Québécois Beer & Italian Pubs - Tipplin' in Ottawa!

in general, finding good beer in Ontario is harder than it is in BC. sure, it’s slightly cheaper, but The Beer Store is more for getting your twofour on rather than imbibing some quality beer. the great thing about Ottawa, is that the city borders Quebec, so you can skip The Beer Store and head straight to the supermarché. ah, La Belle Province - where the beer is cheap, there’s loads of selection and it’s sold everywhere. to my delight, Tippler Ellie and Tippler Jeff had stocked their fridge to the teeth with a huge variety of beer, namely ones from Montreal’s Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!. all four of the beer that I sampled from this brewery* were absolutely delicious. the two that really made my taste buds do a double take were their hemp ale, Fumisterie [Smoke Screen], and their bottle conditioned hibiscus white, Rosee d’hibiscus [Pinkish Hibiscus].

about ten or twelve years ago, a number of local breweries were putting out hemp beer. I remember buying them, drinking, and enjoying them, but I don’t really remember them being anything of note. if these beer had been anywhere near the quality of BDC!’s Fumisterie, I would've started a campaign for Bowen Island Brewery to bring back their Hemp Cream Ale (remember when Bowen Island had decent beer?). anyway, Fumisterie has a very nice velvety mouth feel and buttery taste. I don't mean that the taste was smooth like butter, it actually tastes of butter. very pleasant and very luscious. the Rosee d'hibiscus is the other beer from BDC! that I really enjoyed. this delicate wheat ale is brewed with the petals of hibiscus flowers that give it a beautiful pink colour. the pink hue is more evident due to the cloudiness of this unfiltered ale. the obvious floral tastes balance out the citrusy ones that are present and common to whites like this. truthfully, the crisp, floral taste was a bit tiring by the end of the bottle, making me not want a second one. but, this isn't a session beer. this is a once in while, palate cleansing beer.

I wish that I could tell you a lot more of the following Ottawan drinking institution, but I went to Pub Italia after a multi multi multi course meal at Atelier and was struggling to ingest anything more. I can tell you that the bar seems to have a bit of an identity crisis as it's an Italian pub, with a shamrock logo complete with a Belgian abbey to drink in - not that I'm complaining! I can also tell you that the liquid selection on their "beer bible" is awesomely overwhelming, boasting 35 taps and 20 or so pages of bottles. I tried out the cognac infused X.O. Beer from France, which (from what I remember) was just okay. it's an 8% beer that tastes like a 10% one and the taste of cognac just flat out doesn't do it for me. I have no regrets in choosing this one as I figure how often are you able to choice a beer that's been infused cognac? I tried a little sample of Mikkeller's Beer Geek Breakfast, a coffee stout from Denmark. I just had a taste, but was really surprised and pleased that the mega dark malts and high level of coffee didn't overpower this stout. the mellowing hops really balanced it out. I'll be nagging my local beer store to start stocking this one.

Fumisterie A- 355ml bottle, 5.5%
Rosee d’hibiscus B+ 355ml bottle, 5%
X.O. Beer C+ 355ml bottle, 8%
Beer Geek Breakfast A 500ml bottle, 7.5%

*the other two were Blanche du Paradis [Paradise White] and La Paienne [The Pagan]