Le Supercoin est l'oasis de biere artisanale en Paris! (Pardon, ce clavier americain ici n'a pas…read moredes accents). Haha, mais je ne parle pas francais, vraiment. En Anglais:
"As good as it gets!" is literally true, in this case! When I visited Paris in mid-April, I was impressed with the pervasiveness of the wine culture - that is, ALL IS WINE. Had I been there with a willing accompaniment, and for more than two nights, I would have certainly dug in with a vengeance. From the looks of the labels (and I have experience judging wine by the label, since I work in a wine shop), plenty of delicious wine can be had for 4-5 euros a bottle.
But I was not there to learn what everybody knows! I was there to find the craft beer...and unless I was lied to, Le Supercoin is approximately the THIRD craft beer bar in the whole city. And it had just opened two weeks before!
So 5 stars is requisite. Digging deeper...by American standards, the tap selection (3) is small. But these taps produce high-quality, interesting French beer. And the bottle selection is fairly diverse and interesting. I had La Franche Galle (good witbier) and Agent Provocateur Blonde Artisanal (good Belgian-style blonde) on tap, and Brasserie du Mont Saleve Sorachi Ace Bitter (2.5% alc, nominally malted and lusciously single-hopped with Sorachi Ace hops) and Agent Provocateur Cuvee d'Oscar (some kind of vintage ale: intense cherry/plum/fig dried fruit notes morphing into a surprisingly dry wheat-y finish).
Those bottled beers were a) marvelous and b) quite distinct from anything I've had in America/Britain. But that's secondary; what matters is Le Supercoin is at the very forefront of Parisian craft beer, working in a MUCH less beer-appreciation-conditioned environment than ours. The environment is casual. The young woman working behind the bar was jovial and spoke pretty good English, which combined with my awful French (I've had plenty of school credits; I should be better) was a lot of fun. Craft beer and jolliness seem to go hand in hand, you know? Biere artisanale, une langue universel!
Ah, important note: Le Supercoin was recommended to me by Simon, the owner of La Cave a Bulles http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-cave-à-bulles-paris-2. Much thanks for that!