On the brasserie trail in Montreal
Craft breweries have exploded in Quebec, occupying old taverns and factories
MONTREAL — The ghost of Mordecai Richler frowns down at us from a brick mural as we step inside a former Russian tavern on a busy street corner in the Mile End neighbourhood.
But we’ve not come for vodka or the drink of choice of this city’s most famous writer: single-malt scotch. No sir, we’re here for the beer.
In Richler’s day, that might have meant stubby bottles of Molson. But in today’s Montreal, small-scale brasseries are breathing new life into old haunts that range from former leather factories to weathered taverns – and the beers they’re brewing are giving us a whole new reason to visit the city.
My wife and I, both fans of made-in-Ontario craft beer, handed off our two young kids to their aunt and uncle and set out to discover what we were missing in La Belle Province. For an entire weekend, we forgot about diapers and got to act like grown-ups again. Well, almost. One of the city’s best-known craft beer pubs is Dieu du Ciel, where beer geeks have been flocking for years to try draughts concocted by a brewer with a chemist’s background, Jean-François Gravel.
The beers change regularly and cover a broad spectrum, from citrusy India pale ales to inky Imperial coffee stouts to tart Belgian sours.
Opened in 1998, Dieu du Ciel was a pioneer in the city’s craft beer scene, paving the way for dozens of followers. The crowd is often lined up out the door, drawn by excellent beer brewed in the 500-litre system just feet away in the hand-dug basement, and the unpretentious setting.
“When someone comes in and tells me they don’t like beer, my goal is to find them one they do like,” says brewpub manager Samuel Provost, and you’re inclined to believe he actually means it.
Brasserie Harricana, opened in 2014, has to be one of best of the new wave of microbreweries. It’s the prettiest beer joint I’ve ever visited, with a marble bar top, blush-coloured leather tavern chairs and white brick walls that make it feel more like a Parisian restaurant. But with more than 20 draught taps, most of their contents brewed on site, you’ll definitely want to come for the beer.
My wife and I sampled a phenomenal display of the brewer’s skill – a Belgian-style sour brewed with kaffir limes and cognac, a ‘creamed’ oak-smoked Polish Gratzer wheat ale and a blonde ale brewed with honey from a shop across the street, to name a few.
The kitchen’s output was just as good. We shared a platter of traditional Quebec finger foods: sturgeon croquettes, local cheeses, hummus made with squash, house-made pickles and deviled eggs that made me think about moving to the city permanently.
“This is classic Quebec food, the kind we would serve if were having a party,” explains bartender Florence Grégoire-Jacques, who can talk knowledgeably about beer in both official languages.
Later that afternoon, we explored the Rosemont area, home to 10 of the 33 microbreweries and brewpubs that have sprung up around Montreal. We joined a group from Montreal Craft Beer Tours ($70 a person) for an introduction to the basics of beer making that brought us to some of the neighbourhood’s best places to grab a locally-made brew.
The first stop was Isle de Garde, which has a menu that combines fine beer – they list storage temperatures for each of their 24 local draughts – and offerings from a chef with a background in French cuisine. We sampled vegetarian General Pao Chicken and salmon tartar, washing it down with an English-style bitter and a refreshing, farmhouse-style saison.
“I like to think that beers are telling us stories,” says tour guide Karine Charron, who was about as enthusiastic about craft beer as any person I’ve ever met.
Our next stop was Broue Pub Brouhaha, which took over an old tavern nine years ago. It’s the most rock n’ roll place we visited – a White Stripes song played on the sound system – and it felt like a neighbourhood dive bar.
But the beer is as refined as it gets. We sampled a spicy Belgian saison brewed with pepper from Madagascar, and then a high-test Dubbel made with Quebec maple syrup that gave it an almost candied sugar quality. The poutine they served in between was just as great – French fries buried in a soup of creamy gravy, cheese curds, leeks, bacon and a slab of brie cheese.
Our last stop was Ma Brasserie, a collective of seven local breweries that share an old factory across the street from a former cigar maker. The place takes recycling to a new level: the bar tops are made from old bowling alley lanes, and the spent grain is sold to a local company that makes granola bars.
They use an artisanal approach to brewing here, mixing malts by hand and sharing their equipment. It’s a big, industrial space but it’s warm and welcoming, with picnic tables out front and a teaching space inside to educate people about beer.
“It’s like a collaborative kitchen but everybody brings their own Mason jars,” says tour guide Charron.
The tour ends with a sample of a white beer made with cranberries and Brett, or wild yeast. Then Charron brings out a New England-style India pale ale, beautifully cloudy, smelling like grapefruit juice and with a perfect foamy head that looks like frothed milk.
We clink our glasses, say santé, and take another delicious sip.