Our first stop was lunch on Friday at the Kingston Brewing Company (http://www.kingstonbrewing.com/) which Tim had visited several times in the past, but which was completely new to me. They were extremely busy, so rather than trying to do any sort of tasting, we just ordered a couple of pints with our lunches. I tried Pooh's Brew, which was a refreshing honey-wheat ale, while I believe Tim went for the house bitter, which was OK but not spectacular.
Our next stop was the Schoune Farm Brewery (http://www.schoune.com/) which is located a few miles from Highway 20 just past the Ontario/Quebec border. It's a small family brewery run by Patrice Schoune, a farmer and brewmaster originally from Belgium. We got there a little late in the day and Patrice was very busy preparing for a beer & cheese tasting that he was co-hosting in the nearby village of St. Polycarpe that evening, but he was kind enough to take some time to offer us a few samples and show us around the brewing barn. We were extremely impressed by all the brews he offered to us, and left with a nice selection of bottles in the trunk.
That evening in Montreal was spent at a small bar, vegetarian restaurant and live music venue called Casa del Popolo (http://www.casadelpopolo.com) which I was very happy to find had a full selection of McAuslan products on tap, as well as several other Quebec microbrews available in bottles.
Our original plan for Saturday was to visit the RJ Brewery (http://www.brasseursrj.com/) for a tour, but other plans ran later than expected so we had to scrap that idea. Late afternoon instead saw us do a mini pub-hop around the area of St. Laurent where Tim was staying.
First stop was Le Sergent Recruteur (http://www.sergent-recruteur.com/), a smallish pub with 8 of their own brews on tap. They offered a tasting of all 8 of them for $12, and I expected to get a 2-3 oz sample of each, but instead found myself faced with eight 8 oz glasses! The others at the table joined in the tasting, and there were no real complaints about any of the beers. Personally, I especially enjoyed the Stout and the Honey Blonde.
Glasses drained, we walked up a couple of blocks and visited Dieu du Ciel (http://www.dieuduciel.com/), a place that I'd heard many good things about. They had 7 of their own beers on tap (plus a couple of McAuslan brews), and offered tastes of any of them for $1. The glasses were a little smaller than at Le Sergent Recruteur, but still sizable enough for the three of us who were drinking to have a taste of each. The only one that was universally panned was the Blueberry sour wheat beer - it was REALLY sour, and none of us could drink more than a mouthful. But all of the other offerings were excellent, especially the Rigor Mortis Triple and the I.P.A. They also had a cask conditioned version of their porter available in addition to the "regular" version, so it was nice to compare them.
I would also recommend trying the plate of Quebec cheeses that is offered as part of the menu at Dieu du Ciel. All of them were excellent, and they went well with the beer.
Upon leaving Dieu du Ciel, our friend who lived in the area suggested that we grab a few bottles at the SAQ (Quebec's liquor store) and go back to his place to relax for a bit before doing any more bar hopping. We ended up at a small SAQ on Mont Royal that had a tiny selection of beer, although I was able to find Unibroue's La Fringante & La Terrible, and Tim and I grabbed some of each to bring back to Toronto with us.
We still needed something to drink at our friend's house, so we decided to hit a dépanneur. Now I'm not sure if we happened to choose a particularly good one, or if all of the déps in Montreal are this good, but the selection of Quebec microbrews at the place we found was fantastic. There was one entire fridge of just Unibroue products, with every one of their regular brews along with a couple of special ones like their L'Éphémère apple ale. And there were complete selections of McCaulan, Boreale, Belle Gueule, Cheval Blanc and more. So in addition to a few bottles for imbibing that evening, I grabbed an assortment of goodies to bring back home including L'Éphémère, a mixed pack of several Cheval Blanc beers, Coup de Grisou (a spiced buckwheat beer), Sainte-Paix (a fruit ale done in different styles depending on the season - the one I got is blackberry) and a few others that I can't think of at the moment. Tim also grabbed quite a few things, so suffice it to say that his trunk was pretty much jam-packed (or rather beer-packed) by this point.
On our return to our friend's place, much beer was imbibed, and we considered hitting at least one more brewpub before the night was through, but none of us felt like venturing too far (things were getting a little fuzzy around the edges by this point...). Our friend then remembered that the folks behind the Cheval Blanc pub had opened up a slightly more trendy nightspot that was just around the corner from his place, and where they had many of the same beers on tap. The place was packed to the gills and was extremely loud, but we were lucky enough to snag an empty table right by the open front window, and I enjoyed a couple of pints of their excellent Blanche to cap off the evening of beery goodness.
Most of Sunday was taken up by the drive back to Toronto. But it included short pit stop at Schoune to buy some more of their wonderful Blanche de Quebec (since we'd polished off a good deal of our stock from Friday the on Saturday night). Patrice was quite amused to see us back so soon, and after we made our purchase, he offered us a taste of of his specialty, a Geuze which takes nearly three years to make and which he only makes 10 kegs of per year. He had tapped a keg for the beer & cheese tasting on Friday, and not only did he have some of the beer left, but he also had some of the cheese that it had been paired with - a local unpasturized goat's cheese. Alone, they were both excellent. Together, they verged on heavenly. A truly outstanding taste experience, and a perfect close to the weekend's adventures.
We had originally planned one more stop on our weekend beer tour - the Glenora Springs Brewery near Picton - but when traffic started to get a little rough, we decided to stick with the driving and come straight home. But the idea of a future tour of the Eastern Ontario breweries such as Glenora, Church Key and Scotch Irish is a strong possibility. And of course, such a tour would bring us so close to the Quebec border that it would be foolish to not make a return visit to Mr. Schoune...
Greg
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: gregclow on 2002-08-20 19:23 ]</font>