United Nations of Beer

Forquet Fourchette

by Steve LaRue
(Beer Delegate, UT, USA)

Forquet Fourchette
Montreal, QC, Canada

I recently returned to Utah from my first visit to Montreal, QC. Montreal is a great beer city with almost as many breweries and brewpubs as Seattle, WA.

If you are planning on visiting Montreal for the first time, I would recommend a train or plane ride and forgoing the car. Find a hotel downtown or close to the Metro line and ride the train everywhere. Most of the brewpubs in the city are within a few blocks of the Metro.

The interesting thing that I found about the Quebec biere scene is that even though the predominant culture is French, most of the brewers embrace the Belgian style. I found this rather unusual as I was hoping to be able to try some French styles like champagnoise or biere de garde.

During my visit I had the good fortune to be invited to participate as the Utah Delegate at a summit with the Secretary General and several of his rugby buddies and other friends.

We met at the Sergeant Recreuter brewpub and then continued on a short pub crawl to Reservoir. A great time was had by all and it is really cool to be able to travel and be able to connect with such really nice people.

Since my ability to pick up on certain flavors in a beer are a work in progress, I will do my best to review the beers I tried while being as objective as possible.

You will find that when you visit these establishments that they all do at least one of their beers very well. That makes visiting as many as possible mandatory as finding your favorite will make each visit memorable.

I will give a short overview of each of the pubs I visited as well as the nearest Metro stop. My visit to the renowned beer shop Metro Joanette also resulted in a few bottles from some of the other breweries in Quebec.

If you are accustomed to the brewpub, predominant in the US, that are open for both lunch and dinner and have a full restaurant menu, you might be disappointed. Most of the brewpubs don't open until 3pm and have limited menus.

They are actually more nightclubs than restaurants. There are a couple that are "traditional" brewpubs and those features will be mentioned in the reviews. I will also state that although the sidewalks aren't rolled up on Sundays, parts of downtown Montreal are pretty quiet on Sunday evening.

Immediately after checking in to my hotel I took to the streets and was able to find Fourquet Fourchette very easily at the Place d'Armes Metro Station. Fouquet Fourchette is a Unibroue-tied house. They are normally closed on Sunday, but were hosting a private party and were happy to seat me.

The servers I encountered at Forquet Fourchette were all very knowledgeable and helpful, all spoke English and knew a lot about their beers and the food that should be paired with them.

I observed servers turning the bottled beers so that the lees would mix when the beer was poured into a glass. There are several draft and bottled selections available at Forquet Fourchette, all brewed at the brewery in Chambly. I tried a sampler set of the draft offerings:

Blanche de Chambly

Raftman Amber

Eau Benite

Maudite

La Fin du Monde

Trois Pistoles

The menu at Forquet Fourchette is very large and offers selections often referred to as "terroir", or local products. Lots of wild game, local cheeses and sausages. Some of the menu selections are plates of cheeses and smoked meats paired with certain beers.

I tried the Raftman Cheese Plate (Cheddar, Cantonier, St. Damase Brie) and the Raftman Smoked Meat Plate (venison salami, smoked duck breast, poultry liver mousse, duck terrine).

These plates were also served with an amazing unleavened caraway bread. All of the items were paired with a couple of pints of the Raftman. Here's how they paired up.

Cantonier: very creamy and enhanced smoked malt flavor of beer.
Smoked duck breast: very smoky and also enhances smokiness in the beer.
Liver mousse: beer smooths bitterness of liver. Only gets better.
Brie: sharp and tangy but flavor fades quickly with the strong flavors of the beer.
Duck terrine: very fatty and gamy. Beer enhances gaminess. Not the best pairing.
Cheddar: nicely aged, creamy and very sharp. Beer cuts sharpness nicely.
Venison salami: nice smoky flavor and neither fatty or dry. Not immediately appetizing, but actually improved as I got into it.

Forquet Fourchette is well worth a visit if you're in Montreal with a few hours to kill.