At Bangers & Lace, March is French for Bière de Garde.

If you’ve spent more than five minutes at our place, you know we could go on for hours about pairings. It’s pretty easy to couple up a few menu items that perfectly complement one another, and we do it all the time—whether it’s food + beverage or beverage + beverage (more on that later...) But on Tuesdays, we decided to make things a little interesting by challenging ourselves to come up with a perfect pair within some stricter parameters.

That’s why Tuesdays in March will have you dusting off that French vocabulary book from high school: This month is all about Bière de Garde. Pourquoi the French theme? Many times, the process of choosing a theme is really just a toss up between a beer we’re freaking out about, or a dish we’re all dying to dive into. And well, right now we’re miserably cold and dying to tuck into a hearty cassoulet.

So here is the premier couplage: On Tuesday, March 5th, we’ll be offering a cassoulet (duck sausage, rabbit sausage, salt pork, white bean, fennel) paired with Saint-Germain Page 24 Brune. Together, a lucky $13.

Need a little French Beer 101? Saint-Germain Page 24 Brune is a Bière de Garde, one of two branches on the Farmhouse Ale tree. It literally translates to ‘beer for keeping,’ but we dare you to try keeping this around—it’s too delicious. In fact, we are currently lobbying to have it renamed: ‘beer for drinking a lot of.’ Sure, it doesn’t have the same ring to it, but we’re all about accuracy around here.

The biere de garde was typically brewed in winter and spring to be enjoyed throughout the rest of the year. Often aged in cellars, this traditional context translates into an earthy, rustic, malt forward beer, often with a delightful musty character.

Maybe you’ve sampled a biere de garde before? You can check that box on your beer bucket list if you’ve had a Two Brothers Domaine DuPage, a popular American rendition, or a Castelain Blonde, a classically famous example of this style.

If you make it in this month to sample some of our Biere de Garde offerings, you can check the box twice.