Great Lakes Brewing News Archive

Quebec Beer News

Originally Published: 10/97

By: Nick Hamilton

The summer festival season ended with the Festibière in Chambly, a great success regardless of Mother Nature's lack of cooperation. The festival was held from September 4th to 7th at the Old Fort grounds which is an outstanding site for such an event.

Etan Jagermann from Brasal Brewery confirmed that a "Hopps aux pommes", an apple juice flavoured lager will be bottled in the spring of 98. Les Brasseurs du Nord (Boréale) were also experimenting with an apple flavoured ale, but have no plans to market the product in the near future.

Brasserie Schoune has revamped their products. The only remaining original product is the "Beauceronne à l'érable" (maple flavoured); the new line includes a Schoune blonde, an amber, a forte (strong) and a remarquable non filtered Schoune Belge, now all bottled in a new look packaging.

A Beer Education Center is in the works. This center will be in Chambly, precisely at 1887 Bourgogne St. right beside the Festibière festival site. It is not yet completed, but by our next issue we should have more detailed information on its content.

The Montréal brewpubs have come up with a great idea; they have produced a pamphlet to guide the beer enthusiast in a well structured fashion to all of Montréal's fine brewpubs. It's available in all establishments.

Finally, the first "Quebec Beer Guide" has been written. This new publication was written by yours truly with the collaboration of Daniel Bilodeau. It simply describes the 110 beers brewed and sold in Quebec by the two major breweries (Molson and Labatt) and the twelve micros. I will obviously not review it, leaving this task to other critics.

Brick Brewing Celis White

Ontario craft beer lovers will have the opportunity to drink one of the world's greatest Belgian style wheat beers. In a strategic alliance, Celis Brewery is now having its flagship Celis White contract-brewed at Brick Brewing Company's Waterloo, Ontario brewery. The beer is a delightfully flavorful witbier, using Curacao orange peel and coriander as flavorings. The beer was introduced at a special celebration in Toronto, on September 10, at a celebration attended by Celis Brewery's operations chief Peter Camps.