Though France shares a border with Belgium and sits across the English Channel from the UK, the country doesn’t have as big a beer culture as its neighbors. The French consume less than half of the European average of seventy liters per person. The trends have been shifting over the past few years, however, spurned by the deluge of microbrews in the United States and elsewhere. From 246 microbrasseries in 2016, France now has a whopping 1653 since the start of 2020. Marseille’s first microbrasserie, La Plaine, set sail in 2013 (the industrial La Cagole – whose bottles sport the city’s clichéd bimbo – doesn’t count). La Minotte followed in 2015. Then, in April 2018, we got our first bona fide brewpub: Zoumaï.

Back in the days when we spent more time living without electricity than with, when the police had the sole function of extorting money from citizens, and we were never sure whether the Borjomi mineral water we were buying had been mixed in a bathtub, there weren’t many options for diners desiring a break from the generic Georgian menu of those times. Of course, there were the Turkish steam table restaurants in Plekhanov, but our spoiled western palates periodically demanded more. There was Santa Fe, a Tex-Mex inspired restaurant we can credit for introducing “Caesar Salad” (with mayonnaise!) and “Mexican Potatoes,” spud chunks fried with a generous dusting of paprika, which have somehow become staples on virtually every Georgian menu in the city. Then we discovered a place with flavors our taste buds were no strangers to.