Family Fun in Montreal

My son Thomas is home from Boston University on Spring Break. He and I decided to go to Quebec to get away. I'll be honest; I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm all for it.

We drove up yesterday: stopped at Brown's Brewing in Troy (formerly the Troy Brewpub, same owners), where I enjoyed my usual -- Porter! -- and Thomas had...iced tea. Quebec's only hours away, fella! We had a beautiful run up through the Adirondacks, no worries, and scooted into Plattsburgh to view the deep blue waters of Champlain (and fill up on relatively cheap diesel before entering The Dominion of Canada). The border crossing was, for a change, uneventful, and we drove north across the plains to Montreal.


We checked into Le Cartier B-and-B, a neat little place, and got the restaurant lecture for our host, Richard. The man eats out 365 days a year, he said, so we listened. Which is how we wound up going to Au Petit Extra, and had a great meal, and a great experience for the young man. Pretty Quebecois waitresses who all looked like they could be Cathy's cousins: dark hair, light complexion, slightly elfin features. We got the prix fixe dinner, which came with 6-8 choices for the first and second courses, five dessert choices/or a cheese plate, and plentiful delicious slices of baguette. The menu was all in French -- no kiddy English version -- but we managed to figure out what we wanted between Thomas's 1.5 semesters and my smattering of eating French.

We've had some glass-holding lessons since...

We ordered: for him, soup de poisson, duck confit and salad, creme brulee; for me, veal terrine in gelee, bouillabaisse, and the cheese plate, and a half liter of house red (the waitress approved of the choice of red; I felt smart for a moment). I waited to see what he'd think. Duck confit, creme brulee, the bread: thumbs up. Fish soup (a wonderful, smoky, thick thing), house red wine? Okay, but maybe not so much. My veal terrine? Definitely not for him. Not cheap, but a great experience. (My bouillabaisse and the cheese plate were very nice as well, BTW.) And we called it a day.

This morning I got some work done, as did he, and then took a cab to the Brasserie McAuslan, where master brewer Dave Brophy -- one of the original five employees -- showed me an almost fanatical devotion to quality and consistency. No wonder I've never had a disappointing McAuslan Oatmeal Stout. Fascinating comment: they contract brew Moosehead for Quebec, and Dave said that they did an extensive diacetyl rest for the lager. Then he referred to the McAuslan beers -- done in open fermentation tanks with Ringwood yeast -- and said that, of course, they have a different character; i.e., diacetyl is expected there. Well, there you are.

Thomas contemplates the menu at Saint-Bock; brewery is in the far background

Back to the room (cabbing it so as not to lose our parking space), and Thomas was about ready to go. We walked to Le Saint-Bock for lunch. I ordered an Encensoir, which was a nice 5% smoked lager; Thomas got an iced tea. About two minutes later it hits him: DOH! He could have had a beer! At which point he grabs my rauchbier, sips it, and says he'll have one of those. Good man! And he finished it, too.

After that, we slipped down into "The Underground City." Not really an attraction, much as it sounds it. Came up and headed up St. Laurent. There are lots of hipster clothing stores there, I told Thomas (and I can get to Schwartz's, I told myself). And you know, it worked out. We walked all the way up, he got to shop, and then we went to Schwartz's and got smoked meat sammiches and Cott's black cherry soda, a weirdly wonderful combo. Then we walked over to St. Denis, stopped in a Converse/Doc Marten store, and then had a great time in a Quebec artisanal store, talking bear teeth and gypsy swing with the owner while the "annual" anti-police protest marched loudly by outside.

And...that's when I realized I'd left my debit card in the ATM that morning. So we walked down to L'amère à boire to regroup and get info to cancel the card. I had the current Projet Elephant beer, a 3.6% Tmavé dark lager, wonderfully session. Thomas had a pilsner. I got the info I needed, canceled the card...and Thomas realized he'd left a shirt he'd bought at Schwartz's. So back up St. Laurent, and whattayaknow, they had it for him! Bravo, Schwartz's!

Dinnertime. Okay, beer time. Reservoir is practically around the corner, so we went, and I got a big glass of Noire, the dry stout that I swear is the best thing they make. We also had grilled cheese: raclette and sweated onions on grilled baguette. Nummy.

We were beat. Yes, beer geekerie: no Dieu du Ciel. I've been; it's great, but it's a long way off, and to be honest, I'd rather have spent much of the day drinking the Elephant beer, or even going to Benelux. Or maybe I'm just ornery. Anyway, we split a poutine, one more Montreal thing for the boy to experience, and called it a day. And now I'm going to bed. Good night!

More Montreal: firsts for me

I tried a lot of things in Montreal that I'd never tried before. It was a good trip.

Wednesday I got up and went to the press breakfast, heard the opening statements, then went out in the bright morning light and drank witbiers with Tony Forder, Carolyn Smagalski, and...other people. We also tried beers from À l’Abri de la Tempête, a brewery out on the Magdalene Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Very nice stuff, including a wee heavy/barleywine called Corne de Brume ("Horn of Fog", Tony kept calling it, until I finally realized it was "Foghorn") and Corp Mort ("Dead Body"), a smoked barleywine, both of which were in my top 10 beers of the trip (yeah, I know: not session beers).

I can't recall what I did for lunch -- might have skipped it -- but I went back and judged in the afternoon -- more on that in a separate post. I went back to the room, worked some more, quite a bit, really, then decided I didn't want to go out again...but I was hungry. So I thought, why not walk to Schwartz's? I'd passed it on the way home the night before, and had I not been tired and already full, I'd have stopped; it's an icon. So I hiked out to Ave. St. Laurent and got in line at the door, waiting for a seat.

I'd been waiting about five minutes when a cab pulled up and Josh Rubin hopped out. What a surprise! I know maybe 8 people in Montreal, and one of them shows up on the street where I am! Well, maybe not such a surprise. It was Schwartz's. Josh led me through the whole thing ("Don't get the lean, get medium fat"), pointed out that Montreal's famed "smoked meat" was not, in fact, smoked at all, but more like pastrami...only not. It was delish, medium fat and mustard, like pastrami only differently spiced, and the counter service was quick and just friendly enough. But...Josh wanted to get a beer, and I wanted more sleep. Back to the hotel.

The next day I met Warren "Beer Sensei" Monteiro, a column colleague from Ale Street News. Warren was a trip, a constant patter of interesting stuff, and I tagged along with him to a dim sum place he knew...because I'd never had dim sum. True. I got a good intro. Shark fin dumplings, pork paste and tofu, scallop dumplings, shrimp dumplings (Warren likes fish), a great variety, and very filling. Nothing was overly spicy, nothing was bland, everything was fresh and quick. Gotta get more of this stuff.

Hmmm...Got things to do. I'll cut this short for now. More beers and food to come.

Montreal may have to wait a bit

I planned on getting more Mondial stuff up...But I'm swamped with paying work that I couldn't get to in Montreal. So I'll squeeze it in where I can. Just wanted you to know. Meantime, write your Senator about stopping a proposed increase in federal beer taxes. I'm not anti-tax, just anti-regressive/unfair/excise tax. Get over to www.Congress.org and send your e-mail! (I did, and I might send another.)

Out on the town in Montreal

As is always the case when I get rolling in a fest mode, some blog backtracking is in order. So...here's what happened when I hit Montreal Tuesday afternoon. After pushing through some rush hour traffic, I dropped the Passat off with the doorman at the Queen Elizabeth and got ready for the pub crawl planned for early arrivers by Mirella Amato. Josh Rubin, the beer columnist for the Toronto Star, had very nicely asked me to join the group, and I did, as did Glenn Payne (another seminar presenter, and a very fun guy to go crawling with). I walked up to Sherbrooke and hiked across the hill to Benelux.

I spotted a likely group and asked them if they were with the Mondial. Yes! I quickly met Mirella, Jorgen Hasselqvist (owner of Oliver Twist, the celebrated Stockholm beer bar), Ken Woods (president of Black Oak Brewing ("They don't let me brew," he lamented. "I'm just an accountant.")), and Martin Jordan (head of sales for J. Cipelli Wine & Spirits in Toronto) (Arnis, I know you were there too, but I didn't get your card!). It was a lively group.


I got a Magnum, a pilsner hopped with (you got it) Magnum hops, and it was real drinkable. Could have been a bit crisper, but brewer Ben Mercier didn't stint on the hops. (He joined us as we traipsed about, and seemed to enjoy getting away from work for a change. That's him in the picture, at our table at Benelux.) Next up was a Cuda, a west coast IPA that was stinky and sticky with Simcoe and Amarillo hops; wicked bitter but still dry enough to drink easy. Nicely done beer.

Mirella chivvied us out the door and walked on down Sherbrooke (I would end up walking about 5 and a quarter miles that night), then right on rue St. Denis to L'amere a Boire. Mirella tried bravely to explain the French pun represented by the name, but I never did get it. I'm dense, just ask Tony "Moose" Forder. Anyway, L'AaB was essentially the first lager craft brewer in Montreal, and proved it by their very nicely crafted Cerna Hora, a true-to-style Czech pils.
What sold me, though, was Projet Elephant, a series of lower alcohol beers they've been doing. The current one is a 10P version of Cerna Hora, weighing in at only 3.6%, and very tasty indeed. The Projet Elephant beers pour through a brass elephant with a tap fitted into its trunk: quite fun.

L'AaB was a nice place, conducive to hanging out -- lower light, lots of smooth wood, a nice terrace out back, cool staff -- so of course Mirella would have none of it and chased us out the door to Cheval Blanc. Cheval Blanc was cool, in a chic kind of way -- low chairs, metal trim, hip staff -- but it was too nightclubby for my tastes. I didn't really love the beer, either. The stout was watery and astringent, the "India Noire," a dark IPA, was flatly bitter, and had a vegetal character to it that was not pleasant. The Maibock was fruity -- I questioned its lagerhood -- though it did dry out nicely at the end. The Bitter was the best of the bunch, drinkable and hoppy. Not a place I'd rush back to, I'm afraid.

It was the place where I ran out of money, though. I traipsed down the street to a gas station, but found the same thing I always do in Canada: I gotta use a real bank ATM. They always work (they did later that night), the little plastic numbers in gas stations and restaurants never do. Dammit. So I may still owe Mirella $10; I'm going to settle that tomorrow. Anyway...we walked again, a lot, which was keeping me more sober than I would have been, to Reservoir.

Reservoir was tiny, with a tiny cobbled-together brewing system (Mirella explained that there was a man who put these cheap but effective systems together; his trademark was a heat exchanger made from copper tubing and a hose, and sure enough, Reservoir had one), tucked away on a side street in a quiet neighborhood (at least, it was quiet on a Tuesday evening). We settled in, sitting in old armchairs around a substantial low table. I had a big oatmeal stout that was plenty drinkable (Ken said the dunkel weizen was 'brilliant'), but it was the food that was awesome. I had a pork BBQ that was full of peppers, excellent fries; Ken raved about his grilled cheese (it did look good; raclette in crunchy-grilled bread with lots of butter); Mirella let me try her grilled octopus and it was almost perfect...very nice.

The group was pushing on to Dieu du Ciel, but I'd had enough; four hours of sleep and 8 hours of driving was finally catching up with me. I walked back, a little over a mile and a half, but mostly downhill. I slept well.



*I have total sympathy for her actions, by the way: I know exactly how she was feeling. You have the desire for everyone to have a good time, but you still know that they would really like the next place, and they should see it because it's important and wonderful and offers things other places don't...so you try to see everything. Believe me, I know about it. Nice job, Mirella. A little more walking than we suspected, maybe, but a great time.

It's a Beautiful Day in Montreal

And I'm here, but I've got to run. Got a pub crawl to catch up with! Blessings on the Mondial staff: my room's stocked with Dieu du Ciel! Aphrodisiaque, St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, Boreale Rousse, and mustard. And some kind of emu pate...God bless Quebec.

Talk to you in a bit, and tell you about my michigan madness in Plattsburgh; a real Geno's/Pat's moment.