35 years ago, Le Cheval Blanc microbrewery received the first craft brewery license in Quebec. Since then, an entire industry has sprung up around microbrewery beer, and consumer enthusiasm hasn’t waned.
The Le Cheval Blanc tavern on Ontario Street and Saint-Hubert Street has belonged to the Catelli family since 1940 when Jérôme Catelli Denys inherited it in 1981. He started out by giving women the right to enter his bar and then quickly wanted to brew his own beer to serve on-site.
“At that time there was only a commercial brewing license. I started the process to encourage the government to create a craft beer brewing license like they did for wine and cider makers. That’s why I obtained the craft license 001 as soon as it was created in 1987,” says Jérôme Catelli Denys, now co-owner of Cheval Blanc with Luc Sénécal.
At the same time, other microbrewery projects were tackled, and the almost absolute monopoly held by the two large breweries, Molson, founded in 1786, and Labatt, in LaSalle since 1956, was coming to an end.
Two operations in Estrie, the Microbrasserie Lion d’or and the Massawippi brewery (later bought by Unibroue) were already operating in the niche but with an industrial license, while Brasserie Inox obtained the second artisan license. In the following years, the breweries McAuslan (St-Ambroise, Griffon), Brasseurs GMT (Belle Gueule) and Les Brasseurs du Nord (Boréale) appeared.
Since then, the number of microbreweries has continued to grow. Their market share is around 15% of beer sales, estimates Marie-Ève Myrand, director of the Association des Microbrasseries du Québec (AMBQ). “Today, 307 brewing permits are in effect, including the big seven breweries,” she says.
Jérôme Catelli Denys witnessed this whole revolution. “I ended up starting a factory which I sold to Brasseurs RJ in 1998 and where I worked as a brewer for 19 years. We brew 100,000 hectoliters a year. Sometimes people think it’s comparable to what big breweries like Molson do, but they brew 4 million hectoliters.”
While Brasseurs RJ still brews the wheat beer known as Cheval Blanc today, Mr. Denys has returned to more artisanal production, with 1,000 hectoliters of beer brewed annually at the Ontario Street bar and mostly served on-site.
To mark its 35th anniversary, Le Cheval Blanc on Ontario Street will be launching several special cuvées in collaboration with other microbreweries such as Lagerbräu and Bières Tamarac, Auberge Sutton Brouërie and La Barberie, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
Towards local beers
Scattered across Quebec’s regions, microbreweries are looking to local ingredients to craft their beers, which one expert says is paving the way for a beer style that’s more local.
“The opportunity we have in Quebec lies in diversity,” confirms beerologist Serge Noël. We deal with all styles of beer, Czech, German, Belgian, slowly developing a style inspired by Quebec’s terroir. This is really the new wave, we want to have beers that speak to us about ourselves.
Several farmers are already reserving part of their land for the beer industry.
In 2021, 50 farms produced malting barley, according to Producteurs de grains du Québec, while 41 growers grew hops, the flavoring compound that gives beer its bitterness, according to statistics from the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ).