Following in the footsteps of the food and brewing history of Old Montreal with Governor Claude de Ramezay’s chef: this is what the Follow the Chef! tour offers us, one of the many cultural brewing tours offered by the Montreal’s Mondial de la biere team during the summer season.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Montreal, a cultural and gourmet brewing city centre, is bringing back to life this summer the theatrical food history tour that was offered every spring by the Château Ramezay from 2013 to 2018. The Follow the Chef! tour, which takes place on Thursdays and Fridays in a formula 5 at 7 until August 12, is making a comeback thanks to this organization set up by the Mondial de la bière in response to a call for tenders from the City of Montreal, which sought to revitalize the heart of the city, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, THE PRESS
The circuit Follow the Chef! takes tourists past sites that have marked the culinary history of Old Montreal, including Bonsecours Market.
This is how cook Claude Maupoint, chef to Governor Claude de Ramezay, acting governor of New France at the beginning of the 18the century, has once again been teleported to our time to tell us about his own, this time incorporating more elements tracing the origins of the first breweries in the province.
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, THE PRESS
Ladle in hand, Danilo Vergara plays Claude Maupoint, chef to Governor Claude de Ramezay.
Reassured by guide Hélène Richard, chef Maupoint, played by Danilo Vergara, nevertheless takes a few moments to recover from the shock that the 21st century represents for him.e century ; Fortunately, he quickly took to his ease and willingly interacted with tourists to testify with humor to what was to be found in Montreal in his day.
In particular, we learn about the role of the markets at the time, the warehouses and “stores” of the port, we discover where the first hotels and restaurants of the city were located – several buildings crossed on the way are pretexts for stories and food stories.
As for the brewing history, it is approached at the end of the tour, by tasting a few beers from the bistro-brasserie Les Sœurs Grises on the superb terrace of the Château Ramezay. The latter overlooks the Governor’s Gardens, recreated in the summer of 2000 to bear witness to the style and content of the gardens of the Montreal nobility at the time of New France.
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, THE PRESS
The circuit Follow the Chef! ends on the terrace of the Château Ramezay, which overlooks the Governor’s gardens.
Our guide Hélène Richard tells us that the first brewers in Quebec were probably the Récollets and that the family of Louis Hébert, the first settler in New France, had a brewer’s boiler in 1622.
In Montreal, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve also had a brewery in 1650. He brewed a hoppy barley malt beer, a robust, heavy drink that was expensive to produce, but was still cheaper than import.
Hélène Richard, Follow the Chef tour guide!
We are also surprised to know that Governor Jean Talon’s brewery in Quebec City brewed nearly 800,000 L of good quality beer in 1668, twice as much as the Molson brewery in 1810. “Except that Mr. Talon’s brewery will close four years after its opening, continues Mme Richard. First, Jean Talon will return to France, then the mother country was not so in agreement with the fact that its colony is autonomous, it preferred that we buy our products there. What means that beer will really establish itself here after the conquest, it will therefore be the business of the English. »
All-round beer tourism
“We’ve been dreaming of beer tourism for a long time, our goal was to promote the brewing sector through culture and delicacies”, explains the president of the Mondial de laière, Jeannine Marois, whom we met after the Follow the tour. Chief !.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
During some excursions, we stop to taste the beers of the 4 Origines microbrewery.
In fact, Montréal, downtown brewing, cultural and gourmet, is offering an impressive number of brewing-themed discovery activities this summer. The companies Guidatour and 16/42 Tours offer excursions that will sometimes allow you to discover the most beautiful mural works in the city center, sometimes to retrace the industrial history of the Lachine Canal and Griffintown. All this complemented by tastings in microbreweries encountered along the way, such as Le Cheval Blanc, 4 Origines and Les Brasseurs de Montréal.
Added to all this are tasting-shows in July at Les Sans-Taverne, L’Amère à Boire, Saint-Houblon and Benelux, cruises and even gourmet beer nights at the Sheraton Centre.