Pump it!

We're taking a break from exploring Canadian beers in Canada to mark the date. And drink a couple of Canadian beers I brought home with me. Both are from Great Lakes Brewing in Ontario.

The ordinary Pumpkin Ale starts us off, and boy is it ordinary. 5.5% ABV,with the basics of nutmeg and cinnamon, and damn all else. It's thin-bodied and quick finishing, with no fruit character at all. I find it hard to discern what the base beer under the spicing might be; it must be especially bland. A pumpkin beer for people who want their pumpkin beer to taste like pumpkin beer, I guess, but also a prime example of why the style comes in for so much flak.

OK, let's reset. Great Lakes has also produced a pumpkin saison called (sigh) Saison Dupump. I expected this to be a bit more interesting, and I will admit it is, but it's still a very basic saison. The pepper and straw is perfectly typical while the added spices are relatively muted. At 5.2% ABV it's light and crisp and I'm certain it was very tasty before they decided to seasonalise it.

Neither of these have any distinguishing features beyond the raw and obvious pumpkin spices. I guess I'd been hoping for a new an interesting twist on the craft beer cliché, but it seems the market doesn't swing that way, at least it doesn't in Etobicoke, Ontario. These two are very basic. Here's wishing you a better than basic Halloween.

Toronto: Go!

Our journey ended in Toronto. As Canada's largest city there was plenty to explore, but as usual it was just a skim of the surface over the course of less than a week.

As it happened we were staying just a block away from the Steam Whistle brewery, or at least its original part. It's sited in a photogenic round train shed with a bar in front, extensive event space, and the compact production brewery at the back where now only the draught beer is produced. The tour was fun, as these things go, and offered my first taste of Steam Whistle Pilsner, swigged from a satisfyingly heavy reusable green glass bottle on the way round.

The brewery's gimmick is that this decoction-mashed pils is the only beer they make, and have ever made. The brewery bar, however, offers a choice of filtered and unfiltered versions. A few days after the tour we dropped back to try them side-by-side. It's not a beer to get excited about, in either of its forms. It's a decent pilsner, with that extra fluffy texture I tend to associate with decoction. I found it a little light on the hopping, however, with a very slight plastic tang in the finish. The unfiltered one is a little bitterer, in a good way, but there's not a whole lot of difference between them. Steam Whistle puts on a good show but the product is decidedly average.

Down by the waterfront is another outpost of a Toronto brewing institution: the Amsterdam BrewHouse. The brewery was founded in this neighbourhood in 1986 before expanding to larger facilities elsewhere, then returning downtown to open this vast and barn-like restaurant in 2013. Despite much signage advertising special edition beers, the selection was mostly limited to the core range.

I began with Cruiser, a 4.9% ABV session IPA with Citra and Sorachi Ace hops. This arrived pale gold with a fine white head and tasted beautifully fresh and zingy: sweet lemon curd on a meringue-pie base with gentle sherbet effervescence and a sternly acidic citric kick on the end. It's charming and moreish, exactly as the style should be. Job done.

The squat orange beer next to it is Space Invader IPA. The aroma here is a mix of tropical juice and resinous herbal dankness, showing off the advertised Citra rather well. There's an expected powerful hit of lime in the flavour, as well as a less welcome fried onion vibe. Bright citrus zest finishes it on a lighter, less severe, note. As one gets accustomed to the hops, its base malt becomes a lot more apparent. While far from groundbreaking or otherwise exceptional, this is a very decent American-style IPA. Enough so for my wife to order a second while I went with the sole seasonal on offer.

That was Starke, another pilsner. This one was strangely fruity, opening on peach juice and moving towards banana. Accompanying these was a differently weird mineral or metal tang: limestone and zinc. Just as I was preparing to write it off as too weird, a proper pils-like green bitterness arose, bringing fresh celery and white pepper. The texture is rather heavy and greasy even though the ABV is a relatively modest 5.2%. This one takes a while to unfold but I think it was worth it in the end.

One last restaurant before we start hitting the bars: Fifth Pubhouse, a slightly down-at-heel bar and eatery, chosen out of a desire for something dirty and greasy which it certainly delivered. To drink, Pickup No. 26, yet another pilsner, this time by Thornbury Brewery. Somewhat joyously, there was nothing odd about this one, though the lack of head was disappointing. It has all the chewy white bread and fresh, damp, grassy hops that any Mitteleuropa lager fanatic could want, with no twists or tricks. It was badged as a house beer here and it's ideal for that: a basic, no-thought offer, that happens to be of superb quality.

From one brick-built downtown bar space to another. C'est What? has been a fixture of the Toronto beer scene for as long as I've been paying attention to it. Despite a very central location it's a little hard to find, situated in a roomy but windowless cellar, dark and quiet on the rainy afternoon we landed in.

In addition to the wide selection of assorted Canadian guest beers, C'est What? has its own brand, brewed by local producers. From these I chose Joan's Dark Secret, a dark mild served on cask. It's a deep cola colour with little head and a strangely wine-ish aroma, fortified and raisiny, like Pedro Ximinez sherry. There are raisins in the flavour but they come at the end of a long dry and roasty taste. It's fairly typical of a mild, then. The only flaw was a minor phenolic buzz, slight enough that I couldn't make up my mind on whether it was a smoky seasoning or bleachy line-cleaner. It was easily ignored anyway. Aside from it the beer is light-textured and very drinkable.

The other dark beer, obviously kegged, is C'est What?'s Mocha Porter. This is a wholesome and filling affair: 6% ABV, smelling and tasting of dark chocolate but with a quick clean finish, reminding me of Baltic porter more than the usual warm-fermented type. It's as smooth, rich and creamy as it looks: a perfect sup for a dismal day.

Once we got confident using Toronto's excellent public transport system we started exploring a little further afield. One such stop was Indie Ale House, a brewpub in the north-west of the city. I liked the way the emphasis was very much on their own beers here, with only a couple of token guests on the menu board.

I picked the barrel-aged Indie Table Beer, one of just 3.8% ABV, though I appear to have omitted any note of what sort of barrel it was aged in. Apologies. I'm going to say white wine, though, as it had the fresh kiwifruit notes of a Sauvignon Blanc and a toasty Chardonnay finish. A more distinctly hop-derived tangerine note runs through it as well, and the whole thing is deliciously spritzy and refreshing.

For the other half, Breakfast Porter. This was a 7.2% ABV thumper with a powerful coffee aroma. The texture is thick and syrupy with a cloying sweetness to match. A metallic tang and a certain black-cherry sour note did little to balance it. I'm guessing they were shooting for "bold" in the flavour design here, and if so they've achieved it. They're wide of the mark on "good", however.

On our first evening in the city we fought our way through the glamourously-attired hordes, paparazzi and celeb-spotters who had gathered for the Toronto Film Festival and made our way to Bar Hop on King Street. It was doing rather well out of the event, it seemed: the table next to us was occupied by blazered security men, earpieces out, as they took their evening meal and swapped stories.

From the list here I opted for Tremolo IV, a mixed fermentation farmhouse ale brewed by the establishment's sister brewpub. It's pale yellow with an immediate white wine aroma. It proved thicker and smoother than most of these, showing peach and mango juice flavours, with herbal bathsalts in the background. The big 6.5% ABV doesn't help lighten it any. While not amazing, it's still clean and complex, doing well to balance the pith and spice elements. I'll always prefer extra spice, though.

A baseball-themed novelty beer accompanies that. Squints is a gose from Toronto brewer Left Field, designed to resemble the classic ballpark snack of sunflower seeds. No, I didn't know either. There's also lime and black pepper because why not? The whole thing is a bit of a mess, to be honest. The flavours are all there, even the savoury seeds, but they all shout too loudly over each other. I don't know if black pepper concentrate exists, but that's how it smells, and then the flavour is rough and sour with a lime cordial sweetness and a sickly brine finish. It's just too weird to enjoy.

To follow, a pair of hoppy offerings from Great Lakes Brewing. I picked the solid-sounding Canuck. This is a clear deep gold colour, 5.2% ABV with a lovely zesty aroma of fresh lemon and mandarin. So it was a surprise to find the beer watery and thin on tasting, those citrus notes turning to bland discount orange juice. I guess it's refreshing, and clean, but I thought it a little out of place in a speciality beer bar like this.

Karma Citra IPA is 6.6% ABV and a cloudy orange colour. Another promising aroma: loads of resinous weedy dank to the fore. But once more the flavour doesn't match up, providing a confusing mix of granary loaf, caraway seed and harsh lemon and lime pith. Again, this one gets the very basics right but just seems to be lacking something: substance or spirit or depth.

I mentioned that Bar Hop had a brewpub and we dropped in there the following evening. I went for their saison Miracle Cure. It's a soft and fruity one, with peach juice dominating, plus ripe white grape. It tastes stronger than its 5.3% ABV, turning a bit sickly towards the end. A spike of pepper and some medicine-cabinet herbs help balance it a little but it could stand to be crisper.

And a porter to end on: Kemuri, a smoked one from Godspeed, another Toronto brewpub but one we didn't visit. A strong bacony aroma sets out its stall very early on. The flavour is a little acrid: a harsh metallic twang in with the peaty phenols. I usually like this sort of thing but I felt this one leaned too much on the smoke novelty at the expense of the underlying porter. A few points higher than its 5% ABV might have helped balance it better. Another one for the "bold but no thanks" file.

Much more Toronto pubbing to come later this week, but tomorrow is a holiday and I know just the beers...

Whistle-stop Ottawa

Ottawa did not match my expectations of it. There's something about capital cities which aren't their nation's largest that makes me believe they're all humdrum administrative centres, devoid of local colour or nightlife. A weekend in Canada's capital proved this prejudice to be baseless. We didn't explore much further than the Byward Market area but on Friday and Saturday nights it was jumping.

The first port of call was Waller Street, a miniscule brewpub in the basement of a larger entertainment complex. I squeezed in next to a fermenter to try their Moonlight Porter, quite a strong one at 6.3% ABV with a chewy texture to match. There's a lot going on in this: normal flavours like dark chocolate and liquorice; more unusual ones like lavender and rosewater; and then a completely surprising spicy ginger and citric bergamot. It's a strange set of flavours but it all works together wonderfully.

The other half of the round was Scotch River Sour, made with birch sap and spruce tips. This was a rich clear golden colour and exceedingly fruity, in a slightly artificial way, like Jolly Rancher sweets. The forest flavour comes through as a kind of pime bitterness with a touch of zingy lime. While not powerfully sour, nor massively complex, it was interesting and fun to drink. Waller Street joins the list of places I wish I'd had more time to stay and drink at.

Instead, it was around the corner to Brothers Beer Bistro, seemingly the most high-end beer specialist in town. And that, inevitably, meant a Viognier-aged Brett-fermented saison. VIO is from Bench, a brewery in the heart of Niagara wine country. It's 6.2% ABV and bright yellow in colour with a slight haze. An enticing aroma of peaches and cedar starts us off, leading to a juicy and very grape-centric white wine flavour. Brett-borne apricot and a farmyard funk finish it off. I love these wild wine-barrel saisons in general, and this was a particularly good example of the style.

A Russian Imperial Stout goes with that, from Niagara Oast House Brewers in the same neighbourhood. This 9.2% ABV job gives off a strong and sticky Tia Maria aroma while it tastes of bitter sour cherry and toasty roast. There's an added kick of umami presumably resulting from in-bottle autolysis as it was a 2015 vintage, and the whole thing is a bit too severe and serious for my liking. I bet it was better fresh.

The final pub visited was Clocktower, part of a small chain with a production brewery at one of its sites but not this one. I picked Number Seven, the IPA. Copper in colour and 5.4% ABV, it's quite resinous and sweaty, showing dry husky grain up front, a burst of grapefruit in the middle and then an acridly bitter finish. Musty sackcloth and metallic aspirin. This was an unpleasant throwback to the 1990s school of American IPAs, where bitterness is all, coming at the expense of pleasant drinking.

Clocktower Stout was also brash and unsubtle but was a lot more enjoyable, exuding a big billowy mocha aroma, turning to sweet and creamy milk chocolate on tasting, balanced by an almost ashen bitterness. I can forgive the lack of subtlety here as it has bags of character instead.

My second Canadian hemp beer finishes us off. The Wrong Stuff was a seasonal, garnet-coloured and appearing flat. It was powerfully vinegary and I could be kind and say it tasted like a Flemish red as it has a similar sort of grain crunch behind the acetic, but there's no fun fruit notes and absolutely no peppery hemp so I deem this a failure. If it's the result of a hygiene disaster at least it was a clean one. Still aptly named, though.

It's time to get back on the train now and head for the Big Smoke. Next stop: Toronto!

Arrivals, Departures

Our one daytrip from Montréal took us up the St Lawrence to Québec City. It's a solid three and a half hours by train so obviously I brought train beer: a handsome half-litre bottle of Sour French Kiss by Microbrasserie Charlevoix. Two mouthfuls in, our friendly Via Rail conductor came by to tell me to chug it. Turns out train beer, or at least drinking your own beer on board, is illegal in Canada. Yes it said that on my ticket so yes I should have known, but it's still downright barbarous. No wonder passenger rail is underused. What's the point if you can't have train beer? A quick impression, then: I had bought this thinking it would be something like a Flanders red. Nope. It's very thin and gassy with a carbonic sharpness giving the palate a vigorous scrub. Once that subsides the fruit arrives, and when I say fruit I mean just strawberry, in a concentrated sweet and jammy sort of way. And that's your lot; one of those beers where "sour" means nothing other than "over-attenuated". I can be thankful it didn't turn out to be a complex sipper, I suppose.

Québec is a pretty town with lots of interesting sites, laid out in a very charming French style, complete with mairie and château. About half way through the day it occurred that we should have made a weekend of it. Lunch was in a bistro called Bello which had a house lager called Bière Bello. I've no idea where it's from. It's only 4.5% ABV but is heavy and sweet, offering a spongecake base spiced up with white pepper and chicory in that slightly fusty Germanic way. It's well made and far more interesting than it needs to be.

We nipped into one local brewpub later: L'Inox. It's in that rustic-cabin bare-planks style that seems to be the preferred design mood for Canadian beer bars. I opted for Saison Lilikoï, a 5%-er brewed with passionfruit. The crisp saison dryness is very faint in this, absolutely smothered by the passionfruit juice. It ends up being too neutral a base and the fruit runs riot over the top of it. This is one for people who want their passionfruit beer to taste like passionfruit and not beer.

Guest beer on the day was Davy Jones by Le Corsaire Microbrasserie, just across the river. This is an export-style stout of 5% ABV, appearing dense black with a head the colour of old ivory. A wheaty chocolate aroma leads to further chocolate in the flavour and a creamy smooth texture. A metallic bitter tang in the finish balances it and keeps it from being a total dessert. I see no mention of the use of lactose but it hits the flavour points of a milk stout exactly. A very decent effort overall.

Later, with half an hour to kill before our train back to Montréal, we stopped in at D'Orsay, an uncharacteristically American-style bar, all dark wood and cocktails. I was pleased to find a selection from Unibroue on tap, having missed these since they disappeared from the Irish market almost a decade ago. I picked an unfamiliar one, À Tout Le Monde, a light saison brewed in collaboration with Megadeth, because why not? It's all spices and oranges, a not-very-metal combination of ginger, nutmeg and tangerine with a classy hint of cedar. This manages to be smooth and warming while also juicy and refreshing. Without knowing the style or strength I mistook it for a big tripel; at the strength it's very impressively complex.

I picked up a handful of other Unibroues while I was in Montréal, happy to see the familiar 75cl bottles with exactly the same label design as back in the day. I resisted returning to old favourites to bring you opinions on some new ones.

Éphémère Pomme is a wheat beer flavoured with Granny Smith apples. It pours a crisp golden colour and smells sharply acidic, exactly like real green apples. That continues on tasting: a strong and authentically appley flavour, sweeter than the aroma, like apple jelly or a Mr Kipling bramley pie. There's a smooth wheatiness forming a neutral base, but not invisible: this is definitely a beer rather than an ersatz alcopop. Bright and fresh like a sunny October morning in the orchard, it's very well constructed and classy, entirely without gimmickry.

Presenting, I guess, a negative image to Unibroue's Blanche de Chambly witbier is Noire de Chambly, a dark ale. It's a clean and quite lager-like affair with spicy cola phosphorus and a dark fruit blend of raisin and plum. Only a very slight stickiness indicates the 6.2% ABV. An oily black pepper pop finishes it satisfactorily. I was expecting a stout but got something far more interesting.

I didn't know what I would be getting from the bottle of Raftman I carted all the way to Toronto, since it says no more than it's a smoked ale on the bottle. It poured a murky ochre colour with lots of foam. "Wholesome" is my verdict. It smells and tastes like fresh crusty brown bread. There is precious little smoke and just a faint tang of old world hop fruit. But malt it has in spades: sweet rich grains which almost but don't quite tip over into syrup. At 5.5% ABV it's quite easy going and certainly undemanding: a beer for sharing while your attention is on something else.

I  mentioned on Wednesday another brewery that likes its handsome large bottles: Brasserie Les Trois Mousquetaires. My wife picked the Maibock to bring back to the room. It's not a style I would choose, and this one is a shining example as to why. Though an innocent lemon barley water colour, it is insanely thick and sweet, tasting simultaneously of porridgey wort, boiled sweets and candied popcorn. Yes there's a little nibble from the herbal noble hops but that's brief, coming just ahead of a finish that's pure Sugar Puffs. While well within the style boundaries and probably exactly as the brewer intended, it tastes unfinished to me, and that's despite a full 6.8% ABV.

Though Granville Island is no longer the trailblazing brewery it was 20 years ago I still wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to try its beer the first time I saw it, at Montréal station on the afternoon we departed for Ottawa. Infamous is certainly like an IPA from the olden days. It's a dark copper colour and 6% ABV. Sweet and sticky crystal malt dominates the flavour while a soapy bitterness forms the other side, contrasting without actually balancing it. Overall it's like a failed mutant version of Sierra Nevada pale ale. If that's your bag, go for it.

Other cans acquired and consumed at our lodgings in Ottawa and then Toronto included this one from Muskoka, one of the Canadian breweries whose wares occasionally show up in Europe. Shinnicked Stout is new to me, though. It's coffee-infused and 5.2% ABV, a dark brown colour with a perfect cream coloured head. While there's definite after-dinner filter coffee in the flavour, I got a creamy and boozy dessert vibe: not pastry but not all coffee either. It's just a genuinely tasty, medium-strength, roast-forward stout; balanced and satisfying.

Amsterdam's Boneshaker describes itself as an unfiltered IPA, though that's hardly unique and there are hundreds of IPAs of its hazy deep copper colour in North America alone. It smells zesty: sweet orange pith meeting spicy sandalwood. The ripe orange -- satsuma and mandarin -- is the cornerstone of its flavour, with just an edge of caraway and sesame on the finish. It's all very clean and bright: the 7.1% ABV being very well hidden. Consider also the balancing pine bitterness and a certain weedy dank and you have Canada's neat answer to Sierra Nevada Torpedo. I approve. Isn't it good to know that "unfiltered" doesn't have to mean mucky? More from Amsterdam when we visit their Toronto outlet next week.

Another reddish IPA to follow, IPA 9 from Duggan's: a little bit lighter at 6.2% ABV. This time the aroma is strongly toffee-infused with a hint of red apple. Flavourwise it has the tea-like tannins of a good English bitter and while it's missing any full-on new-world citrus punch, it's at least clean, dry and unsticky. Like many of this sort, especially the stronger ones, it does get a little astringent towards the end. I'd say the ABV needs to be roughly halved for it to work properly.

Pumping the ABV up to 9%, and feeling no shame about it, is Immodest by Nickel Brook. It's a hazy orange colour and smells powerfully of booze and orange cordial, like the vodka mixers I remember from the 1990s. The flavour is an absolutely classic west coast blend of citrus and pine, coupled with big alcohol and finishing on a warming glow. It's a flavour profile I haven't tasted in a while as I think it's thoroughly out of fashion, but which reminds me of Russian River's Pliny the Elder in particular. If you want your DIPA hot, punchy, unsubtle, but with a certain clean and fruity charm, the LCBO has you covered with this.

Chosen by the other half solely for its awesome name, Ransack the Universe is an IPA from Collective Arts which uses Galaxy and Mosaic hops. It's the medium hazy yellow of old-style lemonade and smells both juicy and sharp; mandarin meets lime, but all cool and fresh. The flavour continues this beautiful tropical double act, offering notes of pineapple, guava and mango up front before bringing in a tight and almost astringent bitterness on the end. There's lots on offer for those who think IPAs are best when acting as surrogate juiceboxes, and those who think no punch, no point. My only gripe is a very slight caraway hit on the end but that's minimal. Overall an absolutely benchmark modern IPA.

Enough cans, it's back to the pub next. Find out on Monday what Canada's capital city had in store for us.

Montréal beyond

Time was running short in Montréal and I still had some places on the list I wanted to visit. Who's up for a turbo pub crawl / death march?

We begin at Isle de Garde, a long linear brewpub in the north of the city. I got a bit of Twitter interest from observing that their beer menu is arranged by serving temperature, which is all kinds of useful. From the middle section of that I picked a house beer: C'est Une IPA; Elle est Américaine, a hazy orange 5.7% ABV job. It's pretty sweet, all orange juice and perfume on an unpleasant lumpy thick texture. Add in notes of garlic and lemon floor cleaner and it should be a disaster but I warmed to it, enjoying the continuous flow of citrus juice and finding it thirst quenching despite the strength. Well, it had been a long trek up here.

The paler beer beside it is Hully Gully, a sour IPA by Les Grand Bois (the only brewery named after the Wetherspoon in Blanchardstown) coming in at 4.3% ABV. It's a lemonade yellow and had a beautiful acid sharpness full of lime zest and gunpowder. A little severe, perhaps, but it's certainly stimulating. More generosity with the hops would improve it, but still very enjoyable as is.

The tall fellow on the left here is Belge Style Trappiste: Cabernet Sauvignon et Brett, a beer which holds no mysteries for anyone fluent in Franglais. This is a whopping 10.3% ABV with a powerful vinous aroma, all raisins, oak and a nosehair-burning balsamic sharpness. Yet the flavour isn't in any way sour, instead showing the rich warmth of strong coffee, Malaga wine and cream sherry, with a texture to match. The description indicates that they've aimed for a quadruple but they've hit barley wine instead. There's a wide disconnect between the aroma and flavour but both are excellent and the end result is balanced, smooth and utterly delicious.

Next to it is Saison Fruit Bombe, another Isle de Garde job, in collaboration with the MaBrasserie co-operative. Brettanomyces features in a big way, though not really in a fruity way, showing more of the funky aspects. It's all farmyard in the aroma and sweaty horsey straw in the flavour. If that's your sort of thing you'll love this, but complex it ain't.

Out we trotted after that and over to Vices & Versa. This is a rangy pub spread over several rooms, decked out in canteen-like bare wood and veneer. It was 32°C outside and they'd thrown all the windows open, so it was pretty much 32°C inside as well. We just stayed for one.

I chose MaBrasserie Pilž Výčepní because something with that many accents on it has to be authentic. And yep: this is the mandated 4% ABV with weighty, grainy malt and a big hit of grass. That's fresh-cut to begin with, turning to bitter wax on the end, and all smooth and sinkable with just the right level of subtle carbonation. It had turned a little sweet by the time I finished it but I blame the weather for that.

The hazier yellow beer on the left of it is IDA La Grisette, a collaboration between Isle de Garde and Dunham. At 5.2% ABV it's far too strong but tastes great, all spicy and herbal with an unexpected lacing of tropical juice. The aroma too is all lemon and basil. It's refreshing without being any way thin. Deftly done.

Heading back towards downtown, we pass Cheval Blanc. This is a fairly commonplace beer brand throughout Quebec, featuring on many pub signs and A-boards around what I saw of the region. The Montréal brewpub is an odd sort of place, with the look of a chromed-up cocktail bar or American diner, converted to a beer specialist with minimum work other than the brewkit installation.

Sour Soif was my shout, a 3% ABV "milkshake sour session IPA". Wut? It's a super-pale white-gold colour, tasting sweet and tangy. Lime sherbet mixes with chalky milk sweets, resulting in something tart and refreshing, and remarkably well-integrated despite the obvious gimmickry.

My wife picked Todo Includo, a New England IPA which gets its name from the use of seven different hop varieties. A mild spring onion aroma is par for the course, as is the creamy texture. Yet it's not sweet and juicy, going instead for zesty lemon notes and a properly serious boiled-in bitterness. Though 6% ABV it manages to stay light and refreshing and is an interesting and worthwhile take on the style.

A couple of stops along the Métro and we're at Les Soeurs Grises, a bustling modern brewery-restaurant in the old town. I picked Ginger from the range here, intrigued by a saison with the titular spice at 6.2% ABV. It arrived a clear pale orange colour and does indeed display the promised ginger -- gentle with no burn -- alongside a soft banana flavour typical of strong saison. It's maybe a little blander than I'd have liked, but lacked any of the hot off-flavours I feared, so it gets a thumbs up as a thirst-quencher.

For the lady a stout: L’Appât-Si-Noir, an oatmeal one at 5.6% ABV with the customary annoyingly thick head. It smells richly roasted and tarry, tasting of caramel up front and milk chocolate afterwards, fading out on creamy mocha. That head -- which is a sizeable proportion of the volume paid for -- dissipates quickly, a symptom of an overall flatness. This is an excellent recipe let down by a very poor serve.

We didn't get to eat at the famous Montréal brasserie Joe Beef, but I did find the house beer at a barbecue joint elsewhere in town. Joe Beef Special Pils is brewed by Bierbrier, and is the only one of theirs I came across. It's not great: heavy doughnut malt and a too-light wax bitterness make for something that works OK with a stodgy pile of marinated meat but just isn't hop-forward enough to be a good pilsner.

An Ontarian usurper is beside it: Lug Tread "lagered ale" by Beau's All Natural Brewing Company. This was awful, all cloying perfume and acrid plastic, with a long and nasty perfume tang, simultaneously stale and artificial tasting. I wasn't tempted to try any of their other offerings after this.

Not far from the restaurant was the final brewpub for the Montréal leg: Benelux. It seemed like quite a swish joint, though it was late so crowded and loud. We cowered at a corner table and yelled at each other over our beers.

Mine was a black IPA because I've taken to ordering them now wherever I see them. Black Beatty is 6.5% ABV with the spiced red cabbage aroma that is uniquely appropriate to the style. A bitter tar bite starts the flavour, followed by zesty lime, fading to lemon sherbet before a long liquorice finish. This is big-flavoured yet balanced, exactly what a black IPA should be, and a perfect example of why the style deserves to be preserved.

Barbarella blackcurrant gose is the other beer, and before you sigh at another one of those syrup-infused sour beers sullying the name of gose, this one is genuinely great. There's a real salty briny quality all the way through, with the Ribena blackcurrant offering just an enhancement on this, not the main act. It's a real gose with added fruit, not a fruit beer with gose notions. The finish is mostly about the leafy coriander but with a tannic berry skin bite as well. Surprisingly lovely, and I would have liked more time and a more conducive environment to see what else Benelux had going.

That's time at the bar for Montréal, however. Next we explore some more bits of Canada's east.

The Crescent

Day three of blogging about beer in Canada, coinciding with day three of the trip itself. It was an early start that Sunday, to catch the All-Ireland football final at Hurley's Irish pub nearby. It's not a beer specialist by any means, though you can get a few from the O'Hara's range on draught. I picked two from McAuslan, whose St-Ambroise range I covered on Monday.

Griffon Blonde is a sweet and perfumey blonde ale of 5% ABV, devoid of bitterness, other than a mild lemon candy note. It's quite thickly textured which isn't a problem when it's cold from the tap, but this starts making it less enjoyable as it warms.

There was almost the opposite problem with Griffon Rousse, only slightly weaker at 4.5% ABV but horribly watery. There's a vague caramel flavour, exactly as you'd find in a sub-par (ie typical) Irish red, and just a mild roasty spice complexity in the finish. None of it saves it from being incredibly dull, however.

Hurley's is on Crescent Street, the centre of an area awash with bars and restaurants. A couple of doors up there's a branch of Les 3 Brasseurs, a franchise chain of brewpubs in the Francophone world, and one which tends not to make particularly good beer. But it was raining and we didn't want to go far.

The pub itself is pleasant, laid out more as a restaurant, with the brewery hanging dramatically from a mezzanine overlooking the main floor. I chose an oatmeal pale ale, Avoine. It arrived an ugly, murky ochre colour and the lack of brightness spread to the flavour too. Somehow it manages to have a greasy hop-resin character without imparting any hop bitterness or flavour, just a vague greenness of celery and damp grass. I expected more punch, especially at 5.6% ABV, but punch came there none.

Across the table, a glass of 3 Brasseurs Brown started promisingly with a lovely caramel aroma, unfolding in chocolate and ripe banana. Bizarrely, then, the flavour turned out to be acrid and burnt, with none of the promised richness. I do not know how this alchemy was achieved but I do not approve.

L: Bonjour/High; R: Oatmeal Stout

Just as well we had an escape plan. On the far side of Hurley's is a brewpub called Brewtopia. The name is rather euphemistic for a rather dark and shabby multiroom bar, one which doubtless is intended to be lively and crowded but wasn't on this dismal Sunday afternoon. They had a hemp beer on and I went straight for that. Bonjour/High is the name, a dark red colour and served very cold. I found it thin and tasteless, even after it had warmed up a bit. There's crisp roast and light caramel, but nothing resembling hemp flavour. Not much flavour at all, in fact.

The Brutopia Oatmeal Stout wasn't a whole lot better, but it was better. This was another where the aroma makes promises the flavour can't keep, smelling richly tarry with added floral perfume, but dry to the point of acridity on tasting. It's OK when you get used to it, but it never really lives up to that initial promise. Brutopia joins the one-round-then-gone club.

A couple of days later we dined further up Crescent Street at a fairly new beer-themed restaurant called Artisanale. The service was comically bad in a cheery sort of way, though the slowness did mean we got to give the menu a thorough exploration.

Les Trois Mousquetaires is a fairly ubiquitous Quebec microbrewery, its beers coming in smart and distinctive uniformed 75cl bottles in the shops. Artisinale was pouring its Sour Citra and I thought it would work well as an aperitif. It did too: a fresh and clean lime astringency offset by cordial sweetness. The tartness is full-on yet balanced and there's an excellent use of the hop/sourness combination. At 5.5% ABV it's perhaps a little on the strong side, but it rewards sipping rather than chugging, which helps.

Beside it is Downtown Brown from Microbrasserie 4 Origines, about 3km from where we were sitting. This is how you do a brown ale. It was tempting to bring a jug down to 3 Brasseurs to show them. Downtown is a clear garnet colour with a rich chocolate cereal aroma. The texture is beautifully smooth, letting the milk chocolate and milkier coffee notes flow silkily over the palate. A twinge of old-world hop bitterness offers a touch of balance, but mostly this is about the wholesome and filling dark malts. The finish is clean, not allowing the sweetness to build or cloy. In fact, this beer was as aperitif-worthy as mine.

Confusion about what was available led to the next round consisting of three beers. I went with Réal, a double IPA by a local client brewer, Materra. In the middle of the picture there, it's a clear golden amber and though a mere 7.75% ABV is extremely alcoholic tasting, mixing the booze with orange cordial like a teenager. Zest, pith and rind eventually emerge from this mess and redeem it, the end result being quite a simple and tasty DIPA, once you're accustomed to the heat.

The orange-coloured St-Ambroise Abricot was a substitution after the requested Hopfenweisse was out of stock. It turned out to be a poor substitute for anything as it's very obviously a plain wheat ale squirted with apricot extract to make it seem interesting, but it absolutely doesn't work. The syrupy result tastes like jam and jellybeans: simplistic and artificial apricot flavours with no real character of its own. Doubtless there's a market for this sort of thing but it ain't me.

But what's this? A glass of Trois Mousquetaires Hopfenweisse has been miraculously extracted from the long beer lines and presented to the table for free. Aww. This is 6% ABV and quite pale, smelling very much like an ordinary weissbier: bananas and butane. The flavour is surprisingly dry with some booze but not very much hop. I'd class this as just a better class of weiss instead of a whole new style, it being well rounded and smooth yet crisp, with all the orthodox flavours and no gimmicks.

A few nights later saw us a couple of blocks over, dining at Reuben's Steakhouse & Deli, something of a Montréal institution, I gather. The food was very decent. The beer wasn't really up to it, as is so often the case when an industrial brewer gets their claws in. Reuben's Pale Ale is the house beer and I suspect that this is a rebadge of something by Molson Coors as I think I found it somewhere else under a different name. It tastes of syrup and grains, like a dodgy budget lager. Yuck.

The rotating tap was pouring Mad & Noisy, an India Pale Lager by Molson-owned Creemore Springs. Strangely for something so corporate it tasted very rough, all yeast grit and overdone toast. This came with a murky appearance and 5.3% ABV. By way of subtlety there was a touch of coffee grounds and a little light raspberry, but nothing appropriate to the style: no clean lager or bittering hops. I guess the name should have been a clue.

Moving closer to the historic heart of the city (you can fill in your own jibe about what counts as "historic" in North America) we come to BreWsky, a brewpub in the basement of the Bonsecours market building. I opted for the BreWsky Session IPA, a pale yellow job at 4.5% ABV, hazy with a flavour mix consisting of caraway seed and zinc. The latter makes it unpleasantly bitter, and while it's drinkable, it's very unbalanced and lacking in the hop fun that's supposed to make the style worthwhile.

In the squat glass next to it is Trouble #2, allegedly a hazy IPA but really not very hazy. There's almost no aroma and the flavour has little to say beyond a mild lemon and orange juice tang. A yeast bite is probably hiding some of the hop character but I'm sure it's not the only problem here. This one is mediocre at best.

More Montréal pub wanderings tomorrow, in the hope of better beers.

The sky's the limit

What do you do on your first full day in Montréal? Visit the Dieu du Ciel! brewery, of course. If the day happens to be a Saturday you probably shouldn't as the place was packed, with a queue out the door when we arrived early that afternoon. Thankfully it moved quickly and before we could decide to leave, we had a table. It's quite a small place, the corner bar about the size of, well, a small neighbourhood corner bar. We wedged ourselves in and set about the menu, opting for flights to start with.

Synergie: 1 Passion Houblon is the portentous name of my kick-off beer, a 5.5% ABV passionfruit IPA. There was a lot of the tropical ice lolly about this, all tangy passionfruit sorbet. Its glaring yellow colour makes it look as summery as it tastes. The texture is soft and there's just enough of a hop kick in the finish for it to pass as an IPA. It almost misses tasting like beer at all. Very enjoyable if you like the sweet and juicy flavour of passionfruit though.

Moving right, next is Moralité, an American-style IPA of 6.9% ABV. It's a deep orange colour and every bit as heavy as it looks. The aroma offers sweet jaffa and mandarin but this gets squashed somewhat on the flavour by sticky toffee and caramel. Some bitter rind and oily dankness survive but there's an absence of zing. True to style, I guess, but not a great example.

A bruiser to finish: the 8.3% ABV double IPA Immoralité. This was quite a murky affair, paler and sicker-looking than the previous one. The aroma is bright and fresh, however: all mango and tangerine. Weighty hop resins start the flavour off on a positive note but get followed by a blast of un-fruity caraway. Urgh. Hints of orange juice manage to peek through, but not enough to make it taste properly citrus, and all of these hop flavours struggle against a burning alcohol heat. It's a bit of a mess, lacking the usual DdC! finesse.

Speaking of which, the wife's flight started with Péché Mortel stout, of course, tasting as good at source as it does everywhere else. On the other end is Rosée d'Hibiscus, allegedly a witbier but 5.9% ABV and hot as hell. Hibiscus combines with the flat heavy texture and intense booziness to make it taste like cough mixture. It's definitely not as cheery as the clear pink colour might suggest.

Our flights land with Disco Soleil, a kumquat IPA. This didn't taste like kumquats or IPAs, arriving a clear lager yellow and tasting quite plain. There's a non-specific fruit quality and a long bitter finish, but that's more herbal than citrus: marjoram in particular. This could almost pass as a north German pilsner. There's nothing really wrong with it, but it's a bit dull and defintely not the beach party it's advertised as.

One last round before we go. I opted for Dernière Volonté IPA in its Brettanomyces re-fermented version. It brings the Brett all right: a massive dirty funk effect immediately from the start, settling to a gummy and sweet peach finish. It's lacking in the hop department, however, having a warm and wheaty porridge-oat middle where the hops ought to be. I enjoyed it, but it really could have done with some extra fruit character, from both the yeast and the hops. There are better versions of this style out there.

And for the lady, Aphrodisiaque, a chocolate and vanilla stout. This was today's unreasonably short-poured beer, sporting a thick off-white quiff. It smells sweet and wholesome, as rich as its 6.5% ABV implies. Milk chocolate is to the fore in the flavour followed by a charming mix of summer fruits: red cherries and strawberries. There's a contrasting bitter kick next, before a floral rosewater finish. A whole pint of this might prove difficult drinking but the general structure of the flavour is spot on. A happy note on which to take our leave.

Dieu du Ciel! bustling on a Saturday

When we had been considering going elsewhere, I noted another fun-looking bar just down the street. We went to investigate more closely on leaving Dieu du Ciel!. Siboire is part of a small chain of microbreweries and bars. This particular branch -- an open and lofty space with bare brick and bright windows -- doesn't have a brewery but does sell the Siboire range.

Seeking to further my education in brut IPAs, I ordered 0° Plato first. This arrived a bright and hazy yellow and all of 7% ABV. There was a lot of suspended yeast grit in it, making it taste dreggy, which didn't meld well with the booze heat. I got a mix of lemon and garlic flavours, giving the impression of a table beer or similar rough saison, an effect accentuated by the salty bathbomb herbs. The whole thing was far too confusing to be enjoyable and taught me nothing about brut IPA.

My companion was still on the big and dark beer buzz, picking Impérial Express from the menu. It's 9% ABV, dark brown and largely headless. A strong coffee aroma leads to a strong coffee flavour, all thick, sticky and delicious. A dark chocolate bitterness rises in the finish, rounding it out nicely. All the good things about imperial stout in a single package. Happy times.

For the second round I opted for La Certitude Camerise, a sour fruit beer. The camerise is new to me, being a kind of elongated blueberry. There's a simple Ribena vibe about this 3.9%-er, a soda minerality and a sense of forest fruit yoghurt. There's not much else going on and I don't expect the camerise to take over the beer world as its next miracle ingredient.

Since I was interested in that, the waiter presented me with a taste of their actual blueberry beer, BleuAle. It's not that different; maybe a little more complex on the fruit flavours, with hints of raspberry in with the blueberries, and with a more assertively sharp sourness. Still quite run-of-the-mill for this sort of thing, however.

Our last one here was Trip d'Automne, a lightish tripel of 7% ABV. I wasn't expecting much from this either but it really takes the style in some fun directions. It's absolutely still a tripel, with the proper amount of heat and honey and spices, but there's a gorgeous enticing peppery aroma and then bags of fresh and juicy cantaloupe right in the middle of the taste. Black peppercorns and strong aniseed add extra layers of complexity, their impact boosted, not masked, by the alcohol. This was definitely up with the best of Belgium's tripels, in my estimation.

There'll be more pub hopping in this part of town later in the week, but we're going south next, to the neighbourhood we stayed in.