Attentive readers may have noticed that the world of beer is in the midst of a rising tsunami of craft beer, as the teeming millions throw off the shackles of the insipid and uninspired megabrewery concoctions that beer snobs refer to as fizzy yellow water.
In Canada, the craft brewery movement is in full swing, and is being led by our Quebecois brethren. With their Euro-styled outlook, Canada’s Francophone brewmasters have been producing old-world beers for decades, and the Canadian beer drinkers have certainly taken notice.
Your intrepid liquor reporter has long enjoyed the fine brews from Unibroue, a small artisanal brewery in the small town of Chambly, just outside of Montreal.
Unibroue opened their doors back in 1990, with the audacious plan to use brewing methods based on the centuries-old practice of Trappist monks from Belgium.
Like so many others in the craft brewing industry, Unibroue is no stranger to the financial pressures of consolidation. Ontario-based Sleeman acquired Unibroue in 2004, but took a refreshingly hands-off approach to management, letting the existing brewmaster continue to practice his craft without interference.
Just two short years later, Tokyo-based Sapporo acquired Sleeman, so we now have a Francophone brewery making Belgian-styled beer, owned by an Ontario brewery, which is in turn owned by a Japanese brewery. It’s like you’re drinking the United Nations in every glass!
Just last week, Unibroue’s flagship brew, Blanche de Chambly, took home the prize for the World’s Best Belgian Style Witbier at the World Beer Awards in London, England.
This was not Unibroue’s first time on the red carpet, as the same brew also won the Best Spiced Wheat Beer award in 2010 and 2011.
For the Anglophones in the audience, Blanche de Chambly translates into White Beer from Chambly, using the old-world naming tradition of the beer type followed by the city of origin.
Typical of the style, Blanche de Chambly is a cloudy and unfiltered wheat beer, with flavours of coriander, cloves, and citrus. More mainstream witbiers like Rickard’s White or Keith’s White are but pale imitations of Blanche de Chambly.
Novice beer drinkers should beware, as this beer is conditioned on lees, which means it is left to age on the dead yeast cells following fermentation. This adds full spicy flavours and rich bready undertones to the beer, which can be intimidating to the macrobrew drinker who has been raised on a steady diet of Coors Lite.
When your humble narrator started drinking Unibroue products many years ago, the bottles were only available as 750mL singles, each capped with a champagne cork.
Fortunately, in the fullness of time, Unibroue caved to market pressures, and started bottling in standard 355mL bottles, and is now widely available in 6-packs as well as the old-school 750mL bottles.
Those looking for an almost spirit-like after-dinner beer should look no further than La Fin du Monde (End of the World), made in the style of a Belgian Trippel. A full-flavoured golden ale, this beer weighs in at 9% ABV, and is best enjoyed just a bit below room temperature.
The recipe for La Fin du Monde is a re-creation of a beer brewed strictly for special occasions by monks in the middle ages, so your intrepid liquor reporter always takes a moment of reflection to thank those humble friars each time I crack open a bottle.
The first bottle of Unibroue I ever tasted was Maudite (the Damned), and still holds a special place in my heart, as it tells the story of a tale I heard as a wee child.
As the legend goes, a crew of lumberjacks in Upper Canada (aka modern-day Quebec) wanted to get home to their village for the holidays, and made a deal with the devil himself to enchant their canoe in order to fly it home.
Old Beelzebub, as is his wont, extracted a pledge of their immortal souls, which frightened your humble narrator back when he was but a 6-year old towheaded youth.
Luckily, the lumberjacks were able to escape from their dastardly pact by uttering the name of the Lord, which, while allowing them to reclaim their immortal souls, had the unfortunate side effect of causing their flying canoe to unceremoniously come crashing down to earth.
To this day, your humble narrator avoids this brew when canoes are about, but drinks it almost religiously when on dry land!
