Chambly and Unibroue

The weather may not have been the best but we still made the trip to Fort Chambly, being a small town outside of Montreal. The most beautiful part of Fort Chambly is, not surprisingly, a fully restored stone French fort from the 1700's. Second of which is of course the global HQ of the most well known Quebec beer world wide- Unibroue, now owned by Sapporo breweries. Before a beery lunch we decided to explore the fort and surrounds. This also included an opportunity for me to dress in costume like my forefathers in the completely ridiculous and over the top uniform of a typical french solider stationed in the fort during the height of its usage. More ruffles? but of course! clearly not enough buttons here!!!

 

I've written about Unibroue beers before and I'm always impressed by the range and flavour of these amazing beers that are mass produced and shipped world wide. To drink them on tap in the place where they were born, within sight of the original French fort is a truly memorable experience. All the beers, served in the correct glass, seemed to taste just that little bit more exciting solely based on the beautiful location. The stand out for me was the Don de Dieu, named for the ship of Samuel de Champlain that carried him to New France. An interpretation of a Belgian pale ale, this beer has strong yeasty flavours and enough hop and malt to mask the high alcohol (9%). Bitter and smooth without the pronounced sweet malt flavours of its contemporaries its indeed a fine sippin' beer to while away an afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Mondial de Bier and visting our favourite Breweries

So the day had finally arrived for one of the highlights of our trip, the Mondial De Bier. Reasonably priced entry, hundreds of purveyors of fine beer, and lets not forget the food options! Almost every single major and minor brewery in the province and Canada was represented, from the big brewers like Rickards, Molson and Alexandre Keiths to the little guys. By little guys I mean really little. One brew pub from a little town between Montreal and Quebec city literally packed up the whole bar for the weekend to come down to Mondial de Bier, they brought the taps, bar top and beer lines. Now that's dedication!! The selection of beer at the festival was a little repetitive, a lot of rousse, brun and blanche ales from various breweries. There was some exceptional beers one of which was the coffee dopplebock by Beaus brewery from Van Kleek hill in neighbouring Ontario. Collaborating with my favourite coffee shop in Ottawa, Bridgehead, Beaus have created an exceptional brew, smooth with a pronounced coffee aroma and smell. The alcohol at 8% gives this brew a nice warming effect. This is the perfect winter brew!! If only I could put this in my thermos before work.

Breweries from outside of Canada were represented well, with the stalls promoting a massive list of US craft beer always full. All in all a memorable day with nary a bad beer drunk.  As our time in Montreal was drawing to a close we decided to go to the dieu de ciel brewpub not far from my old neighbourhood for a beer. Dieu de Ciel does beer a little differently, adding different herbs and spices to the brew kettle to compliment the brews. They make wit beers with cinnamon and clove as well as hibiscus! Ive always enjoyed their rye beer made with peppercorns and have been dying to try them on tap. Rule of thumb;  if a beer is good in the bottle, it will be amazing on tap!! These beers did not disappoint, the hibiscus wit was floral and almost fruity on the nose, but authentically sour on the palette with a subtle sweet note.  Apologies for the bad lighting in the photo but I had to share the Delicious charcuterie plate we ate that complimented these beers nicely.

 

homecomming; Montreal and the Mondial de Bier

Well after Disney world and Orlando, our journey down the east coast of the US had come to an end for now. We got on a plane to
Montreal leaving the US with a sense of wonderment at a crazy country, where you can buy beer for next to nothing at the same place you can pick up your medication for liver failure. All minor problems aside, a great holiday so far and we drank some great beer and met some wonderful people. My father and grandfather picked us up and drove us to his apartment in the south shore telling us he had a good surprise for us for dinner.

Let me explain by saying my grandfather is a proud blue-blood Quebecois, a working man all his life from a large rural family. His dinners never disappoint. We were greeted by the delectable smell of ham cooking. My grandfather proudly proclaimed that he cooked the beer in not one but two bottles of beer. Madness!! For people of his generation and indeed my fathers, beer meant one of a few things, Molson or Labatt, the two biggest brewers in Quebec. This particular ham was cooked in Molson Dry, a typical adjunct macro lager with not much going on, pleasant to quaff ice cold for thirst suppression but that's about it. Bottles of it kept appearing in our hands (You boys don't have a beer in your hand, whats wrong?) All this made us thirsty for real beer, especially real provincial craft beer I missed so much. We ambled down to the local supermarket where a familar sight greeted me. Scott was suitably impressed by the sheer range of local produce and indeed price on offer and a local supermarket. "Fortune and glory kid, fortune and glory"

Please do not lick the screen. Beers in Quebec are generally based on continental European beer. Due to the cooler climate the beers are normally hardy ales and darker beers. Rousse (Red) Brun (Brown) Blanche (White) Noir (Black) are common beer names that reflect the style of ale they are. The ever-popular Unibroue range of beers is easily available through out the province, even in rural gas stations, at prices that make you wonder about the massive amount of tax placed on them in Australia.  $9 for a large bottle of Trois Pistoles? Fact!  All the Unibroue beers except the Unibroue Blonde (lager) are based on Belgian styles of tradtional bottle fermented ale. What I love about Unibroue is how it promotes our proud Quebecois traditions and culture, by naming its beers after Quebecois legends and the artwork used promotes the proud history of Quebec.. For example Maudite (Damned), a strong belgian ale, has an image of la chasse-galerie the flying canoe. Legend has it that a group of trappers wanted to get home to Montreal in time for a holiday party but also return the next morning to work. They made a deal with the devil to enchant a canoe to take them there and back, damning them all to hell.

Tommorrow; Mondial de Bier!!!

the happiest place on earth?

Walt Disney world. The very mention of it can bring pure hyperactive joy to any kid and a sense of impending dread to any parent. The inner child in me was actually jumping for joy on the plane from New Orleans to Orlando while the adult in me still trying to shake a hangover and wanted him to shut the hell up, stop making noise and sit still. You can't help but have a big cheesy grin on your face as you board Disney's Magical Express bus from Orlando International airport direct to Walt Disney World. Still in backpacker mode, we booked the moderately priced family value resort- Disney's Pop Century. Oh great, families and screaming little kids everywhere. But who cares, in reality how much time would we actually spend in our hotel room. We spent at least a day at each separate park and I could write for days about how much magic it was to just walk around and inhale the fairytale. The list of stupid things I did was surprisingly low on this leg of this trip. Lets start with a fine example of my (sober) decision making skills. Firstly, for those that know me, I'm lactose intolerant. I grew drinking milk like I now drink beer. Loved the stuff. After one particularly boozy night at a backpackers on Bondi Beach I got my usual morning-after iced coffee to get the taste of Irish lass out of my mouth.  Cue half an hour later and me stuck on the toilet, giving a valiant effort to sonically recreate the end of the world as we know it. Ever since then I have been unable to drink any sort of milk based drink. Thankfully cheese and yoghurt are fine, so is most ice cream. So while we were lining up for the tower of terror ride I decided to add my own terror to the ride by skulling a root beer float. Thankfully my stomach was able to maintain its staunchness.

The well known Epcot drinking challenge was also on our list to do. On paper it seems quite easy, 12 countries with aim to have a drink at each country. So pretty much like a 1st year uni 12 stop pub crawl, without the paddling, putting things in your mouth you really shouldn't and recanting stupid pledges to people with god complex who, later on in life, will become low level managers on a permanent power trip. We started at the England Pavilion. It was raining and ever body was cramming in under the beer garden at the Rose and Crown pub, waiting for the pub to open.  First drink down was a nice pint of Bass Ale, a perfectly ok English Bitter. Then we moved on to the next country (Canada?) and started on a refreshing Molson. I cant really recall much from the alcohol haze, but the pictures of me get progressively worse as the day goes on. I do remember stopping just about half way through challenge just on lunchtime. After downing a Rumple Minz shot in Germany (Prost!) we ambled over to Test Track, the fastest ride in all of Disney World. After a lengthy delay in which I sobered up considerably, we were finally in front. Another exhilarating thrill ride and once again my stomach held! Spurred on by this feat, we went on to Mission: Space next. For those in the know, this ride is essentially a giant centrifuge, subjecting its riders to 2.5g. Once again my stomach held!! Great Success! After that it was back to the challenge. I think I stopped just short of the end. In Norway I drank another fine beer and decided to have a little rest break.

Scott managed to finish at Mexico, the final stop and ended the challenge with a nice frozen margarita. Highlights in terms of beer would have to be Casa Beer from the Morocco Pavilion. Most pavilions had "local" beers but most of them were just license brewed macro lagers, easily available anywhere in the world. Casa Beer was slightly more rare and exotic in my eyes and luckily it wasn't too bad. Still a lager but with enough malt and hop in body to put it in a league above the watery adjunct lagers we drank elsewhere.

Walt Disney World also has a nice little escape for the beer loving parent. It's not widely advertised or promoted but believe it or not, there is an actual micro-brewery on site. I'm talking stumbling distance from Epcot and most of the hotels. Conveniently tucked away on the Disney Boardwalk, most people would just walk past and not even realise there was some brewing afoot right under their noses. After all, at Down Town Disney, Captain Jack's Oyster Bar does not even feature the famous Disney pirate nor any $@!^$ oysters. My curiosity drove us inside the ambitiously named Big River Grille and Brewing works. We ordered the standard beer tasting tray and sat down to figure out just what the hell we had walked into. Well let me happily tell you that Goofy nor any other other Disney character was working the mash-tun. Any sort of obsequious kid-oriented Disney branding was thankfully absent.

The beers brewed are the standard spread offered by most micro breweries hoping to appeal to every ones tastes. An amber ale, a pale ale & IPA, a stout and the standard light mainstream lager. The beers stood up on their own, all competent non offensive examples of their style and all apparently brewed onsite. The Rocket red was a smooth easy drinking amber ale style beer, good amount of hop and nice malty red colour. The other surprise highlights were their darker beers, namely the sweet Magnolia Brown and Iron Horse stout. Both beers displayed surprising depth with the american brown ale having the classic smooth sweet malty aftertaste. The stout had an interesting cocoa-buttery sweetness but still finished satifiyingly dry.  All in all a pretty good find and definately dads little secret at Disney World.

'Nawlins, the big easy, and a streetcar named detox.

So our travels brought us to New Orleans, in the beautiful south. A destination for the uninhibited tourist on a mission, the party centre of decadence and lack of restrain, of which the French quater prides itself upon. So amid all the fluro slushy cocktails of sugar and artificial flavour, (deliciously easy way to get a hens party drunk) the native and historic cocktails that spawned many poor imitators, what is the beer like? Well, when ones taste buds get tired of all the sugar and near frozen giant novelty 24oz millers (pfft in Australia, thats a breakfast serving,)  that bourbon street has to offer , there is an alternative. The
aptly named Beer Fest 1 and a Beer Fest 2 a little further down bourbon street are the apparent antidote to the sea of neon excess and copycat bars and clubs that dot bourbon street.

At first glance these identical bars are a mecca for the beer lover as well as the tourist trying something different. 40 beers on tap? Well this is gonna take awhile to drink through! In keeping with the proud tradition of street drinking, all beers are served in a take-away cup, for sir's convenience. There is a wide range of beers, Craft beers from across the US, british beers (speckled hen, and a few other mainstream british bitters) and the usual euro-lager (becks on tap? must be premium! hahahah) But I was more interested in the local popular Lousiana brewery, Abita, located outside of New Orleans. Their beers are easily available through the city in bars and shops. I managed to try the Andygator, a maibock style beer. Very malty sweet and smooth and at 8% the good times were indeed rolling. The only real downside to Beer fest is the price. For an Australian, being charged $10 for a cup of beer is nothing new or outrageous, but for many locals and tourists its not a cheap night out. I found the bar staff to be
lacking in knowledge, and couldnt even reccomend me something local, instead pushing me towards an overpriced stella artois. Luckly there was a local beer-hound occupying a corner of the bar. He reccomended I try and track down a few of the seasonal offerings from Abita, in particular the purple haze rasberry wheat beer. He also told us to pay a visit to the Crescent City brewhouse in the area the next morning to sample some local fare.

We woke up a little worse for wear, still buzzing on sugar. A bacon sandwich later and we were good to go. Crescent City brewhouse brews German style beers and does them with a great kitchen pumping out fantastic meals. Cant This place is a popular restaurant with the locals and tourists alike, ok prices and good local produce. I do enjoy when a brewpup manages to get pubgrub right, as it is a bastion of Australian drinking culture. So good food but are the beers on par? Well yes they certainly werent too bad. We went for the typical tasting tray to sample everything. The weiss beer was ok, satisfyingly cloudy colour with a nice smell of dry banana and clove. Little to no head and minimal lacing but still pleasant. Black forrest was their dark munich style dunkel lager, an improvement on the last beer. Rich and dark with a good malty palette and hints of coffee. Being a fan of a good pils I had to try their version. Aromas of dry hops yet a slightly sweet taste, still crisp but no real hop presence like the original. This would apeal to the drinkers of mainstream lager as its not too far from it.

I finally managed to track down the elusive Abita purple haze, in a cinema of all places. Totally worth the effort to seek it out. It was almost like a fruity lambic beer, the real rasberry pulp used gives of aromas of fresh berry combined with the tartness of the wheat beer base left me licking my lips in anticipation. The taste was not overly sweet thank god, but still pleasantly crisp and dry. A real winner and definately worth seeking out on a typical hot Louisiana day.

We spent memorial day in the hostel pool area, tossing around a football and drinking Budweiser ($10 a 12pack from the pharmacy, gotta love the USA! )  with some swiss guys. Next stop on our trip was every kids dream and every parents nightmare, Disney World, Orlando Florida. Could we find good beer and a party? Lets hope so!!

a warm day in the nations capital

Next stop on our tour was Washington DC for a brief visit. We arrived early evening and went to the nearest bar. Which just so happen to be a working-class strip joint in a not so nice part of town. No worries mate we are Aussies!! Well its really a story for the grand kids, but long story short I did get to try some malt liquor, while eating fried chicken and watching an African-American stripper shake her incredulous booty. I found this particular brand of malt liquor (steel reserve) to be quite palatable. I think people who complain about malt liquor should try the heavy-water tang of emu export. Next morning we woke up early to spend the morning soaking up the rich culture and history that Washington DC has to offer. By lunch it was most certainly beer time.

We headed to the closest brew-pub in walking distance, Capitol City Brewing Company. We spoke with a few friendly locals who all confirmed this was a good place for a drink.

Of course we went straight for their beer flight, to try and sample all of their catchy titled brews such "amber waves." Decent sized samples, friendly staff, good food what more could we ask for but great beer? Well they were all definitely all very decent brews that were solid samples of their individual beer styles. And their seasonal release, a hefewiesen, actually lived up to its name! cloudy and full of the authentic musty banana flavour! A good beer in the warm weather. Their other German beer in the line up was a regular offering, a delicious crisp Kolsch, light in colour, yet a full bodied crisp hoppy after taste. So many lagers are falsely labelled as "Kolsch" yet are just pale fizzy lagers with little to no body and fall flat after the first few sips. Capitol cities brew is an example of how to get it right. Their ales, amber and an american pale ale were also good. Maybe a bit too cold straight from the tap but still improved as they reached room temperature. The amber ale was a clear reddish brown colour, belaying the lighter malts used. Still, the body had enough carry to it to make it an easily approachable introduction to amber ales before moving on to something more heavy. The pale ale, with a higher alcohol content at 6.1%, was not as high-hopped as its west coast cousins but still had enough hop prominence to make this my kinda beer. All in all the offerings from Capitol City, while not life-changing, were still alot better than our last american brew pub in NYC. A good start to beer drinking in the capitol.

After talking beer to the barman and a few locals we had our next destination, RFD and Brickskeller, both legendary beer bars in DC. But first a pit-stop to a slice of americana. HAPPY HOUR AT HOOTERS!!! It doesnt get better than a plate of deep fried pickles and a half litre of  bud light for $5. At this point I didnt really care that it was bud light, the preferred beer of the infidel nation. IT WAS $2  A HALF LITRE!! After that little tourist deviation we hit up RFD near china town. Wow. And wow again. This sign says it all:

Thats about all you need to get me and Scott in the door. On tap and in bottles they had a true United Nations going on, just about every beer producing country was proudly represented. Australia was represented by the terrific Coopers stout and pale ale. Strangely cheaper that any local pub in Australia!! I tried the dogfish 90 minute IPA on tap that I had heard so much about and was not disappointed. Full, rounded body and lingering bitterness. And what a colour! Up their with the best IPAs I have tasted and trust me, that list is in the hundreds. Brickskellers is the other associated beer bar. With a cosy basement feel to it, this is the kind of place I could while away quite a few hours with their extensive tap and bottle list combined with knowledgeable staff.

We found our brief stop in DC drawing to a close. In a day we had visited a decent brew pub and two great beer bars that definitely should be on the top of any beer aficionados list if they are ever in the nations capital.
So long DC! Its been a blast, but the smooth jazz and party atmosphere of 'Nawlins is calling.

a final round-up of fine beer drinking in New York City

So I've previously discussed all my favourite places to find, in my humble opinion, the finer brews this great city has to offer. But time was marching on and we had other cities to visit before the mondial de beer in Montreal. So here's a quick review on two other must-see places. Both of these are conveniently located in Mid-Town and are walking/stumbling/awhelljustcatchacab distance for those only in New York for a short period of time but still want to taste good beer.

This place is great for many re-visits. With a huge rotating taplist and many more in bottles its impossible to try everything. But the smart guys and gals have taken mercy on your poor feeble human bodies and thrown you a compromise. Beer Flights. The know how to do them well. There are many options to choose from, by beer style (would sir like to try foreign or domestic lambics?) or price range. Don't want a particular beer on the paddle? I found the staff were happy to substitute it for something else. This means everyone is catered for, from the swill drinking tourist wanting to try something new in the big smoke to the beer connoisseur looking for the next big hit to challenge the taste-buds. Rattle n Hum also do great tasting nights including this little gem we sadly missed out on:

Everything about that poster looks good!!! So make sure Rattle n Hum is on your list to visit when in NYC. Just remember their motto; "no crap on tap" and think twice before ordering that bud-light. Speak to the friendly staff and try something new!

Last place we went for beer was recommended to us by the kind folks at Rattle n Hum. They told us about a place called Gingerman, the greatest beer bar in NYC!! We kinda felt like we were in a fairytale, on a quest to seek out the mythical Gingerman. Well, we found the place and it wasn't exactly what we were expecting. Sure, it had plenty of beer taps and an exciting range of local and imports available but something important was missing. Atmosphere. I've been in plenty of fine drinking establishments all around the world, from small working class pubs in London to backstreet hole in the wall bars in Indonesia and they all have the same sort of camaraderie of raucous joy, were you make best friends with the random guy next to you and sometimes you cant even hear yourself think. Don't get me wrong, sometimes its great to have a quiet drink but atmosphere and company is what makes the average place well, great. Gingerman wasn't exactly devoid of atmosphere, but thanks to its surrounds and walk-in clientele from near by law firms and businesses, it gave off a certain stuffy and stilted atmosphere. We were politely instructed to take a seat at the bar and after a short wait we were served.  This is what their bar looks like, quite enticing indeed!!

Apologies for the lamp in the way. As you can see its a quite impressive line up. A solid mix of quality imports and local and domestic craft on tap and many more in bottles. The lawyer types can drink their imported asahi and pretend to be cultured, while there's still more adventurous offerings like their house beer, Gingerman Ale. Naturally I had to to try this!! Brewed by Captain Lawrence Brewery in up state New York this was certainly an interesting creature. Similar in body and mouth feel to our own Coopers Sparkling Ale with plenty of fizz and back notes of yeast. Not as cloudy as I expected, but with a rich mahogany brown colour. The ginger and spice lingered longingly on the back palate and added warmness. This is the kind of beer that's easy to session drink in the warmer months but would also be perfect to drink slightlty warmed up in the coldest winter. These beers are rarer then hens teeth. Quite a find. As you can see in the photo, Gingerman also does a service to the local community and offers reasonably priced growlers for takeaway. I can imagine a lawyer stumbling back to the office with a growler in each hand.  "Clear my schedule for this afternoon, Mary, I'M BUSY!"

If in New York for the weekend, throw the credit card at the wife/girlfriend/significant other point her in the direction of SOHO. Then high-tail it to these two decent establishments. Also make sure you cancel the credit card and turn off the phone. But most of all, enjoy the beer.