Brutopia

Located in downtown Montreal, this is an informal place. Good variety of beers but they are relatively middle of the road.

The poutine was excellent, very authentic.

Visited with a group of friends on a recent trip to Montreal.

Had the following beers on tap:
Brutopia India Pale Ale
Brutopia Chocolate Stout

While we liked the old fashioned pub atmosphere, the beer quality was well below average (akin to mediocre home brew) and the service left a lot to be desired. Overall, this is a subpar brewery that isn't worth your time, as there are much better options in Montreal. Check out Dieu du Ciel!, Isle de Garde, Hopfenstark Station Ho.st, Benelux, or Le Saint Bock instead.

 

 

Best chicken wings!!

 

Quiet mid afternoon - perhaps not typical time, but happy to have visited this venerable institution and was certainly not disappointed.

Went on a weeknight so it was kind of quiet, but the beers were bland and a bit flat. Waitress was nice enough to bring samples, but all underwhelmed.

 

Decent food, good service, but their beer is really pretty bad. Even their water doesn't taste great (they may make the beer with it...). All of their beers seem to have the same odd aftertaste.

 

Ordered what was branded an "IPA". No idea what the atrocity was in the glass handed to me, though. Considering we found this place through BA, we were convinced we were at the wrong place, but sure enough, this was the place.

Their beers are not great. Benelux has much better beers. They do 10oz pours and pints, but I wish they did samplers.

Great vibe. We went there by chance and liked it so much we came back for a concert the next night.

There was a straight 10 bartender working there.

Random collection of rooms and patios. Poor quality beer but the service was solid and the food was alright. Would not re-visit with so many great places in town

 

Toujours une groupe sur-scène, des bières plusieurs, et des amis partout!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love Brutopia. The beer is outstanding and I would recommend the place to anyone. The only thing that gets me is the lack of innovation. I doubt that has anything to do with the brewer(s). I'll assume their location requires them to pump out the same beers over and over again. That's alright but I wish they were a little more adventurous. Overall the place is great, laid back, and perfect for sipping on a pint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my default pub in the downtown area. The atmosphere is a bit grungy, but the beer is excellent (their own), and the food, for pub food, is surprisingly good. Their IPA is a classic, and is consistent. They add new seasonal beers every once in a while, and the Dreadnought is superb. The food menu is varied, and relatively light (i.e., not everything is deep fried in stale burnt oil, which is typical pub fare).

Came here before the Habs game last night.

Very pub-like atmosphere, similar to an Irish one but with more light :)
Seats are sprawled over three floors. We found a place near the kitchen. We saw the Bistro part downstairs at the end. Seemed less jammed and more laid back.

The selection of beers as alright. The popular styles were represented. My stout was nice, my friend's IPA wasn't very hoppy unfortunately.

The food was good for pub grub but it took a solid 30-45 minutes for the food to arrive. I don't think it's there main focus though.

A good alternative to BMC bars when going to the game. I'll come again but will probably only have the beer.

My vocabulary for reviewing non-American establishments is rather limited, so please take this as a description of personal experience and not of the objective worth of the place.

Basically, it was a good, cute little joint with solid beer and food. Woody interior kinda like what you get when midwestern joints try to look like English pubs--steel tip darts, tall tables, a pleasant creekiness wherever you step.

The beer was nothing extraordinary, but everything I had was a solid (if pedestrian) example of the style. Beers tend towards the European, with dryer/spicier hop profiles and yeasty finishes leaning towards the heavy end.

Food is Montreal pub fare. This is the place where I learned that Canadians don't know how to differentiate between salsa and mariana sauce. The frites were good, as for some weird and inexplicable reason these people know how to fry potatoes better than we Americans do. Bar staff was all quite friendly.

Not a bad place, not earth shattering. The beers were drinkable and much better than any where else in the immediate area. I would go here again. Not a must but a safe choice. Food was good but not great. Service was probably the best part of the expierence. The seem to have quite a bit of live music which is always a plus. So if your in Montreal and looking for a 'scapegoat' place, this is it. A few comments about the beers. They were good for the most part. They had a 'special' brew a 'dark' ipa. Which started good but definitely an unfinished beer. Unfermented sugars were clearly present and I beleive would have made this beer a stunner if fermented completely out.

I use "average" to mean just that - I'm not slamming the place by using this term/rating but rather I'm saying that it about normal for a bar. Normal. Average. Nothing to write home about. And I guess it's that last statement that makes me kind of sad that I went there. Sad because I only had 2 nights in Montreal and I feel like I wasted one of them by going to this bar. As in there are so many good and great places in Montreal that even were I to stay in town for a week and to go to a different place every evening I don't think that I'd hit this place if I did the places in order of how nice they are.

Sigh. This review sucks. I don't mean to come down on the place or to be harsh. Really, I don't! But if I can go to Dieu du Ciel and have their beers why would I want to go to Brutopia for theirs? To try something new and different, to go to a place I can walk to from the hotel, to branch out and be open to new experiences... But for the beer, ambiance, food? Well...

It feels like a local - like it would be happy in my old university district. Plenty of seating upstairs around small tables, on low chairs. It's easy to be there in a small group of friends and to just hang out and have a good time together. Downstairs you have a much smaller space with a couple of TVs and a bar. The downstairs is called a bistro so I assumed it was the only place you could get food (although I never verified this). My SO had a "burger" (it was sausage) and said that it was fantastic. I don't have a clue what I had to eat but it was OK, honest!

But in beers, well, it wasn't all that. We had 3 different thin and watery beers and then the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought was like a light IPA - light in color, flavor, aroma.

Liked:
- friendly, helpful staff
- food was decent
Didn't:
- all beers tried seemed thin and weak...

Edit:
Listen... The Dreadnought was a pretty good beer! It still felt thin and weak but it was clearly an IPA and well and away the best beer we had there. It would make me change my comment, above, perhaps - it's almost worth going to try this beer! And it is a decent place but, hey, if you're only in town for a few days it's not where you want to go...

Brutopia has been around a long time and makes some decent beers but I never go there anymore for several reasons.

First is it's location. Rue Crescent is downtown and is one of the least typical areas in the city. It's near numerous hotels and tourists and business people staying nearby swarm into the cheesy bars and fake Irish pubs that line the street. Rue Crescent provides no sense of the unique character of Montreal that makes it one of the best cities in North America. It's a long way, in both distance and ambiance, from the Plateau, Mile End, or even the Latin Quarter - areas that are among the best in the city. Many visitors leave the city thinking the Rue Crescent scene is what Montreal is about, which is sad.

There's nothing really wrong with Brutopia, but the pub itself makes me feel like I'm in a bar in Toronto. Staff and customers all are English speakers and the look of the place is somewhat shabby and uninteresting compared to the other great brewpubs - Benelux, L' Amere a Boire, Le Cheval Blanc, Dieu du Ciel, and Reservoir. I don't go to Montreal to have a Toronto experience.

Brutopia is easily the best option for beer in the downtown area and it's worth stopping in if you're nearby, but I'd never make it a destination for even part of an evening, especially if you only have a few days in Montreal. The other good brewpubs and the great beer bar, Vices et Versa are more enjoyable and in much more interesting locations.

11/10/11 - The reviewer below and some other Americans seem to think a basic knowledge of French is needed in Montreal. This is a misconception. Virtually everyone in Montreal that works with the public is bilingual and quite happy to speak English as needed. They don't expect Americans to know French, but the use of some polite phrases/words is always appreciated.

Based on recommendations on BA, I decided to make this the first stop on my Montreal pub crawl and almost didn't want to leave. Went early in the afternoon and sat at the bar. Had the IPA which was very good and then the bartender gave me some samples. They had a special beer with ginger that was really good.

Service was friendly, as were the other patrons, both locals and visitors. They all took a look at the places I had marked down to visit and gave me some additional recommendations. It was getting crowded as I left and a band was setting up so I know it will get really loud if someone's playing, but I liked this place a lot..the vibe, beer and service. Would definitely go back. Plus, didn't have to use my very fractured French here, which was a plus.

Small place, more like a small bar, we were confused if we should seat ourselves or not. Waitress was super helpful but we asked difficult questions as we were in the mood of Chicken Wings and they didn't have was we Americans (one from Buffalo) considered Wings. They have us a sample of a Maple beer - not a fan but I like seeing the willing to take a risk and brew outside the box.

We saw the beer menu and ordered from it, we didn't realize they had a chalk board menu of about 5 extra beers.

I would go back, just not for wings!

One of the things I enjoy most about trips is going to local hangouts and talking with the locals. Being an anglophone only, this was one of many places that shot down myths that Montreal was a stuck up city. I thought the service was very good, and while it wasn't a wild atmosphere, I was an enjoyable and relaxing night in what I will now know as the dignified yet accomodating city of Montreal. Thought their IPA was good, as was told so by a frequent local. Debated around politics and history as well, a nice vacation from the typical sports bar. I had one particular ale that to me tasted like freshed baked bread in the morning. Do remember the style or the name, but probably with good reason. There were three levels to this place, ground level, the basement and upstairs. The upstairs was more lively, as they had a band playing there. Went back again and would probably do so if there weren't so many other breweries I missed in the shining city in the north called Montreal.