Whither Le Stubby? Cheap thrills inside

Why the idiot child of beer still delivers nostalgic charm

🌙 Last time, we examined nightcaps, the drink you have after the last drink of the night.

🇫🇷 This time, we look at the classic stubby bottle of French lager you buy in packs of 10 at the supermarket. Great format. Shame about the beer?

💎 Paid supporters get two exclusive interviews:

📚 The first is with craft beer YouTube supremo and prize winning author Jonny Garrett. You can buy Jonny’s book here.

🍻 The second is with Reece Hugill, Owner and Head Brewer at Donzoko Brewing.

🎨 This post also contains specially commissioned lino prints by the talented Laura Hadland. I don’t have the budget (yet?) to do this all the time but I wanted images, and I didn’t want to use AI to steal work from fellow creative types, so this time I’ve put my money where my mouth is. If you like them, share the love.

Biere Luxe lino print by Laura Hadland

My late father was a wine guy. In fact I’ll go further than that: he was Mr Wine Society, through and through.

So when my parents decided to buy a French getaway (it was the 90s), what we ended up with was a farmhouse in the tiny rural of village of Fressin.

The area around Fressin, known as Les Sept Vallées, is nice enough in a damp kind of way, but it’s not exactly what you picture when you hear ‘holiday house in France’.

It soon became clear Dad had chosen it just to be close to the Wine Society’s outpost in nearby Hesdin.¹

Still, when I think back to my visits there — which took me from callow teen to knackered young dad myself — what I remember drinking with Dad was beer. Or stubbies, to be precise: little 250 ml bottles of Kronenbourg, bought dirt cheap by the slab from the local hypermarché.

The quiet comfort of a stubby

These teeny bottles have a nostalgic pull for many beer lovers. They were a supermarket staple for many years, cheap and reliable, and they somehow retained a hint of continental cachet even when their French connection was a bit more strained.

Take Tesco’s Biere D’Or.² In the introduction to his Fortnum & Mason Award-winning book The Meaning of Beer, Jonny Garrett tells the story of his dad drinking a stubby — just the one — of this own-brand lager every day after getting home from work.

It was the routine; his signal that the work day had ended — as vital as the meal he had it with, as the kiss for my mum, as the begrudging communication from his heirs. For such an important moment — maybe the best moment of the day — he didn’t invest much in it.

This ‘French Piss’ soon worked its way into Jonny’s life too.

My dad’s green stubbies became the lubricant for many drunken barbecues and illicit house parties as I pinballed my way through my teens, and Biere D’Or now holds a very special place in my heart. When I visit my parents these days, I insist that there’s a stack of French Piss in the fridge ready for my arrival.

Paid supporters will hear a bit more on stubby nostalgia from Jonny later, as well as Reece Hugill of Donzoko Brewing for a brewer’s take on putting something better in those little green bottles — maybe a good lager, maybe even a nice refreshing cider. First, though, here’s a gander at the stubby as it exists today.

Where the stubby really stands

A quick walk around some local supermarkets confirms what I thought: the stubby has largely gone underground. The physical shelves these days are home to ‘Spanish’³ lagers rather than French ones, offered in 330 ml bottles and 440 ml cans. To find your stubbies you have to go online. Here’s what your money gets you.

The main message this data wants to give us is stubbies are cheap. Little wonder so many of us remember drinking them when we were young; most of us were also skint. Or we were drinking into our parents’ booze budget and provided with supplies priced accordingly.

You might also tease out another message: stubbies average one unit or less per bottle, which is good for steady but not silly drinking. There are no strong ABVs in play down at this end of the market.

French Beer lino print by Laura Hadland

For a formative beer drinker not yet accustomed to bitterness, a stubby isn’t too much of a commitment. Plus the diminutive format means that the beer stays cold and fizzy all the way to the bottom. Stubbies were — are — a great option for an inexpensive quick fix of refreshment.

It’s just a shame the beer’s so shit. Still, rather than dream of what could be perhaps we should make peace stubbies as the idiot child of beer and simply love them for what they are.

“Little bottles of piss is fine as long as everyone understands they're little bottles of piss,” says Reece (from whom there’s more below). “You're not selling artisanal piss, you know what I mean? And then you're like: this is just a tiny bit better, but it's five pounds a bottle. No, thank you. I'll stick to having a nice expensive pint in the sun at a pub, and if I'm out fishing or camping or whatever, I'll take the little bottles of piss.”

What’s your take on le Stubby? Do you have fond memories?