Love Good Beer

Montreal

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | Beer | No Comments

I’m back from my trip to Quebec and I feel more Canadian the ever. My wife and I spent the past week drinking local Quebecois beer, gorging ourselves on the delicious Canadian food group known as poutine -they put pretty much anything imaginable in their poutine – eating cheese, pouring maple syrup over just about everything that is eaten before 12:00 noon, and walking over the ground where some of Canada’s most defining moment took place.

The first half of our trip was spent in Montreal, and the remainder of our time in historic Quebec City. As I previously commented, Quebec is an amazing beer destination, and I have quite a bit to post about. This first post will focus on Montreal, the second, which should follow shorty, will focus on Quebec City.

Montreal

The people of Quebec are incredibly proud of locally produced products, which makes for a great beer culture. Most restaurants we visited in Quebec featured a number of local craft beers. Unlike in Vancouver, good beer is available just about anywhere. Although the style of beers available in Montreal is quite diverse, most breweries tend to brew with a yeasty Belgian flair.

While in Montreal we visited a number of brewpubs – Brutopia, Dieu Du Ciel and Les 3 Brasseurs. For anyone planning a trip out Montreal in the near future, avoid Brutopia, they claim to be Montreal’s premium brewpub, but their beer is terrible – the other two pubs served great beer.

After landing in Montreal and a confusing hour spent on public transit on our way to our hotel, we sat down for our first meal in Montreal at Les 3 Brasseurs. This establishment belongs to a chain of brewpubs headquartered in France, and they offer four beers on tap (Wit, Blonde, Amber and Brown) and a maple syrup bottle conditioned Belgian style ale. We started out with a taster of all four ales – all were delicious, but the brown ale was my hands down favorite. To end the evening we tried the bottle conditioned ale, which was great, but nothing overly impressive. I just don’t think that maple syrup and beer work all that well together, many people I’m sure will disagree.

The best brewpub in Montreal, and possibly even Canada, is Dieu Du Ciel. They offer 18 beers on tap and a limited menu of bar snacks. We were only able to try 6 of the 18, but all were impressive. Dieu Du Ciel’s beer is clearly brewed with passion, care and creativity – three critical element necessary to create great beer, and food for that matter. The styles available range from German kolsch to a rich espresso imperial stout. The only beer that I thought they could improve was the India Cream Ale – I just don’t think brewers east of the rockies can match the fantastic hop flavors that west coast brewers have perfected.

Brewery Creek in Vancouver carries a number of Dieu Du Ciel’s beers, I recommend trying all of them at least twice.

Cheers

Erik

Tags: brewery creek, brutopia, Canada, dieu du ciel, Les 3 Brasserie, Maple Syrup, Poutine, quebec

Bonjour

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | Beer | No Comments

Chris is correct, I am in Quebec.  I  apologize in advance for any spelling errors – I am on a Quebecois computer and the spell check is in french.

We left Montreal yesterday after visiting a number of great restaurants and brewpubs.  I will fill you all in when I get back, but so far the best beer experience was at Dieu du Ciel, the worst was at Brutopia, don’t go there, terrible beer!  This province in general, is a solid beer destination.

Sadly I could not get a table at Au Pied De Cochon, but I have eaten fois gras, Martin Picard’s favorite ingredient.

We are now in Quebec City and have plans to eat as much raw milk cheese as possible.

Cheers,

Erik

Tags: au pied de cochon, Beer, brutopia, dieu du ciel, montreal, quebec, raw milk cheese

Erik in Quebec

Monday, August 31st, 2009 | Beer | No Comments

The Wild Chef Martin Picard

If you were wondering why Erik hasn’t been posting much, and you probably were, it’s because he is on vacation in Quebec.  What’s he doing there you ask?  I hope he’s collecting beer to bring back for me, but he’s more likely enjoying smoked meat and poutine, as well as putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAbles like a French Canadian.  He mentioned a trip to Martin Picard’s (The Wild Chef) restaurant Au Pied de Cochon as well as many other culinary adventures.  He also planned to visit a few of Montreal and Quebec’s wonderful craft breweries, specifically Dieu du Ciel.  I imagine he’ll have a few posts to share with us of his adventure when he gets back.  It is with insane jealousy and anticipation that I await his return, which I’m hoping will include a few treats to share with me.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: au pied de cochon, dieu du ciel, matin picard, montreal, quebec, quebec city, wild chef