I recently attended the 14th annual Mondial de la Biere (The World of Beer) in Montreal, Quebec. The 5-day festival features 375 beers, ciders, wines and plenty of Quebecois specialty food designed to harmonize with the beer. In fact, this festival goes much further than any other to promote pairing of beer and food. This is a true tasting event and not a drink-and-drown spectacle.

With the festival’s worldly name, you would expect to see a wide range of beer from all over the world. This. unfortunately, was not the case. There were very few offerings from Germany, the Czech Republic and the UK (though the last omission could have franc-ly been intentional). Canadian, Belgian and US brewers were well represented. The province of Quebec is becoming notable for artisinal breweries, along with outstanding cheeses and fantastic charcuterie. The French Canadians are proud to bring their unique “frontier” perspective to rustic French Cuisine. There was foie gras a plenty to be tasted along with excellent game sausages and “stinky” cheese. Beer easily trounces wine when paired with most cheese and especially stronger artisanal cheese. The range of flavors and strength offered by many craft beers easily stand up to the strong flavors from game sausages and other rustic charcuterie. It’s a darn shame these beers are not available to West Virginians.

The festival venue is inside an old train station called Windsor Station, right in Centre-Ville. The festival space utilizes a large courtyard area as well as large indoor area. There is a presentation stage where several seminars are given on the subject of beer and food. Many of the conference events can only be attended by paying guests and VIPs. Entry to the festival itself is free of charge, but beer tasting requires the purchase of coupons and an optional festival glass. Obvious festival favorites include the range of beer from Montreal’s own Unibroue. Featuring Blanch de Chambly and La Fin Du Monde, both Belgian inspired beers. Beer Geeks in Montreal tend to migrate towards the booth of Dieu du Ciel, a local specialty brewpub that makes heavenly ales.

A popular area of the festival was “le Petit Pub”, a larger tent area featuring several American craft beers and a few Canadian beers to boot. It was good to see that our wonderful beer is being accepted and even relished by our sometimes finicky French-Canadian friends. A small relatively unknown brewery from Michigan called Kuhnhenn received rave reviews for most of the four huge beers that they offered up. Their raspberry eisbock beer was just out of this world good, and at 13.8% ABV, it called for slow contemplation. I also noticed many smiles from first time tasters of Tomme Arthur’s “Lost Abbey” products and also Rob Tod’s fantastic Belgian style beers of Allagash from Maine.

I sat in on a chocolate and beer pairing hosted by sommelier and magazine publisher Stephane Morin. He managed to pull of a beautiful pairing of a dark chocolate truffle with Stoudt’s Scarlet Lady ESB from Pennsylvania. Ed and Carol Stoudt were on hand to taste for themselves.

Montreal and the province of Quebec are worth a visit. The people of Quebec are friendly, open to visitors and like to have a good time. The stories you hear of locals refusing to speak to you in English are patently false. I visit the city regularly for business and I would rather speak English then butcher the little bit of French I know; I think the locals appreciate that as well. You will find that English is understood and spoken in most urban areas and especially by younger people.

Mondial De La Biere is always held around the first weekend in June. If you think Montreal is a bit far, try driving to Europe. There is no other place in North America with such a European feel as the Province of Quebec, except maybe for my in-laws house when the wife’s cousins are in from Italy…

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