Starting this spring, Centretown residents will have a chance to become experts in Québécois beer.
Popular Aylmer-based beer bistro Bières du Monde has announced plans to open its flagship store location at the corner of rue Eddy and rue Wright, two blocks north of the Chaudière Bridge and just a three-minute drive from the intersection of Wellington and Booth streets.
The store, expected to open in early March, mainly stocks Quebec-made beer, the vast majority of which cannot be purchased in Ontario as neither the LCBO nor The Beer Store stocks them.
“We’re going to have cellars, really special reserves, and the cream of the crop there,” says owner Ryan Bellerive. “We have a large parking lot where we might have small events and festivals as well.”
Despite being only a year old, Bières du Monde already has two other locations in Gatineau and stocks over 300 different beers, including offerings from Dieu du Ciel!, Le Trou du Diable, and Brasserie Charlevoix. With a store located so close to Ontario, Bellerive is hoping to capitalize on visiting Ontarians seeking out brands of beer that can’t be found in their home province.
“Right now in Aylmer, 50 per cent of our clients come from Ottawa already, so why not make it accessible to the client?” says Bellerive. “Instead of making that special trip out to Aylmer once a month, we’ll make it more convenient so they’ll come two, three times a month instead.”
Bellerive stresses that Québécois beer styles are quite different from what Ontario brewers produce. Their beers are typically made in the Belgian style, meaning they have high alcohol content and rich, malty flavours. Nearly all of Canada’s highest-rated breweries on such review sites as ratebeer.com and beeradvocate.com are from Quebec, and many exclusively sell within their home province, making beer stores like this one all the more special to Ontarians.
“All the Québécois brewers have their own trucks and distribution channels,” says Isaac Tremblay, co-owner of critically-acclaimed Micro-Brasserie Le Trou du Diable, in Shawinigan. “The only difference between selling beer and t-shirts in Quebec is that there’s a lot of laws and permits around brewing, but after you get the permits, it’s the same and pretty easy.”
Tremblay, like many other Quebec brewers, says he is thrilled with the growth in craft brewing in recent years and its attempts to catch on in markets outside the province. He adds that his brewery has recently begun increasing its shipments of beer to Gatineau to once a month, in order to keep up with rising demand in the Ottawa area.
Though Bières du Monde is reliant on Ottawa-based customers, the laws surrounding carrying liquor into Ontario are restrictive.
“Laws in Ontario are silent about bringing alcohol in from other provinces,” says Mark Hicken, a Vancouver-based lawyer specializing in wine and alcohol law. He adds however, that despite provincial indifference, federal regulations prohibit the importation of alcohol that isn’t wine over provincial borders.
“It’s an old, old law from Prohibition,” adds Bellerive. “It should change soon, but it doesn’t affect our customers, and they’re still happy to see us.”
Due to its relatively obscure nature, it’s highly unlikely that removing the law would impact Bellerive’s customer base significantly.
“It’s virtually impossible to enforce the law,” says Hicken. “There’s no border checkpoints.”
After amending the law in June of 2012 to allow for wine to pass across borders, the federal government announced last October that they would seek to extend this allowance to both beer and spirits. Currently, the LCBO’s official policy is that people may import beer and spirits into Ontario as long as they bring it over themselves, although Hicken stresses that this is not what the law states.