Kronenbourg 1664

The number on Kronenbourg 1664's label is a birthday, not a recipe: 1664 is the founding year the brand claims for the original Hatt family brewery in Strasbourg, while the beer itself launched in 1952. It is France's flagship premium lager — the default demi in cafés from Paris to Marseille.

The name is a map reference too. In the nineteenth century the brewery moved to Strasbourg's Cronenbourg district and eventually took the neighborhood's name, swapping the C for a K. When postwar France wanted a premium beer, the house reached back to that 1664 founding date and printed it in gold.

Owned today by Denmark's Carlsberg, the brand has a striking second act far from Alsace: in China, 1664 Blanc — the citrusy wheat beer in the blue bottle — has become a fashionable order in its own right, making a beer from the French-German borderlands a status pour in Shanghai.

Golden and soft, with a sweeter malt profile than its German rivals — brioche and light honey — lifted by a floral, faintly spicy aroma the brand credits to Alsatian hops. Gentle bitterness, silky carbonation, and an easy finish; its Blanc sibling adds citrus and coriander over a hazy wheat base.