely focuses on Parisian breweries, but there are plenty from other French regions (including several new French regions for me!), plus a few from further afield (including French Polynesia and South Korea on my visit). Unlike the food, the beer prices were actually quite reasonable - maybe 30-40 cents more than the supermarkets, but significantly cheaper than the local craft beer shops. All in all this is now a pretty decent place to buy beer in Paris, and I'll definitely call in if ever I'm in Paris again. NB just to note - they do have a list of beers on their website, but I think it's a bit out of date and certainly doesn't cover the full range they have on the shelves.

Le Bon Marché is a large department store, actually two next to each other, with very much upscale clothing, parfums and jewelry. The food section also holds an uncomfortable place between (too) fancy products and special import with a straigh on supermarket. You see this more in the world and as typically is the case, Le Bon Marché is full of tourists and tourist prices. Paris is expensive, but this place even more so. But how about beer? Well... it sucks. Not only is the beer secial tiny, just a small corner, it offers some small French producers who are far from the best, some off international pilsners and obscure but not particularily good or rare stuff in general. Styles varied from pils to belgian ale. Oh and one Pale Ale that Parisian brand Gallia just started producing. It is clear, then, they do not care a single bit about beer here, as they do seem to care about fresh produce, cheese and wine and even more so cookies and such. But the high prices next to the boring selection makes this a hard to recommend stop if your beery time is limited in Paris. You will find some ticks though. Especially if you also tick cider.

Really a very nice place : the oldest "Grand Magasin" (department store) of Paris in an historical bulding. A lot of food from all around the world, fine products, great wines... And also many beers from France, Belgium and different countries. French selection is quite OK (even if bad Parisian beers are over-represented), Belgian classics are there and also some exotic (but basic) beers. It’s also good to know that this is a really posh place with (really) expensive prices !

A fancy supermarket with lots of stuff, and a few bottles of beer. An ok selection of beer. If you’re here getting fancy groceries, why not get some beer? They have 2 shelves of not so rare but nice beers. (For reference, the whiskey section is twice the size of the beer section, and the wine section is at least 50 times the size of the beer section.) So it’s definitely not brewberry, but they also have iberico ham and pommes dauphine which go great with beer, of course. Oh and you can also buy dried chipotle chilie peppers there for making Mexican food. It might be the only place in Paris.

Good place to find out about French microbreweries, with a good selection of Belgian beers as well. The salmon is also very tasty.

Very Posh and stylish place. Very charming decoration.

An impressing and expensive supermarket (500 g of meat cost the same as 5 kg in Canada...OK, I’m sure the cow had a name like Blanchette but come on!). Still, impressive. Better beer selection than Lafayette, similar prices, some more obscure beers. Not bad.

There is several nice beers, for french products its nice as we can find rare products. But for Belgian or German beer the price are more than the double of usual price which is bad. Anyway a good place to go to find unknown stuff.

Funnily enough I hadn’t passed through this place until yesterday. It’s a high-end supermarket with plenty of imports from the world around - if you’re living in Paris this is a good spot to find something from your home country that might be tough to find. The beer section is at the back, and there is a good selection of French microbrews, mainstream English ales, Belgians, and of course caseloads of the usual macros. It’s worth a stop in Paris if you are having trouble finding some French beers, which is often troublesome as they pop up and disappear at a moment’s notice.

Hard to rate it really high. It stood in when others failed. They have a decent French beer selection, including several ok beers that are hard to find elsewhere. Worth a stop, though the prices on French micros are silly high.