My Geneva Week In Beers 22.07.23

We were never meant to stop in Geneva. We had arrangements to go to Nice and Lyon where we would do some shooting for our series before staying with our friends in the French Alps. Unfortunately for so many, rioting began taking place in these two cities for reasons far too dark for me to discuss on this silly travel and beer publication. Thinking it would be completely tasteless to shoot an idealistic and competitive travel series as France mourned, we rescheduled those two shooting stops for Milan and Geneva.

Despite the heat, I enjoyed Milan but in Geneva and could never quite seem to shoo away the nasally mosquito buzzing around my ear, misquoting Clerks; “You’re not even supposed to be here today!”

Ever hear a rad story from your friend who just got back from Geneva? No, you haven’t and I’m sorry but this story isn’t going to change that.

Left: Jet d'Eau on Lake Geneva. Right: Some mountains coming into Geneva, there are so many like this it’s not funny.

Yep, it’s clean, you can literally drink from Lake Geneva if you don’t mind the odd millionaire’s pube. Sure, the mountainous alpine views really put beautiful walks in other cities in perspective. 100%, there is delicious cheese in solid and liquid form. And if you like making dad jokes, then the Swiss flag is a big plus for you too. Watches, gadgets, human rights; Geneva is famous for a lot of things.

But what it is not famous for is beer. It seems very little of the aforementioned pure water is living up to it’s true potential and becoming beer.

Plus it’s expensive. Not only is the Swiss Franc is one of the strongest currencies in the world, above the US dollar and the Euro I had become accustomed to, it seems everything is so pricey that trying to translate the cost of your meal into Aussie dollars is something you should only attempt if you feel like crying.

Lake Geneva is thought to have formed 10,000 years ago, when a table of tourists saw the price of their fondue and cried the lake into existence.

With it’s lack of beer recognition and tear inducingly high prices (also there’s a cost of living crisis) you can see why Geneva and I didn’t quite hit it off.

Anyway, here are the beers I drank over my unanticipated and statistically improbable six night stay.

We arrived on a Saturday and went to a Lebanese restaurant where I had a Beirut Beer alongside a rather delicious lamb kebab. Great kebab accompaniment, made me say ‘fuck yeah!’ when I tasted it. Nothing revolutionary but good fun, even if I might never financially recover from it.

‘Committed to Excellence’ and a lot of fonts apparently.

Then I didn’t drink for two days because a lot of things are closed on a Swiss Sunday and I was trying to save money.

We were shooting on Tuesday I had a Meynite by Brasserie des Murailles brewed just outside of Geneva. Brewed in the Belgian blonde style it have lovely juicy orange flavours with just a tiny tart hint.

On Wednesday I reviewed L’ambrée by Les Brasseurs, a rather rowdy brew pub right near Geneva’s main train and bus station. Watch the review if you want but I can save you time and straight up say I think it was a dud. It confirmed my continuing theory that the initial radius around any major train station is full of crappy places you should avoid.

Left: Meynite by Brasserie des Murailles. Right: You’re allowed to drink it in public if it’s alcohol free.

Thursday we were back to shooting, and without spoiling too much I had a really mixed bag including a blonde worth to sit aside raclette, a beer by cult Manchester brewery Cloudwater and a bloody alcohol free beer.

My last beer in Geneva I had back at our half-equipped serviced apartment, a widely available Swiss beer called Feldschlösschen, brewed in German speaking Switzerland. As it’s owned by Carlsberg, ads for Feldschlösschen are everywhere and the beer is predictably adequate, simpy big cold mouthfuls of wet Swiss common sense.

This was the most aesthetically pleasing background in our serviced apartment I swear.

It might seems like I didn’t enjoy my time in Geneva, and well, yeah, compared to everywhere else I went it would be bottom of the list Because everything is so expensive it is very easy to feel like you’re not welcome unless you are someone who can afford for you and your Gucci wearing kids to spend 10 million francs an hour pelting gold at each other. This is not to do with the Swiss themselves, for the most part are lovely and helpful people, it’s more to do with the fact we are not Swiss and don’t have the zeroes in our bank account to make it a reality.