 Montreal is, without question, one of the better cities in North America to explore the local “fermented culture”. The local beers, and in this city some cider and mead, offer the aficionado a lot of choice.
Of perhaps the greatest interest to the visiting drinker is the relative proximity of the city’s seven brewpubs to each other. There are two groups of three within a short walking distance of each other, and for that fresh air break you should take anyway when visiting them all, the walk between the two groups is only 20 minutes.
There are three pubs up on "the Plateau", and three clustered around the intersection of St. Denis and Ontario Street. There is also a very good pub near that intersection that has the beer from Lennoxville’s Golden Lion brewpub on tap, as well as a great single malt selection.
The lonely one is Brutopia, which is just below St. Catherine on Crescent. (Metro Peel and a 5-minute walk west and south)
Peculiar to Quebec, pubs with no full kitchen all seem to open at 3 pm. Of the brewpubs, Le Reservoir, Amere a Boire and Trois Brasseurs open for lunch and offer more than pub snacks.
If you were to try to tour all of the pubs in one night, you would have your work cut out for you. The problem is not getting to them all, but in wanting to try all the beers in each pub! I recently visited all of these places (although over the course of 3 days) and, with some help from a couple of locals, have mapped out how to do it in an evening.
The order would depend on where you want to end up, I suppose, but I'd send you to Dieu de Ciel first because it is hard to get a seat there at night, and it gets so smoky you can hardly see. This direction also means you walk downhill for most of the trip.
Start at Dieu de Ciel, corner of Laurier and Clark. . They have one of the most amazing brewpub systems, if you are a brewer, with glycol temperature controlled lines from serving keg/tank to the tap so that each beer can be delivered as intended. They will also usually have cider and mead.
After you have tried their beers, come out of the pub, cross the street and walk down Clark to St. Joseph, hang a left there, and then a right on Saint-Laurent, staying on the right hand side. A couple of blocks down, on your right, just past a health food store on the corner of Villeneuve, at 4650 Saint-Laurent is Le Sergeant Recruiteur. Have the cask conditioned Hip Hop bitter on the hand pump, and if you want a taste awakening, they also have Liefmans Framboise on tap in addition to beers from La Barbarie and several more of their own.
Exiting the Sergeant, turn right and walk down Saint-Laurent to Duluth. You will find it four or five long blocks down, the fourth big street on the left, surfaced with unit pavers like a pedestrian-only street, except they allow cars. Turn left on Duluth, and almost immediately; on your left is Le Reservoir at number 9 Duluth. They serve good food, and will be crowded in an evening. It can be easy to miss. In summer they have a nice roof top deck.
Now for the hike. This is almost twice the distance between the Sergeant and Le Reservoir. For the lazy, injured, or non-ambulatory, getting a cab in Montreal is usually just a matter of standing on the street and waving at them. The fare to the next place would be only five or six dollars, I’d guess. My preferred route is to simply hang a left out of Le Reservoir and walk down Duluth to Saint Denis. There is a lot to look at along the way if you like restaurants. When you get to St. Denis, cross and turn right, walking down hill again. You will cross Sherbrooke and find yourself walking down a steep part of St. Denis. Amere a Boire is on your left about two thirds of the way down the hill at 2049 St Denis St (that is Ontario Street at the bottom). They also serve food, more pub like, in an upstairs part that also has big tables where groups can gather. I'd suggest you have the Bock, and the Cerna Hora lager, but all the beers are generally quite good.
You can actually see another brewpub from the entry to this one. It is down St. Denis past Ontario, on the right hand side. It's called les Trois Brasseurs. This is apparently a chain from France. The food is quite good (they have the Alsatian pizza like thing called Flammekueche, shortened to "Flam"). The beers are, well, somewhat boring, but clean.
Back up St. Denis to Ontario and you hang a right on to Ontario walk about 5 blocks, crossing one very wide four-lane street, and on the left at 809 Ontario St E
is Le Cheval Blanc, the city's first brewpub. This place is a classic pub/boozer, and has great beers on tap. Its line-up has shifted to more British style beers of late, although the Belgian styles are still there. Not much for food though.
If you like cider and mead, check out Yer’Mad, a cool Breton pub/bar at 901 Maisonneuve East (almost parallel to Cheval Blanc). They usually have Breton cider, probably some mead too.
This might do it for most people, but if you walk back Ontario, past St. Denis and cross the street, you will find a pub called L'Isle Noir. This has an excellent atmosphere, great beer selection, and one of the larger single malt scotch selections around. Ask for the house beer, the one made in Lennoxville.
If you are fully committed, grab a cab to Brutopia, on Crescent Street number 1215, just below St. Catherine (just upstairs and to the right of Hurleys, the biggest Guinness tap in the city (even at $7!)) They may have some good live folk music playing, and the beers are fine, especially the IPA.
Then, if you have actually done all this in one day. Go home to bed!
Other places of beer interest in the city include the bars with the two largest beer selections - Fûtenbulle at 273 Bernard St W, and Bières et Companies at 4350 St Denis, and also at a new location on Saint-Laurent between Ave. des Pins and Sherbrooke.
The two best places I have found to buy bottles (and sometimes glassware) from the extensive choices of micros are La Frommagerie Atwater, in the Atwater Market, and a small corner store (in Montreal they are called depanneurs, or “deps” for short) simply called Rahman at 151 Laurier W., just up the street from Dieu de Ciel heading for the mountain.
The only homebrew shop of note in the downtown area is Choppeabarrock, at 4709 Saint Dominique.
Of course, from June 2 to 6, there is a beer festival on in Montreal called Festival Mondial Biere de Montreal. It is located at the Windsor Station near Bonaventure Metro. Its web site is here. You might see me there.
There is no charge to get in, and you buy tickets for beers. All the brewpubs usually have booths, so if you just want to drink the beer, you may find them all here.
I would, however, recommend getting to the pubs themselves. Like the city, they represent different cultures and sub-cultures, and offer a unique path by which to get to know Montreal better.
Slainte.
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Jeffrey Pinhey is an Engineer by day. By night he writes occasional beerzines, and is a BJCP National Beer Judge who visits Montreal three or four times a year, and a member of the Association of Sommeliers of the Atlantic Provinces.
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