The five-day beer festival, which kicked off on Wednesday and runs through Sunday, June 15, is Canada’s largest beer fest, drawing more than 100,000 visitors and 100 breweries.
The selection is immense: this year’s festival includes brewers from Quebec and across Canada (British Columbia’s Central City Brewing and Granville Island Brewing, and Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co., just across the border in Ontario); an American contingent (including Dogfish Head, Stone Brewing Co., and Rogue); and a smattering from overseas (New Zealand’s 8 Wired Brewing Co. and Norway’s Nøgne Ø), as well as two special pavilions highlighting emerging Italian and Brazilian breweries.
Held downtown in the Palais des congrès, the fest spans a convention center floor with a separate pavilion area outside. The format differs from most American beer festivals; admission is free, but you pay for tasting coupons ($1 each) with each 3- to 4-ounce pour costing two to six coupons. While it means you may not be able to try quite as many beers, I found that it provokes a more thoughtful and relaxed tasting session.
Food and cooking with beer have a bigger presence here than standard sausages and pretzels (although there are those, too). They have demonstrations and pairings, cuisine à la bière workshops with guest chefs, beer and cheese/fudge pairings with Philippe Wouters of Bières et Plaisirs, and more than fifteen food kiosks from kangaroo sausages to gourmet grilled cheese.
Where Mondial de la Bière struggles is with its size and length. Five days is a long stretch for a beer festival, and many of the rare and sought-after beers are reportedly drained by the weekend. The large, multinational breweries, of which there are many, feel out of place and outdated next to the small brewpubs and microbreweries, and the empty booths at Rickard’s and Molson Tangerine Twist compared to the crowds around Beau’s and Le Trou du Diable reflect that.
Yet the festival displays a changing global beer scene, one in which you can try a range of Brazilian-made American-style IPAs, such as the Cacau IPA, a collaboration between Stone and Cervejaria Bodebrown or an Imperial IPA from Cerveja Invicta. It’s also a celebration of the vibrant Quebec beer culture, as the selection from the more than forty breweries within the province are a highlight.
Here are just a few favorites:
- Le Cheval Blanc Coco Bonheur -- A super creamy IPA fermented with the juice of 100 pineapples and infused with 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of grated coconut from the Montreal brewpub. Downright decadent.
- Beau’s St. Luke’s Verse -- Beau’s is an advocate of gruits, beers brewed with herbs rather than hops, and this lovely, aromatic, but not overly intense, lavender gruit could convert any skeptic.
- Glutenberg Saison Froide -- The evolution of gluten-free beers continues to impress with Saison Froide, part of a culinary collaboration series, Série Gastronomie, with François Chartier. The result is an intriguing saison brewed with agave syrup, fresh basil, and Sansho peppers and designed to pair with food.
- Others not to miss include La Divine Comédie, a new collaboration witbier between Le Trou du Diable and Dieu du Ciel!, Saison du Pinnacle from Brasserie Dunham, and the Gose from Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Photos: Olivier Bourget, courtesy of Mondial de la Bière