Thursday, April 03, 2008
It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #5: March in Montreal
On the last Friday of March, I got up early and finished packing my bags. I was about to get in a car with my father and spend the next five to six hours driving to Montreal for CABA's annual March in Montreal event.
While my father isn't a homebrewer -- his brush with brewing his own beer was in the form of the brew-on-premise places that were trendy in the Eighties (some of them are still around, but not in the same numbers they were back then) -- I thought it would be a good father/son road trip. Up until last weekend, we'd never gone on such a trip together. Sure, we'd had many road trips when I was younger, but that was the entire family. This time, it was just the two of us.
Dad arrived just before 9:00 and, after making sure the dogs had plenty of food and water (they're not usually left alone for very long), we threw my little suitcase and a four-pack of homebrew porter in the trunk and headed out. For the first couple of hours, we drove mostly in silence, occasionally chatting about the weather or what we were hearing on the news.
You see, my father and I share very few of the same interests. He grew up as a sports guy, and I grew up as the complete opposite. I love intricate war games and stereotypically geeky pursuits, while my father is perfectly happy to spend an entire evening watching curling or hockey on TV.
The one interest we do share, though, is beer. The first time I ever tasted beer was out of one of his open bottles when I was a kid (I was a sneaky kid and loved to be around beer bottles for some reason -- my parents have several pictures proving this; I'm sure it was no surprise to either of them when I became a beer drinker around the age of twenty). It was a bit early in the morning to start talking about beer, and I also didn't want to exhaust our most important means of conversation before we even reached Kingston.
We stopped outside of a small town just this side of the Ontario/Quebec border for lunch. We both had a pint and a burger -- he drinking Canadian and I drinking Keith's red. As we sat there eating and sipping at our beers, I wondered if this would be the last time I'd drink a macro beer this weekend. The CABA guys are all homebrewers, and all of them seem to be beer geeks, as well. They like to drink craft beer when they can rather than beer from the likes of Inbev and Molson-Coors.
By the time we arrived in Montreal (after fighting traffic through the early hours of rush hour) and found a hotel about fifteen kilometres away from where we needed to be Saturday morning, we turned the TV on (to curling) and crashed for the night. Neither of us were feeling well. Dad was fighting off the last bits of a stomach flu and I'd contracted a cold from Jacquie on Wednesday or Thursday. Both of us wanted to be in peak condition for Saturday.
Saturday started out bad for us, but it quickly improved. See, we'd decided to drive from the hotel to Vices & Versa, the beer pub where the March in Montreal event was kicking off. This was a mistake, as it turns out Montrealers don't believe in parking lots in the downtown core. One resident CABA member told me we were screwed for parking, and so Dad and I took the car back to the hotel and caught a cab.
We had been almost right on time when we arrived shortly after 9:30, but with the trip back and forth, we actually ended up arriving at 10:15. Breakfast had already started, and we kind of missed out on the grub (not that either of us were really hungry, anyway). We'd managed to find a Tims earlier in the morning and get some coffee, so we were good.
Upon arriving at Vices & Versa, we checked in and got our nametags and our drink tickets for Vices & Versa. The first beer (about half-pints) didn't require a ticket, but any beer we ordered after that required either a beer ticket or cash. We made good use of those tickets and made sure to use them up before loading onto the bus at 1:00.
I started with the hefe weizen, which I was told was a good breakfast beer, but after that, I moved over to the stouts. By the time we left, I'd sampled all three of Vices & Versa's on-tap stouts (the imperial stout was quite tasty, but the coffee stout wasn't bad, either).
We watched the various homebrew competition awards being given out. Lunch was served. I ate lightly, but the food was pretty good.
At 12:45, we were asked to board the bus so we could get going a bit early. Then we discovered the awful truth: The bus driver was a surly fellow who refused to bend the rules and let us drink on the bus (a first for CABA in all its many years, I'm told). He couldn't even be bribed. Dick. So our bus trip to the first brewery in St-Jerome was somewhat subdued. Guess who went home without a tip (well, except for the penny Dad left on the driver's seat).
Dieu Du Ciel was our first of two stops. Originally started in Montreal, Dieu Du Ciel grew big enough that it launched the second site in St-Jerome. We tasted several beers on draught, and I continued to make a mistake I'd been making since arriving in Montreal -- that being I tried to speak French and then whoever I was speaking to assumed I was a francophone. I don't know what the girl behind the counter was telling me about the imperial stout, but ... well, it seemed to have something to do with the beer's head. I just pretended I understood and walked away with what turned out to be an excellent, creamy imperial stout.
However, I can find stouts anywhere -- and Kevin Tighe's Russian imperial stouts can't be beat (and he's just around the corner). The one beer that really piqued my interest was one called Rosee d'Hibiscus (excuse the lack of accents, mes amis), so just as we were getting set to leave, I bought a six-pack of it and walked out.
Rosee d'Hibiscus is a red-ish beer with flowery aromas and tastes, so it was unique enough that I felt I had to buy some. Of course, I'll share with any beer afficionados that are tempted.
The bus driver was so worried we'd start cracking beers open that he wouldn't even let us get on the bus with our six-packs. We had to put them in the storage area under the bus and collect them at the end of the trip. That didn't stop a few people from smuggling some beer on board for later, though.
The next stop was Au Maitre-Brasseur, a fairly new brewery in Laval. With a smaller pub area and a fairly tiny brewing area, Au Maitre-Brasseur still makes some nice beers. However, by this time, I was out of cash and had to pass on picking up any bottles (although I think they sold a few bottles of their barley wine and a beer they'd called Orgasme -- I didn't try it, but I heard some others say good things about it).
Since Kevin had brought several bottles of homebrew beer and mead, and he did want us to sample some (he's such a generous guy), we all met in the parking lot to test out some of his various brews. I drank lightly, while others started pounding hard.
By the time we all got on the bus, a few people were somewhat inebriated, but I don't think anybody was hurling in the bathroom. Several bottles of beer had been smuggled aboard, and then the pouring began. After ten minutes, people even stopped hiding the fact they were drinking on the bus. With beers in their hands, a group near the front started singing -- rather badly, I might add, but it caught on so much that most of us at the front of the bus started joining in (including me -- and that wrecked my already sickly throat).
The bus driver must have been trying to ignore us, or maybe he thought he'd get a tip by not telling us to put the beer away, but it was too little, too late for the grumpy driver. He'd pissed people off and ruined some of our fun.
We ended our trip where we began -- at Vices & Versa. I have to admit that even if we hadn't done the brewery tours and had just hung around Vices & Versa all day, that would have made the trip worthwhile. The place has twenty-nine beers on tap (including one cider), and I wasn't hearing any complaints about the quality from the CABA members. The staff at V&V served so much beer to us that they ran a few taps dry.
Dad and I turned in a bit early. While many of the other CABA members went pub-hopping, we caught a taxi back to the hotel, had dinner, watched a bit of TV and then crashed. We were both up around 7:00 or so, and we decided just to head out and get on the road. We had a long drive home.
We had a lot more to talk about on the trip home. We'd had a great time, and even though neither of us are big fans of Montreal, I'd be willing to make a weekend trip there this summer to experience Vices & Versa and some of the other brewpubs while the weather is nice and I have time to just sit around and relax.
Dad and I talked about beer, the bus trip and homebrewing, and we bitched a few times about the driver. In some ways, it wasn't really even the driver's fault that we hated him. Montreal's laws regarding beer in vehicles are the same as in Ontario, but for beer and wine tours, my understanding has the drivers have always been very lenient about the rules. However, the guy wasn't even friendly, so that didn't help endear him to his passengers.
Unfortunately, it's very easy to dwell on the driver and not on the fun time we had. We met a lot of people that I'm hoping I'll see at future CABA events. The CABA guys are a good bunch of people. They're a lot of fun and love to talk about beer and brewing (that shouldn't come as any surprise).
The next CABA event is in June, and I know I'll be doing my best to attend. And I'll definitely make the trip for March in Montreal again next year.
While my father isn't a homebrewer -- his brush with brewing his own beer was in the form of the brew-on-premise places that were trendy in the Eighties (some of them are still around, but not in the same numbers they were back then) -- I thought it would be a good father/son road trip. Up until last weekend, we'd never gone on such a trip together. Sure, we'd had many road trips when I was younger, but that was the entire family. This time, it was just the two of us.
Dad arrived just before 9:00 and, after making sure the dogs had plenty of food and water (they're not usually left alone for very long), we threw my little suitcase and a four-pack of homebrew porter in the trunk and headed out. For the first couple of hours, we drove mostly in silence, occasionally chatting about the weather or what we were hearing on the news.
You see, my father and I share very few of the same interests. He grew up as a sports guy, and I grew up as the complete opposite. I love intricate war games and stereotypically geeky pursuits, while my father is perfectly happy to spend an entire evening watching curling or hockey on TV.
The one interest we do share, though, is beer. The first time I ever tasted beer was out of one of his open bottles when I was a kid (I was a sneaky kid and loved to be around beer bottles for some reason -- my parents have several pictures proving this; I'm sure it was no surprise to either of them when I became a beer drinker around the age of twenty). It was a bit early in the morning to start talking about beer, and I also didn't want to exhaust our most important means of conversation before we even reached Kingston.
We stopped outside of a small town just this side of the Ontario/Quebec border for lunch. We both had a pint and a burger -- he drinking Canadian and I drinking Keith's red. As we sat there eating and sipping at our beers, I wondered if this would be the last time I'd drink a macro beer this weekend. The CABA guys are all homebrewers, and all of them seem to be beer geeks, as well. They like to drink craft beer when they can rather than beer from the likes of Inbev and Molson-Coors.
By the time we arrived in Montreal (after fighting traffic through the early hours of rush hour) and found a hotel about fifteen kilometres away from where we needed to be Saturday morning, we turned the TV on (to curling) and crashed for the night. Neither of us were feeling well. Dad was fighting off the last bits of a stomach flu and I'd contracted a cold from Jacquie on Wednesday or Thursday. Both of us wanted to be in peak condition for Saturday.
Saturday started out bad for us, but it quickly improved. See, we'd decided to drive from the hotel to Vices & Versa, the beer pub where the March in Montreal event was kicking off. This was a mistake, as it turns out Montrealers don't believe in parking lots in the downtown core. One resident CABA member told me we were screwed for parking, and so Dad and I took the car back to the hotel and caught a cab.
We had been almost right on time when we arrived shortly after 9:30, but with the trip back and forth, we actually ended up arriving at 10:15. Breakfast had already started, and we kind of missed out on the grub (not that either of us were really hungry, anyway). We'd managed to find a Tims earlier in the morning and get some coffee, so we were good.
Upon arriving at Vices & Versa, we checked in and got our nametags and our drink tickets for Vices & Versa. The first beer (about half-pints) didn't require a ticket, but any beer we ordered after that required either a beer ticket or cash. We made good use of those tickets and made sure to use them up before loading onto the bus at 1:00.
I started with the hefe weizen, which I was told was a good breakfast beer, but after that, I moved over to the stouts. By the time we left, I'd sampled all three of Vices & Versa's on-tap stouts (the imperial stout was quite tasty, but the coffee stout wasn't bad, either).
We watched the various homebrew competition awards being given out. Lunch was served. I ate lightly, but the food was pretty good.
At 12:45, we were asked to board the bus so we could get going a bit early. Then we discovered the awful truth: The bus driver was a surly fellow who refused to bend the rules and let us drink on the bus (a first for CABA in all its many years, I'm told). He couldn't even be bribed. Dick. So our bus trip to the first brewery in St-Jerome was somewhat subdued. Guess who went home without a tip (well, except for the penny Dad left on the driver's seat).
Dieu Du Ciel was our first of two stops. Originally started in Montreal, Dieu Du Ciel grew big enough that it launched the second site in St-Jerome. We tasted several beers on draught, and I continued to make a mistake I'd been making since arriving in Montreal -- that being I tried to speak French and then whoever I was speaking to assumed I was a francophone. I don't know what the girl behind the counter was telling me about the imperial stout, but ... well, it seemed to have something to do with the beer's head. I just pretended I understood and walked away with what turned out to be an excellent, creamy imperial stout.
However, I can find stouts anywhere -- and Kevin Tighe's Russian imperial stouts can't be beat (and he's just around the corner). The one beer that really piqued my interest was one called Rosee d'Hibiscus (excuse the lack of accents, mes amis), so just as we were getting set to leave, I bought a six-pack of it and walked out.
Rosee d'Hibiscus is a red-ish beer with flowery aromas and tastes, so it was unique enough that I felt I had to buy some. Of course, I'll share with any beer afficionados that are tempted.
The bus driver was so worried we'd start cracking beers open that he wouldn't even let us get on the bus with our six-packs. We had to put them in the storage area under the bus and collect them at the end of the trip. That didn't stop a few people from smuggling some beer on board for later, though.
The next stop was Au Maitre-Brasseur, a fairly new brewery in Laval. With a smaller pub area and a fairly tiny brewing area, Au Maitre-Brasseur still makes some nice beers. However, by this time, I was out of cash and had to pass on picking up any bottles (although I think they sold a few bottles of their barley wine and a beer they'd called Orgasme -- I didn't try it, but I heard some others say good things about it).
Since Kevin had brought several bottles of homebrew beer and mead, and he did want us to sample some (he's such a generous guy), we all met in the parking lot to test out some of his various brews. I drank lightly, while others started pounding hard.
By the time we all got on the bus, a few people were somewhat inebriated, but I don't think anybody was hurling in the bathroom. Several bottles of beer had been smuggled aboard, and then the pouring began. After ten minutes, people even stopped hiding the fact they were drinking on the bus. With beers in their hands, a group near the front started singing -- rather badly, I might add, but it caught on so much that most of us at the front of the bus started joining in (including me -- and that wrecked my already sickly throat).
The bus driver must have been trying to ignore us, or maybe he thought he'd get a tip by not telling us to put the beer away, but it was too little, too late for the grumpy driver. He'd pissed people off and ruined some of our fun.
We ended our trip where we began -- at Vices & Versa. I have to admit that even if we hadn't done the brewery tours and had just hung around Vices & Versa all day, that would have made the trip worthwhile. The place has twenty-nine beers on tap (including one cider), and I wasn't hearing any complaints about the quality from the CABA members. The staff at V&V served so much beer to us that they ran a few taps dry.
Dad and I turned in a bit early. While many of the other CABA members went pub-hopping, we caught a taxi back to the hotel, had dinner, watched a bit of TV and then crashed. We were both up around 7:00 or so, and we decided just to head out and get on the road. We had a long drive home.
We had a lot more to talk about on the trip home. We'd had a great time, and even though neither of us are big fans of Montreal, I'd be willing to make a weekend trip there this summer to experience Vices & Versa and some of the other brewpubs while the weather is nice and I have time to just sit around and relax.
Dad and I talked about beer, the bus trip and homebrewing, and we bitched a few times about the driver. In some ways, it wasn't really even the driver's fault that we hated him. Montreal's laws regarding beer in vehicles are the same as in Ontario, but for beer and wine tours, my understanding has the drivers have always been very lenient about the rules. However, the guy wasn't even friendly, so that didn't help endear him to his passengers.
Unfortunately, it's very easy to dwell on the driver and not on the fun time we had. We met a lot of people that I'm hoping I'll see at future CABA events. The CABA guys are a good bunch of people. They're a lot of fun and love to talk about beer and brewing (that shouldn't come as any surprise).
The next CABA event is in June, and I know I'll be doing my best to attend. And I'll definitely make the trip for March in Montreal again next year.
// posted by Chris @ 12:00 PM 
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