The Montreal Thread

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Frank said:
In town for a night or two if anyone is around. Flying solo and don't have much on the docket.

kzeon seen any fun bottles around lately?
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It's the slow moment of the year.

There was the DDC release early FEB, but no bottles released in stores. Not too hard to find in trades though. I doubt there's still the 4 pack from Péché Day in stores, however. If you can find some Malstrom, its quite delicious stuff!

There was Aronia re-released from Auval recently. If you didn't had the Trois Mousquetaire IPA (baby blue label), it's quite good and cheap, fresh.

Can arrange something if you ISO some stuff, can meet you up and bring you bottles. Hit me up.
 
Going to montreal in november for my brother's bachelor party. We have a good chunk of the trip figured out and now just filling in the pieces.Any recommendations for cigars/whiskey bar? My brother was at one point an obsessive cuban cigar collector but stopped buying when he felt he had enough for his entire life. Any recomendations on where to drink/buy lambic or Québecois sour beer in montreal would be awesome too! Thanks!
 
scramin85 said:
Going to montreal in november for my brother's bachelor party. We have a good chunk of the trip figured out and now just filling in the pieces.Any recommendations for cigars/whiskey bar? My brother was at one point an obsessive cuban cigar collector but stopped buying when he felt he had enough for his entire life. Any recomendations on where to drink/buy lambic or Québecois sour beer in montreal would be awesome too! Thanks!
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hey scramin85! I will inquiry for cigars, not too sure for that.

For whiskey/scotch, your best bet is L'Ile Noire (http://www.ilenoire.com/) and Burgundy Lion (www.burgundylion.com). I know that the Burgundy Lion has some stellar gems from a private reserve that was purchased in 2010 or something like that. Not sure what is left though.

Never been there, but apparently Le Chien Fumant (http://lechienfumant.com/en/) is not bad. Same for the Whiskey Café (http://www.whiskycafe.com/).

For lambic, it's trickier. The stupid laws here makes it super tricky (see my initial post) to get imported stuff, so not many bars have lambic. When they do, it disappear super quickly, so you won't find big lambic bottles around, unfortunately.

The market here is big, there's a lot of breweries, but the good stuff vanishes from the shelves very quickly. Solid stuff rarely sits on the shelf for long, so often it's all about timing. So it'll all be about timing for what you can pick up on the shelves.
 
Drink at DDC and Pit Caribou. Enough said.

Don't worry about lambic. When you aren't looking for it are the times when it seems to fall into your lap. At least thats been my experience when visiting MTL. ;)
 
kzeon said:
hey scramin85! I will inquiry for cigars, not too sure for that.

For whiskey/scotch, your best bet is L'Ile Noire (http://www.ilenoire.com/) and Burgundy Lion (www.burgundylion.com). I know that the Burgundy Lion has some stellar gems from a private reserve that was purchased in 2010 or something like that. Not sure what is left though.

Never been there, but apparently Le Chien Fumant (http://lechienfumant.com/en/) is not bad. Same for the Whiskey Café (http://www.whiskycafe.com/).

For lambic, it's trickier. The stupid laws here makes it super tricky (see my initial post) to get imported stuff, so not many bars have lambic. When they do, it disappear super quickly, so you won't find big lambic bottles around, unfortunately.

The market here is big, there's a lot of breweries, but the good stuff vanishes from the shelves very quickly. Solid stuff rarely sits on the shelf for long, so often it's all about timing. So it'll all be about timing for what you can pick up on the shelves.
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FEUO said:
Drink at DDC and Pit Caribou. Enough said.

Don't worry about lambic. When you aren't looking for it are the times when it seems to fall into your lap. At least thats been my experience when visiting MTL. ;)
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Thanks guys!!
 
Montreal (and Quebec in general) has so much good beer I don't even care about lambic when I'm there.

Are Auval bottles more readily available now? That's the one brewery I didn't get to try that I was hoping to last summer.
 
kzeon said:
hey scramin85! I will inquiry for cigars, not too sure for that.

For whiskey/scotch, your best bet is L'Ile Noire (http://www.ilenoire.com/) and Burgundy Lion (www.burgundylion.com). I know that the Burgundy Lion has some stellar gems from a private reserve that was purchased in 2010 or something like that. Not sure what is left though.

Never been there, but apparently Le Chien Fumant (http://lechienfumant.com/en/) is not bad. Same for the Whiskey Café (http://www.whiskycafe.com/).

For lambic, it's trickier. The stupid laws here makes it super tricky (see my initial post) to get imported stuff, so not many bars have lambic. When they do, it disappear super quickly, so you won't find big lambic bottles around, unfortunately.

The market here is big, there's a lot of breweries, but the good stuff vanishes from the shelves very quickly. Solid stuff rarely sits on the shelf for long, so often it's all about timing. So it'll all be about timing for what you can pick up on the shelves.
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Burgundy lion still has some gems pouring, and generally fair prices.

Lambic is always hit or miss but if you do hit it'll most likely be be Classic at a bar. Again I've always seen fair prices for bottles at my haunts.

I'm way overdue for a visit.....
 
FoudreGuy said:
Montreal (and Quebec in general) has so much good beer I don't even care about lambic when I'm there.

Are Auval bottles more readily available now? That's the one brewery I didn't get to try that I was hoping to last summer.
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i've been trying to tick Auval stuff in my visits up to Quebec but i'm normally up there about an hour out from montreal and have never seen them... Been meaning to hit this specialty shop i've found online thats in sherbrooke not too far from where i go but something tells me that if and when they come in they are gone or reserved for regulars.

hadn't heard of Auval being more readily available... think they have a facebook account they may update when they do bottle drops https://www.facebook.com/auval.ca/
 
Frank said:
Burgundy lion still has some gems pouring, and generally fair prices.

Lambic is always hit or miss but if you do hit it'll most likely be be Classic at a bar. Again I've always seen fair prices for bottles at my haunts.

I'm way overdue for a visit.....
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Yes you are
 
FoudreGuy said:
Montreal (and Quebec in general) has so much good beer I don't even care about lambic when I'm there.

Are Auval bottles more readily available now? That's the one brewery I didn't get to try that I was hoping to last summer.
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No, unfortunately. It's actually worse. The Auval fever that was once limited to the hardcore geeks has widespread like crazy. Just to put people in context, Auval is in Gaspésie, a region in Québec near New Brunswick and 900km away from Montréal haha. A lot of people are travelling there now for holidays. They've been looted badly over the past year, and were forced to close the shop for some period of time. They're quite small, but do good stuff for sure. But they got national newspaper coverage, so the hype went up. Besides like their basic saison and IPA, nothing made it to Montreal in the last year, more or less. The owner is quite hipster and want to promote his local area so the distro doesn't make it up to 500km away from Montreal. One interesting (and sad) side effect is that people in big cities like Montreal and Quebec are now very hostile towards Auval since they purposely don't really distribute in those cities anymore. It's still manageable to find some by trade, and I can easily help out on that regard, but it's just not hitting the shelves anywhere. Hit me up if needed.
Frank said:
Burgundy lion still has some gems pouring, and generally fair prices.

Lambic is always hit or miss but if you do hit it'll most likely be be Classic at a bar. Again I've always seen fair prices for bottles at my haunts.

I'm way overdue for a visit.....
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yeah, we should go for a beer with oldp0rt next time you're in town!

scramin85 said:
kzeon oldp0rt

Does À la Fût beer ever make it to montreal?
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yes, they get good distro. They are quite pricey though (at least the USD is still better than the CAD) but there's a few bottle shop in town that have more selections than others.
 
scramin85 said:
Going to montreal in november for my brother's bachelor party. We have a good chunk of the trip figured out and now just filling in the pieces.Any recommendations for cigars/whiskey bar? My brother was at one point an obsessive cuban cigar collector but stopped buying when he felt he had enough for his entire life. Any recomendations on where to drink/buy lambic or Québecois sour beer in montreal would be awesome too! Thanks!
Click to expand...
Gonna chime in here real quick, for cigars I think http://lacasadelhabanomontreal.com/loungebar/ and http://www.stogiescigars.com/index_en.html is where you'll find what you are looking for. The first one is where I used to go when I was really in to cigars but it was under a different banner "Davidoff" and have no idea what it is like now. They are both downtown and right in the action.

Everyone always says "Go to DDC"... **** that, I mean sure you'll have a couple decent beers but skip it and hit Pub Pit Caribou and Vices & Versa. Those two places (google or facebook has all the info) will have much better beer. If you are to find Auval it will likely be at Pit Caribou (still a big if), the brewer used to be an owner/founder of Pit Caribou. Vices & Versa is likely to have lambic but they also have like 40 lines and will usually have some really good bottles, both local and American (Jester King, Libertine, etc...). Food is good at Vices & Versa as well. Both places will have good Quebecois sours and Saisons

St-Bock has shitty beer but they do have an extensive bottle list and very likely to have Tilquin (had some couple weeks ago) and other lambic... Beersel and stuff like that, nothing crazy but they might still have some Iris or Bruoc

As mentioned above Auval doesn't distro to Montreal... In the summer, because the area they are from usually attracts a lot of tourists in the summer and he wants to help promote local businesses. If you are here in November it's not entirely impossible that a select few spots in Mtl get some distro. If that happens you need to be at the specific shop within an hour or two of the drop. To me it's not worth the hassle but to each their own.

Finally if this is for a bachelor party I guess TnA will likely be involved. Montreal has some of the best strip clubs but it's so long since I've been I am not sure what's hot anymore but Club Pare has always had a good reputation.

Have a nice trip :)
 
My girlfriend and I are planning a weekend up in Montreal in November - we're pretty excited! Read some great recommendations on food and beer spots on the OP, but does anyone have any recommendations on areas/neighborhoods to book a AirBnB? We will probably stick to walking/ubering most places, but will have a car still.

I am also planning on hitting HF before Montreal, but the alcohol limits on beer seem to be 24 cans? So for 2 people could I count on being able to bring in 48 * 12oz worth of beer in/out of Canada? I wanted to fly home with it instead of shipping it out.
 
yeah you should be good on bringing into Canada 24/12oz cans if they are 16oz then you may run into issues if they stopped and searched and found.. best bet is to tell them precisely you have.. also, don't have any wine/hard booze if you plan to have beer as it's kind of a have this can't have that too thing

heading back to the states i don't think there are any issues, never had any going home, just into Canada/Quebec i once ran into some issues
 
thrashD said:
My girlfriend and I are planning a weekend up in Montreal in November - we're pretty excited! Read some great recommendations on food and beer spots on the OP, but does anyone have any recommendations on areas/neighborhoods to book a AirBnB? We will probably stick to walking/ubering most places, but will have a car still.
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My wife and I stayed in Plateau/Mile End for our 10 year anniversary last summer and loved it. Super close to DDC which was often our evening nightcap with cards. Take advantage of Bixi bikes if the weather is decent. We walked and biked everywhere, absolutely fantastic city. I find it interesting that Montreal and Seattle have more in common than Seattle and Vancouver.
 
thrashD said:
My girlfriend and I are planning a weekend up in Montreal in November - we're pretty excited! Read some great recommendations on food and beer spots on the OP, but does anyone have any recommendations on areas/neighborhoods to book a AirBnB? We will probably stick to walking/ubering most places, but will have a car still.

I am also planning on hitting HF before Montreal, but the alcohol limits on beer seem to be 24 cans? So for 2 people could I count on being able to bring in 48 * 12oz worth of beer in/out of Canada? I wanted to fly home with it instead of shipping it out.
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Plateau is definitely convenient, but pricier than other places. Rosemont/Petite-Patrie and Mile-End offers a lot of Airbnb as well, usually for cheaper, quieter. All of those options are also close to the orange line for the subway, so it's quite convenient. Anything between St-Laurent street and Papineau (though Papineau starts to be a bit far) is easy to walk to a subway station near St-Denis Street. The closer to St-Denis, the easier. Most of the best bars are in this area anyway.

Regarding the limits, it really depends on the custom agent. Honestly, usually, they're very smooth and don't give a **** much, especially if you say you're bringing this back home. Be honest if they ask questions, emphasis it's for personal consumption and not commercial purposes (of course). Down the line, you're a tourist. Saying your bringing some for friends in town is also usually quite well accepted. It's as usual, a semi-random process but I've heard worst some for Canadians going to the US with booze than the other way round. But TBH, 12 bombers or 24 cans, it's all safe and there's no worries to have. But yeah, the laws for Canadians is 8.5 liters per person (so 24 cans) OR 2 bottles of wine OR 1.14 liters of hard liquor. I emphasis on the OR, not AND. Sticking to those 8.5-9 liters and you'll have no issues at all.

Don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions. Even DM for specific stuff, not an issue. Cheers!
 
I can find the AirBNB listing for our place in Montreal if you'd like. We really enjoyed our time there. There was even this little dive bar around the corner called Bar La Remise, where my wife would do shots of Jack while I had a Lablatt 50 with CFL on the TVs and Quebecois karaoke blaring.

We had dinner at Liverpool House, L'Express and Au Pied de Cochon. They were all great but APDC was super excess. Brunch at Lawrence one day.

Too bad you're not going to Quebec City, my favorite restaurant on the trip was there, L'Affaire Est Ketchup. Amazing food and a very solid selection of beers.
 
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This thread is a gold mine. I'll be in Montreal on Monday and have quite the list. We are dark beer fans so if there is anything dark that is really outstanding that we should check out right now, let me know. Looking forward to trying a bunch of different things as well.
 
BathtubJenn said:
This thread is a gold mine. I'll be in Montreal on Monday and have quite the list. We are dark beer fans so if there is anything dark that is really outstanding that we should check out right now, let me know. Looking forward to trying a bunch of different things as well.
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There is a great stout from MaBrasserie, you should check it out... Manitou ZAB Cafe
 
Well you lot have a lovely city. Just got home from 4 days visiting and now Im trying to figure out how to swing a summer trip up north. I also now regret studying latin and spanish in school and not focusing on french more.
 
This thread has a lot of great information, thanks everyone. Found out a few months ago that my Dad was born in Montreal and not Winnipeg as I always assumed (he's not the sharing type :rolleyes:), so I figured it would be a fun road trip over the kids' spring break. We are staying in Vermont for a few days and then heading up to Montreal. We are staying in Old Town and if anyone has food recommendations that are relatively kid friendly (8 and 6), that would be great. We take them to nice places frequently and they are pretty good eaters, but I don't want to take them anywhere definitely not kid friendly. I have a reservation at Holder right now, but can cancel it if there are better options.
 
Dogleg said:
This thread has a lot of great information, thanks everyone. Found out a few months ago that my Dad was born in Montreal and not Winnipeg as I always assumed (he's not the sharing type :rolleyes:), so I figured it would be a fun road trip over the kids' spring break. We are staying in Vermont for a few days and then heading up to Montreal. We are staying in Old Town and if anyone has food recommendations that are relatively kid friendly (8 and 6), that would be great. We take them to nice places frequently and they are pretty good eaters, but I don't want to take them anywhere definitely not kid friendly. I have a reservation at Holder right now, but can cancel it if there are better options.
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I should update the thread a bit with more stuff :)

Just a couple of more ideas to the original thread.

  • Bevo has good pizza, its a fine place, nothing complicated.
  • The Keg is fancier, more expensive, but it's a good steakhouse.
  • Rodízio Brasil is a brazilian BBQ place, if you want to eat a shitload of meat
  • L'Usine du Spaghetti is pretty chill and easy with kids
  • Rosewood for brunches is a nice place (Sunday only I think)
  • Jardin Nelson has nice salads
  • Le Garde Manger is very nice too!
  • I love Stash Café for the price, simplicity and homie food. Really nothing fancy, but just a fun go to place.

In the old port, there's a lot of expensive options / fancier restaurants, too, depending on what you are looking for.

You can also walk to the Asian area for dim sum or other stuff.

3 Brasseurs is not really a top choice beer place, tho ;)

There's a lot of options out there, don't hesitate if you need more informations!
 
Well this thread is amazing. Thanks everyone who's put stuff in here. My gf and I are headed to Montreal for a very very short weekend around her birthday in June. Insanely, it's grand prix weekend, so I guess we'll check that out because it seems like the thing that's on everyone's mind. But most of the time we'll be eating and drinking. (Have reservations already at a couple places for nicer dinners.) The suggestions in this thread are super helpful and I've added a ton of stuff to my map. Thanks!
 
nathanmiller said:
Well this thread is amazing. Thanks everyone who's put stuff in here. My gf and I are headed to Montreal for a very very short weekend around her birthday in June. Insanely, it's grand prix weekend, so I guess we'll check that out because it seems like the thing that's on everyone's mind. But most of the time we'll be eating and drinking. (Have reservations already at a couple places for nicer dinners.) The suggestions in this thread are super helpful and I've added a ton of stuff to my map. Thanks!
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Yup, that is one busy weekend. I'd definitely start booking now.
 
nathanmiller said:
Well this thread is amazing. Thanks everyone who's put stuff in here. My gf and I are headed to Montreal for a very very short weekend around her birthday in June. Insanely, it's grand prix weekend, so I guess we'll check that out because it seems like the thing that's on everyone's mind. But most of the time we'll be eating and drinking. (Have reservations already at a couple places for nicer dinners.) The suggestions in this thread are super helpful and I've added a ton of stuff to my map. Thanks!
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yeah its a very busy weekend and you definitely did the right thing by booking for fancier places right away because it'll be hard in a couple of weeks. I would still call them back 2-3 weeks prior just to validate that everything is still fine (not something trendy, but already had issues with disappearing reservations :( )

It's a crazy weekend but it's entertaining. Ste-Catherine and Crescent streets are like a jungle but if you're car maniac, it's worth it.

That being said, I will try to take some time to update my initial post as there's many places I could add and the beer landscape has changed a bit!
 
Reviewed this thread and it's absolutely amazing! Thanks for all the info. A quick question or two to add as my wife, the in-laws, and our soon to be born son (late May) will be traveling to Montreal from December 26th-29th. We were looking at booking the Loews (they are dog friendly and we have two small pups), and was wondering what specific Food recommendations and breweries would be best to prioritize during our stay? Basically more laid back atmosphere and not overly crazy or loud. Thanks for any additional information and can't wait to visit (though I know it's still many months away :) )!
 
As has been said before this thread is a tremendous help.

omgrr, friend, and I will be in Montreal June 2nd leaving June 5th. Are there any events or new places that we should know about? We grabbed an airbnb in plateau near the orange line and will have a car, so hopefully we wont have trouble getting around to places.
 
Farnsworth said:
As has been said before this thread is a tremendous help.

omgrr, friend, and I will be in Montreal June 2nd leaving June 5th. Are there any events or new places that we should know about? We grabbed an airbnb in plateau near the orange line and will have a car, so hopefully we wont have trouble getting around to places.
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I wanted to update the original post and clean this up a bit.
  • Darling (hip & trendy place to grab a bite and have a drink)
  • Dispatch (solid coffee)
  • Brewskey Pub (great spot in the old port)
  • Ramen Ya (no explanations needed)
  • Café Névé (another great coffee shop)
  • Pikolo (another great coffee shop, especially if you're Place des Arts or downtown)
  • Réservoir (good small pub, good beer)
  • Lawrence (great good)
  • La Chillenta (cheap, cozy and also, burritos)
  • Boswell (fun beers & food)
  • Portugalia (great portugese place)
  • Kazamaza (great middle east cuisine)
  • Sumi Dojo (fun ramen joint)
  • Amelias (solid pizza. Try their white pizza with cheese, omg)
  • Khyber pass (great tasty afghan cuisine. BYOB)
I can definitely go forward and recommend more stuff, if you are looking for something specific (food-wise for example), don't hesitate to drop a line or reach out!
 
okay... so we'll be up next weekend for a short stay... basically have Friday to available and maybe couple hours here or there on Saturday

we have dinner res for Joe Beef.

I was thinking Vices et Versa for lunch? (open to other suggestions)

what is the best whiskey/cocktail bar for Friday night? or should we do wine maybe at Le Vin Papillon? (is this even feasible as a walk in for a Friday night?)

do you need res for Liverpool House?

best bagel in Montreal for Saturday morning?

possible small lunch Saturday?

any pastry (donut or otherwise) that are a must?
 
Os said:
okay... so we'll be up next weekend for a short stay... basically have Friday to available and maybe couple hours here or there on Saturday

I was thinking Vices et Versa for lunch? (open to other suggestions)
Click to expand...

Didn't see anyone eating when we had drinks there, but that doesn't mean anything. I cannot remember anywhere we had lunch in Montreal. We had a cheese plate at Isle de Garde, but mostly we did quick grab and go stuff for lunch.

do you need res for Liverpool House?
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It's no different than Joe Beef, reservations are a really good idea but you could try and get lucky by just stopping in.

what is the best whiskey/cocktail bar for Friday night? or should we do wine maybe at Le Vin Papillon? (is this even feasible as a walk in for a Friday night?)
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Big in Japan Bar was really cool.

best bagel in Montreal for Saturday morning?
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I liked St-Viateur better than Fairmont but they were both really good. There's Kem Koba soft serve ice cream on the same block as Fairmont, too.

any pastry (donut or otherwise) that are a must?
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We grabbed some of the namesake pastry at Au Kougin-Amann.

Also, if you go to brunch at Lawrence, there's a bottle shop down the street. Pretty good selection.
 

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