Still, not being able to have something has a tendancy to make one remember it fondly, nostalgically even. So what with St. Patrick's Day coming up, I decided to see what my options would be should I wish to enjoy a cold, frosty beverage. Turns out, I've got a lot more than I would have thought, and ironically, with a home grown spin I wasn't even looking for.
I love the internet. There's nothing I love more than being offered hope and then having it taken away from me, all in the space of about 2 hours. The first thing I did was type in "gluten free beer" into Google which turned up a really good article written by Johnathan M. Katz, called 5 Gluten Free Beers that are Actually Worth Drinking. It actually listed 7 beers, the other 2 being ones that, according to him, were not worth drinking. Regardless, not one of them is available here in Quebec. Not even the shitty 2! Okay, you can find Bard's Tale in an LCBO in Hawkesbury, but that doesn't qualify as being available in Montreal, and it wasn't on the good list! Of the 5, one is available only in the mid-western US, one is only available on the Pacific West Coast of the US, one I could find in Vermont and two we are planning a road trip to Plattsburg, NY to see if we can find. That doesn't, however, get me gluten free beer here in Montreal. Back to the internet then.
While having my hopes dashed, I realised that those brews that were touted as being drinkable were all from microbreweries and smaller companies, which pulled me up short and had me rethink my approach a little. Montreal has an amazing array of microbreweries, who every year manage to hold their own at the Mondial de La Biere. Maybe what I needed to do was look a little closer to home, and after just a little bit of searching, I found not one but two different brewers with a total of 10 different beers to try. Wow.
As I was never much of a beer drinker, I decided that I needed a little bit of help. It's amazing just how much help you can get when you promise to feed people if they'll help you drink beer. For the record, I am going to have to have a second tasting as enough of my friends were sad they missed the first one. I didn't decide this out of the goodness of my heart, either; I was informed I'd be having a second tasting!
This was what my dinning room looked like by the end of the evening! So much fun =P
This was, of course, done on the soundest principles of scientific testing, ahem. There was a section for initial comments about each beer, how it was with food, and then a 1 to 10 graded scale for overall impression. We did have to clarify at the outset that a 10 meant you would pour it on your breakfast cereal you liked it that much while you couldn't put a zero unless you actually spat it back into the cup. We had chips (a mix between corn tortillas, blue and yellow, and popcorners) with dips (salsa, guacamole, 'sour cream' and hummous), olives, chicken wings (a savoury and a spicy, with some extra Blair's Death Wing Sauce for those with a reckless streak) and some sliced meats (a bresaola, prosciutino and spicy genoa salami) to snack on as we went, and as none of us got wrecked, I don't think we ended up having more than 2 beers each in total, it was a great evening, questionnaires not withstanding. We also had some control beers for everyone else in the form of Heineken, Rickard's White and Guinness (bottled) for comparison; our friend Oli was also our control person as he was drinking his beer in distilled form, an Ardbeg I believe.
Okay, so. Disclaimers first: only one of us is a regular beer drinker to begin with, and we did this without reading up on terminology or what we should have been looking for. We based our responses entirely on personal preferrence and total honesty, which was the Only thing that I required of my guests. Now, on to the beers.
La Messagere
Microbrasserie Nouvelle France, located about half way between Montreal and Quebec in Saint-Alexis-des-Monts, offers three different versions of glutten free beer.
The signature named La Messagere, a rice and buckwheat beer, was the first that we tried. It was described as light, a good starter drink or something to have for predrinking, sharp and sour. With food, it was rated as ok to good with a strong after taste. Overall: 6
La Messagere Rousse, also a rice and buckwheat blend, was liked by all right out of the gate. Described as tasty, Good, smooth and balanced, with food it was compared to a traditional wheat rousse beer, like a Rickard's Red, with a nutty/meaty flavour and one of the non-beer drinkers flat out said that he would order this. Overall: 7.3
La Messagere Millet Light, obviously named, was not really liked, however. A bitter taste with a lot of hops, didn't really get much better with food, other than to improve the flavour of what was being eaten! Overall: 3.3
Glutenberg
Les Brasseurs Sans Gluten who produce Glutenberg beers are actually located right here in Montreal on the Lachine Canal, which I think is really cool. They actually produce 7 of the beers that we tried, with 2 of those being fortified. I am also not going to list each beers ingredients as they varied significantly, and had some pretty cool stuff (like dates) in some of them.
American Pale Ale is a very traditional APA, from what I understand, and not one of us liked it. At all. It has a sweet smell, kind of smokey with a heavy, woody flavour (one person described it as almost medicinal) and with food the bitterness really came out. However, APAs are supposed to be bitter, so if that is your thing, here's your beer. Overall: 2.7
The Blonde beer went over really well. A nice summer time beer, compared by one person to a Boreal, smooth and simple that was really good with food. Overall: 6
The Rousse beer, surprisingly, wasn't really well recieved. The molasses in the beer came through in the smell, but you could taste the Quinoa in the aftertaste, which was a bit sour; one person described it as having a toffee flavour, and no one felt that it improved with food. Overall: 3.6
The Double Belge had a sweet and clean flavour, with an almost spice like aftertaste that was described as crisp and (by one) citrusy. We all agreed that this was not the beer for sweet food, but paired well with salty; had a meaty flavour with just a slight bitter after taste. Overall: 5
Atypic Ale 8 was good; a rich fruity smell with a bit of a nutty taste that was good with food and actually seemed to make sweet foods sweeter. Overall: 6.25
The Belge de Saison 2013 was the most disliked beer of the bunch. The inital smell of honey and lemon had several people comment that it made them think of disinfectant, and it had a strong flavour that, while better with salty foods, distorted the flavours of what we were eating. Overall: 2.2
Soto Lon, a microgastronomie brew, was a hit! The first thing you smell is maple (on account of the maple water used) and it does pack a kick (it has rum in it!!) but we all decided that this was breakfast beer! Well balanced between sweet and salty, we preferred it with salty foods, which had us all wishing we had bacon. Overall: 7.7
Group favourite: La Messagere Rousse
Runner ups: BSG Blonde and Soto Lon
Least Favourite: BSG Belge de Saison 2013
Anyone paying attention to the numbers will notice that the highest score didn't necesarily win the favourite vote. As I said, this was very much based on personal preferances.
Because I ended up buying more beer than we drank for the tasting, I got to drink most of them again, but at my leisure. I think that I've modified my initial impression in that I enjoy La Messagere Rousse and the BSG Atypic Ale about evenly, followed closely by the Blonde. I even gave the American Pale Ale another go, and while it would work if you enjoy foods that are so spicy you singe your nose hairs, I don't so I'll be leaving that one for those who enjoy bitters.
The bestest part? If we decide to brave the St. Patrick's day crowd and actually hit up the Burgundy Lion on Sunday, I'll be able to order one and pretend to be Irish along with everyone else!
Slainte!
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