Beer and Driving

We've attempted to space apart our driving and beer as much as possible and take turns. Our first day of vacation was actually a lot of work - four hours of driving followed by 6 hours of volunteering. Chris spent most of it in the sun, lifting heavy kegs for the brewers. Comparatively my job was easy - filling tasting glasses with stacks of drink tickets and handing them to festival-goers. Not only did the hard labor earn us a free tickets to the last session of the festival, but we also got free pint glasses and a t-shirt.

The weather was beautiful for our session - crazy clouds, gorgeous sunset over the lake and mountains. Two rainbows appeared in the sky as we turned away from the Dieu du Ciel and everyone oohed at the same time. Somehow the beer tastes better when the sky is beautiful.

Unfortunately the weather turned on us. Just as I was about to trade in my last ticket for a beer, the show closed down as lightening shot across the skies. We ran back to the car just in time.

North of the Border - Brewpub Extrordinaire

Patriot's Day is a great excuse to get away from the patriots in Boston and to our more sensible neighbor up north--Canada.

So Chris and I loaded up our day bags, a six-pack of Boston's Harpoon for our hosts and a tag-along from craigslist. Our first stop: Burlington to drop off our carpooler.

We took the opportunity to quench our thirst at, what else, a brewery. Vermont Pub & Brewery is the state's oldest craft brewery and the 2nd oldest on the East Coast at a measly twenty years. (I wonder what Germany's Hofbrau Munchen would say to that?)

Next stop was an hour long wait at the border. Given that last time I went to Canada I flashed my driver's license and sped through, this must be a product of our new security. By the time we made it to Canada, though the air had warmed, paradoxically and the sky had cleared.

Though Izzie, my GPS, doesn't allow one to put in Canadian addresses (which scared us for a moment), I was able to find our hosts' location by zooming in on the city and pointing to where I wanted to go.

Our crashing place for the weekend, found on couchsurfing.com, were perfect hosts, giving us recommendations for authentic bars and reviews of local brew-pubs before heading out to their own BBQ.

Make sure you add these places to your must-drink lists for when you visit Montreal:

Bily Kun - a dark spot, decorated with mounted ostrich heads, and staffed barely-english speaking waitresses. This was the only non-brewpub on our trip.

Vices & Versa - another spot, that looks like it would be dark, except the Canadians were playing on a massive flatscreen and causing everyone to hurl curses at the tv. They brew their own beer there and had a great selection of local brews too.

The Trois Brasseurs - A French owned chain, with locations only in Quebec and France. They're design was industrial classy, the bartender was wicked friendly and helpful and the beer was basic and mighty well-done

Brutopia - A friendly pub in the touristy section of town, we hoped to catch a bluegrass show that was listed in the paper as starting at 5pm . . . but we ended up having to leave at 6:30 before they started playing

Helm - Probably the most mind-blowing drinks of the trip. Chris and I had received our sampler of brews, and Francesca and Julien lifted their glasses to toast and we were confused. 'Shouldn't we wait until you get your drinks?' I asked, looking at their clear, still tall glasses of water. Well, it wasn't water, it was cider. Completely clear, still-looking cider. They were the confused ones when we told them that our cider is always brown. Hmmmm . . .

Dieu du Ciel - Our last bar was a nice, sunny corner spot with a long, long list of home-brewed beer. We ended up making our own sampler of lots of small glasses of stuff . We enjoyed our last few hours in the city, soaking in the sun and beer, watching the dozens of biking commuters whiz by.