Et bonjour!

I spent the first two weeks of September this year travelling through Quebec and Ontario, overnighting in Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto, and getting a bit of a sense of the beer situation there, in both the on and off trade. The next two weeks on this blog will be concerned with those surface scratchings.

Bar number one of the trip (excluding Dublin airport) was Station Ho.st, a slightly rustic-feeling pub to the north of Montréal city centre. This is the urban outlet of the Hopfenstark brewery and we stuck to their offerings.

Station 55 is where I started, the house saison. This arrived clean and clear looking, 6.5% ABV and a bright golden shade. There's a remarkable amount of citrus in it: a sharp Jif Lemon bitterness, and this is followed by a dry and waxy tartness, almost like one would find in a lambic. It's all very bold and invigorating, with only a small yeast bite at the end spoiling the party somewhat. Definitely an interesting sideways take on this very flexible style.

Next to it is Ostalgia Rousse, broadly an Altbier though perhaps a little pale for that. 5% ABV checks out, as does the biscuit and celery aroma. The flavour adds some chocolate into this mix but also retains and builds upon the hop bitterness. Like a true Alt it's balanced and full-flavoured though lacks their easy-going smoothness, pitching for that vegetal noble hop punch instead. It's fine though.

Herself followed that with its sibling Ostalgia Blonde, a Kölsch, of course. A tougher style to do well and they've definitely fluffed it here. It's very sweet, all candy and perfume right from the aroma. At the base of the flavour there's the husky dry grain of many a wonky Kölsch, and then that weird perfume thing sits atop it. They got the look and the texture right: it's clear and golden, soft and crisp; but everything else is wide of the mark.

It was sheer morbid curiosity that tempted me to try their cask bitter, Hooligan. This took an age to pour as it foamed furiously from the handpump, presumably via a totally unnecessary sparkler. I got the first of many, many short pours in Canada: foam is charged at the full liquid rate. Beneath that, it's a muddy brown-amber colour and rather warm. There's a high level of astringency, coupled with a wax bitterness similar to that found in the saison. I'd place this inside the bounds of the style but it's not a great example. Still, at least it wasn't infected or gone off, and represented an improvement on my last experience of North American cask.

Returning to Hopfenstark's Germanic efforts, the next one is a gose, called Pop Gose the World. This had a couple of good points, the main one being a gunpowder spicing as part of its tartness, and also a strong savoury herbal component which I'm guessing means a generous helping of coriander, something too-often left out of modern gose. Unfortunately, more prominent than any of these, was a stale and sweaty flavour likely produced by the salt in conjunction with raw-tasting grains. This hits the palate on the first sip and also forms the finish, undoing the good work of the subtler middle flavours.

The inevitable IPA is called Postcolonial. I wasn't keen on the appearance: a dark amber colour, and the toffee aroma with bathroom-cabinet overtones seemed to confirm that this wasn't going to be a bright and breezy hop experience. The flavour headed off in a different direction, however, and rather an enjoyable one. I got a fruity mix of ripe cherry and raspberry set on a base of spicy cedar and refreshing black tea. It's more like a bitter or, with 6.5% ABV, an English strong ale, and very decent. Possibly a touch soporific too as the energy reserves drained away at this point and we decided to turn in.

Luckily I had the foresight to stash a few cans from the local supermarket in the apartment fridge. It wasn't a great selection, the most promising part being a range of St-Ambroise beers by regional brewer McAuslan, covering a variety of styles. I got one of each and worked through them over the following days.

The first one I opened was St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout. It's 5% ABV and poured a dense, dark black from the can, topped with a rich yellow foam. It smells sweet, of chocolate breakfast cereal and Nutella. The flavour mixes that Nutella vibe with a harsher, clangy metallic bitterness plus a touch of smoke for good measure. This throws all the stout flavours at the wall, resulting in an uncoordinated jangling assemblage, but it sort of works. None of the elements dominate, lending it all the excitement of a new-worlder (Cascade is in the hop mix), with the poise of an old fashioned full-on stout. Nicely done.

I wasn't expecting much of the next one: St-Ambroise Rousse, a red ale also at 5% ABV. It's fine, though, if not very exciting. A pale amber colour, it smells of toffee with a lick of boiled green veg. There's a metallic mineral foretaste and a slightly acrid bitter finish, the middle filled with that saccharine-sweet caramelised sugar. It's light enough to not get cloying, and I enjoyed the complexity. It certainly manages to hold the attention better than most red ales.

We bring the hops out to play with St-Ambroise Session IPA. The ABV drops down to 4.5% and it's a pale white-gold colour. It has a spicy and floral bitterness, showing jasmine up front, coupled with a bite of chalky lime. A seam of juicy fruit runs through this: cantaloupe and nectarine. All of it works quite well together. It's not as spritzy as these often are, offering an uncompromising bitter smack, but it's lively, invigorating and a treat for the senses.

St-Ambroise IPA looks every inch the North American IPA, being 6.2% ABV and a deep shade of orange. There's a classically Cascadian dry lemon-and-lime aroma, while the flavour is dry to the point of astringency. It begins on a powerfully grassy or leafy tang, followed by a rich oily resinous quality, both of which suggest a long and generous dry-hopping process. There's just about enough malt to balance it, and strangely that's what forms the finish: dark sticky toffee. While this big-hop, big-malt double act can be a little jarring at times, it's a full flavoured and assertive beer offering no half measures. Relax and let it do its thing.

Last of the set, as though it weren't already obvious, is St-Ambroise Double IPA. It's another clear orange job, and there's a lot of sticky alcohol heat. The hopping may have been raised a little but is still on the same bitter grassy lines as the IPA; the malt, however, has been boosted far beyond what's necessary, giving us warm toffee and mushy banana. At 8% ABV it's not even that strong. The clean bitterness of the previous beer has been stripped away and the resulting booze bomb is tough drinking: a double IPA brewed by someone who doesn't like the style and wants to punìsh those who do.

These are solid beers in traditional styles, for the most part, and only lose their way when they try and pull fancy tricks. There's more from McAuslan to come in a later post, but it's back to the pubs of Montréal next.