I'm staying in Northern Vermont in a couple weeks and want to do a day trip in Montreal. We have a two hour drive each way, and I know you can't do much in a day, but I think it is worth it. Basically, my plan is to park our car at the Longueil-Universite de Sherbrooke metro station and then take the metro into the city. It'll be on a Sunday. Any recommendations (beer or non-beer related)?? The only thing I know for sure I want to do is visit DDC. Other than that, I'm pretty open to suggestions. Any must see landmarks that would be easy for me to fit in? Cheers!!
Once you're at DDC there is quite a bit of stuff to do right around there. There are lots of restaurants, some beer stores, bagels, etc. Also, you are a quick walk from the mountain. During the summer on Sundays there is a big festival with hippies and LARPers and random people of all sorts there that is pretty cool to relax on a warm afternoon. I don't know if it is still going on, but it has finally started to get nicer again, so either way a trip up there might be a fun way to enjoy what warm weather there is left. Hell, if you're motivated, you could hit DDC, buy some picnic food and beer on your walk to the mountain, hike up it, and have some food and good beer while admiring the view. Could be particularly nice if the leaves are starting to change more by then. Have fun!
DDC is probably the best brewpub in the city, but if you have the time and want to try a second one I'd recommend Benelux on Sherbrooke street downtown. Also, it's pretty out of the way, but Peluso on Rachel has probably the best selection of Quebec beers in the city. If you're an IPA fan, try to grab some bombers of Pit Caribou's American IPA or Le Castor's Yakima to take home with you, those are some of the best.
Anyone know of a place in MTL to buy import beer? Been looking for some US stouts, more accurately a Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout, for a while now but my searches have left me empty handed.
The only US imports you'll find in Quebec is at the SAQ and it ain't much. Stock up at the Winooski Beverage Warehouse.
You can't buy any American beer anywhere in Quebec. Alcohol importation is all regulated by the SAQ, so outside of a few hugely-distributed beers (Guinness & co, Hoegaarden/Leffe, Sapporo) that you can find in depanneurs, the only imported beers to be found are sold at the SAQ. And because Quebec has historically been more interested in Belgian beers than IPAs, most of the good stuff you can get there is Belgian. Or English, we actually have a decent selection of bitters available to us, for which I am thankful. So if you want to buy American beer, you basically have two options. Go to Vermont, like Electros says - if you stay 48 hours, you can bring back 8.5 L of beer without paying duty on it. Also, in my experience, you can usually grab about a sixer per person on a day trip and they won't bother making you pay anything at the border. The second option is to import through the SAQ, but this is very costly and complicated you need to buy a lot of a single product for it to happen. So sorry, cheez, I think your best bet is to hop across the border and see what you can find in the land of the free.
There is a private import club that gets so cool stuff but you have to order a case. Past stuff included Lost Abbey, Hair of the Dog, Fantome and the list goes on.
http://www.bieropholie.com/formulaires/Yowie/index_IPB.htm Sorry, french only. The gist is you pre-order a full case 3-4 months in advance and when it's ready, they ship it to the SAQ outlet of your choice. Not sure if it's open for residents outside of Quebec. I've never ordered for the simple reason that i can't plunk down that much cash on only 1 type of beer. They do not allow for mixed cases.
