Montréal Mondiale 2013 - May 29 to Jun 2

[boney]

I think I'll be going up on the Monday to get a couple of days of Montreal in before the fest starts, then sampling on the Wen-Thur. My first time going. Spent a while this morning checking out some of the brews on RB. Super excited for some of the Brasilian, Italian and, of course, US breweries. Should be a great time.

[Cagiva650]

( I posted this in the Canadian Beer Talk section. I saw this thread after my post)

I am looking forward to this event again this year. Great looking list of beers.

http://festivalmondialbiere.qc.ca/pdf/m ... s_2013.pdf

[Frere Ambroise]

I'll be taking the VIA with some buddies on Thursday. Touring the festival on the Friday... looking at the list -- looks like an early Saturday attempt as well. Looking forward to this!

[boney]

( I posted this in the Canadian Beer Talk section. I saw this thread after my post)

I am looking forward to this event again this year. Great looking list of beers.

http://festivalmondialbiere.qc.ca/pdf/m ... s_2013.pdf

A great list of beer for sure. I'm impressed with the amount of cider that will be available as well.

Really excited to get to try Le Saint-Bock from Quebec, Allagash and Elysian from the US, Baladin and Borgo from Italy and Cervejaria Wals from Brasil, all of which will be new for me.

[BrewNerd]

Finally able to make it to this event *rolls around on the ground in happiness*

[boney]

Got into Montreal early in order to be a tourist. Hitting up Vices et Versa tomorrow (Tuesday) night and will be at Mondial Wen-Thurs, if any BT'ers want to say howdy. I'm the dude with the shaved head and a beard....based on that description, there's probably only 12 or 13 people at Mondial that will fit that description

[JerCraigs]

Heading up Thursday morning as well. Should be fun!

[rejtable]

I'll be there Friday!

[Cagiva650]

Got into Montreal early in order to be a tourist. Hitting up Vices et Versa tomorrow (Tuesday) night and will be at Mondial Wen-Thurs, if any BT'ers want to say howdy. I'm the dude with the shaved head and a beard....based on that description, there's probably only 12 or 13 people at Mondial that will fit that description

Were you wearing a Garrison t shirt, and black rimmed glasses?
I saw someone matching this description by the Hopfenstark booth around 2pm. I got up to go over and say hi but the person disappeared into the crowd.

[boney]

Were you wearing a Garrison t shirt, and black rimmed glasses?
I saw someone matching this description by the Hopfenstark booth around 2pm. I got up to go over and say hi but the person disappeared into the crowd.

Ha! Yep. That was totally me. I'll be back around the festival tomorrow, if you're there again....probably in a black Wild Rose t-shirt.

[rejtable]

Had a great time! Thursday in Burlington, Friday and Saturday in Montreal.

Mondial was fun, but no way would I try to go on a weekend evening. We stayed until 6pm or so on Friday and it was getting pretty crazy when we left. Saturday we left around 5pm, and it was nutso.

Only disappointments at Mondial for me were the 10 mile walk to the bathroom, the 20 mile walk to get from the main area to the Esplanade and the lack of access to water for both drinking and rinsing.

Big highlight was barging in on a conversation between Stephen Beaumont (sorry!!) and Frédéric Cormier of Hopfenstark. Both gentlemen were great to talk to. Ended up shooting the breeze with Frédéric for nearly 2 hours and man did he and his staff at the Hopfenstark booth take good care of us during that time. Awesome guy, his new pub will be a big destination for me soon.

Jer, saw you at Benelux for the cask event on Saturday. I meant to go up and re-introduce, but timing just never seemed right and before I knew it we were heading out.

[JerCraigs]

Jer, saw you at Benelux for the cask event on Saturday. I meant to go up and re-introduce, but timing just never seemed right and before I knew it we were heading out.

Next time! Did you make it out before the Monsoon? I put my waterproof Keen's to the test stomping through the Sherbrooke river

Festival overall was fun. I had a few great beers but a lot of mediocre beer as well unfortunately, which is partly my own fault since I was only trying things that were new to me, and I had already had many of the best beers at the fest. Some highlights off the top of my head included Cheval Blanc Bonheur, Amiata Contessa, Boquebiere Quad, Colorado Guanabara IS, Hopfenstark Alex. Epliogue. New venue was at least as good as Place Bonaventure, though lacking a bit in the number of washrooms. I still prefer Windsor Station but it can't handle the number of people that attend. Saturday and Sunday they spread out into the next room which was helpful in creating some more elbow room.

Many of the Petit Pub beers were sold out by Thursday and Friday so I missed out on most of the Italian beers I wanted to try. I also didn't stay outside for long as the humidity was unbearable. They desperately needed some shade out there for the tables.

I feel like the Quebec breweries have steadily start charging more for their samples. Not sure if that reflects increased costs to them or what, but where there was once lots of 1-2T samples, it felt like a high percentage were 4-5T. Some were worth it, many were not.

Good times overall, but my liver and I may be getting too old to go multiple days! If I go next year I may follow Lubiere's lead and check out a movie in the afternoon.

[rejtable]

Next time for sure!

I was getting out of a cab in front of DDC when the monsoon caught us. So, my run wasn't too bad, but in my beer haze and rain panic I managed to somehow run past the door and got a good 30-40 feet before I realized.

Yeah, going pretty hard at it from Thursday to Saturday night is hard on an old dude.

I too found the beer mostly mediocre, and was particularly unimpressed at the cask event.

Have to go through my notes, but off the top of my head highlights would inlclude the Cheval Double Bonheur, Hopfenstark Alexander Platz and one of the 7 sisters blends (Frédéric poured it from a bottle for us and I didn't get the explanation for what it was, seemed like a tripel to me but Fred explained something about it being a hybrid of a bunch of styles). I can't say any of the beers I had beyond that were incredibly remarkable. I guess better way to say it is I drank a lot of good beer, but very little OMFG!! beer.

But it was fun overall, and it's hard to have a bad time in Montreal and Burlington so life is good!