French Canadian beer?

SabreSteve

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So yesterday a Sabres legend and one of Buffalo's adopted sons, Rene Robert (pronounced ren-eh row-bear) passed away after suffering a heart attack over the weekend. He played most of 9 seasons in Buffalo with Hall of Fame center Gilbert (soft G) Perreault and should be Hall of Fame winger Rick Martin on the famed "French Connection" line. Robert was somewhat considered the glue to that line who often did the "dirty" work in the corners to allow the highly skilled puckhandler and playmaker in Perreault and the lethal goal scorer in Martin to do their thing. Although he feed of their chemistry perfectly and was no slouch on the score sheet himself as he was the first Sabre to score 100 points in 1 season. Perreault is still alive and well in Quebec while Martin suffered a heart while driving near his home in Clarence NY (my hometown) in 2011 and was pronounced dead at the scene. Anyways I know I'm rambling on but point is even though I didn't get to see them play personally these guys are folk heroes in Buffalo and I wanted to honor them in my own small way.

I was thinking that I should make a French Connection brew. Problem is other than just cloning a Labbatt, which as boring as that sounds I'm probably not ready to try to pull off, I don't know what to do. I was thinking maybe like a French or Belgian style but I'd have to figure beer in Quebec would also have atleast some British influence. I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge of beer in the PQ. Most of what I can find on Google is in French. I'd like to create something that these guys would have drank in the late 60s or early 70s as 19 year old after a game in the QMJHL (or whatever equivalent existed). I'd also like to try and incorporate the numbers 7 and 14 (and 11 too if possible) into the recipe. Maybe shoot for an ABV of 7.14?
Anyways any input is welcome. @Craigerrr I know you're English and from Ontario but you might have the most insight into this because of proximity?
 
I would have been in grade 9 in 1976, there were only high production mainstream brews available then. In Ontario, the only place to get beer was at the brewery owned "Brewer's Retail". By grade 10 we heard of this beer from Molsons in Quebec. It was called Brador. It was a medium dark color, and 6% ABV. We chose to drink it to get more bang for our buck. Pretty much everything else was 5%. I remember it having a fairly malty flavor.
 
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For some reason we get a lot of Canadian craft beer in Melbourne, so I've had a lot of really good French Canadian beers. Good breweries I've tried are Les Trois Mousquetaires, Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!, Le Bilboquet Microbrasserie, Le Trou du Diable. Sadly the one time I visited Quebec was before all these existed. Every bar was macro pale lagers and I'm guessing that's what they would have been drinking in the 60s and 70s.
 
For some reason we get a lot of Canadian craft beer in Melbourne, so I've had a lot of really good French Canadian beers. Good breweries I've tried are Les Trois Mousquetaires, Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!, Le Bilboquet Microbrasserie, Le Trou du Diable. Sadly the one time I visited Quebec was before all these existed. Every bar was macro pale lagers and I'm guessing that's what they would have been drinking in the 60s and 70s.
Yeah I just really don't want to do a pale lager. Just don't think I'm there yet where I could really nail it and I really don't have a way to lager. I've been thinking that maybe I could find like a pre-prohibition beer from Quebec (BTW Cole Caufield just scored a beaut) and figure a way to add a nod to Buffalo
 
figure a way to add a nod to Buffalo
Hot sauce?

A mild infusion of hot pepper might be something.

In the 1980s when I was old enough to drink, there was no Craft Beer. None I could get at least, and I looked.
 
Classic Commercial for Molson Golden, er, Golsen Molgen, or Moglen Goslen...
 
Here is a classic!
 
Hot sauce?

A mild infusion of hot pepper might be something.

In the 1980s when I was old enough to drink, there was no Craft Beer. None I could get at least, and I looked.
I feel like beer in general was pretty boring from prohibition till like atleast the 90s. Like everything in-between was just macro pale lager
 
So what I've come up with so far is that the original Molson was dark amber and malty... I got to do more research
 
I feel like beer in general was pretty boring from prohibition till like atleast the 90s. Like everything in-between was just macro pale lager
There were a smattering of craft breweries during that gap, they just had relatively small distribution compared to the Big Boys. Anchor Brewing has been going since pre-prohibition, for instance. But no one outside the Bay Area sought it out until the 60s, I believe. New Albion brewing, Bridgeport brewing (not the original name), Boston Beer Company, Bell's Brewing, Blitz-Weinhard...those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head :rolleyes:
 
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I can't believe I forgot Sierra Nevada!! :eek:
 
I can't believe I forgot Sierra Nevada!! :eek:
The shame!!:D:D
There were a smattering of craft breweries during that gap, they just had relatively small distribution compared to the Big Boys. Anchor Brewing has been going since pre-prohibition, for instance. But no one outside the Bay Area sought it out until the 60s, I believe. New Albion brewing, Bridgeport brewing (not the original name), Boston Beer Company, Bell's Brewing, Blitz-Weinhard...those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head :rolleyes:
Yeah I guess what I'm looking for is like the Quebec equivalent of an Anchor Steam (which BTW I'm loving how my California Common came out) something that's got some history that maybe just really wasn't discovered by outsiders till the craft beer boom
 
Another thought ... When I lived in WNY, one of things we loved (and laughed about) was that you could go to any bar and say, "I'll have an OV." Everyone knew. An O'Keefe Old Vienna Lager. Carling O'Keefe brewed in Quebec and Ontario and distributed to parts of the NE United States. The beer actually started in Ohio but was bought by CO and production moved to Canada. It was, for a long time, my favorite Canadian Lager. It would have been a popular beer growing up in Quebec and when Robert was skating in both Toronto and Buffalo.
https://brewgr.com/recipe/93276/old-vienna-vienna-lager-recipe
 

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