Up in Montreal for a company meeting in late January, on our first day there we broke for lunch and as a group we walked a couple three blocks from our hotel to a place that is one of 19 locations of a brewpub concept that are scattered across Quebec and Ontario by the name of Les 3 Brasseurs - The 3 Brewers in English. I was told by a couple guys who live in the Montreal area that I would like this place as they know how much I like going to brewpubs in the U.S. It was a cold walk for about 10 minutes up three blocks and across a couple more to Les 3 Brasseurs. (see map)
It turns out that the original concept of Les 3 Brasseurs started in Lille, France in the mid-80's. Back in the mid-19th century, three local brewers in the north of France banded together to brew beers together. Time and death broke up the allegiance of those brewers, but descendants of the three brewers got together to open a brewery/restaurant in 1986 - a venture that is still going strong today. There are over a dozen Les 3 Brasseurs located in France. In addition to the Canadian locations, there are also Les 3 Brasseurs locations in Brazil, French Polynesia, Tahiti, New Caledonia and on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion.
The Canadian operations of Les 3 Brasseurs started in Montreal in 2004 and quickly spread across the province before opening an Anglo version - The 3 Brewers - in Toronto in 2008. There are seven Les 3 Brasseurs locations in and around the greater Montreal area at this time.
The main floor of Les 3 Brasseurs featured a long bar area with booths off to the side. Large screen televisions hung on brick walls throughout the space. There was a lively lunch time crowd in the place when we got there.
Upstairs was an area for overflow seating, as well as an area where they could put large parties - like ours. I normally don't like dining in a large group, but they actually had it arranged pretty well up there for us to spread out on not be on top of one another.
Also upstairs were brewing tanks for the beers they made on-site. They have five beers that are their full-time selections - a white, a blonde, a brown and an amber ale, as well as an India pale ale. They also have a brewers featured beer and a seasonal beer on tap. Each Les 3 Brasseurs has their own brewmaster on site which gives each location their own unique take on their core beers.
Usually in a large group, we have a fixed menu, but this time they allowed us to order directly off the food menu. They had a wide variety of food to offer at Les 3 Brasseurs including sandwiches, flatbreads, as well as entrees such as steaks, salmon, pork shanks, a barbecue Cajun chicken dish, and a Quebecois version of cassoulet - a casserole with white beans with sausage, duck, pork belly, and root vegetables.
I had my eye on the mussels and frites - Prince Edward Island mussels steamed in a broth of blonde beer with tomatoes, onions and garlic. But just as soon as I was getting ready to order it, the waitress announced that they were out of the mussels that day. Damn! I had my heart set on the mussels to go along with the India pale ale that I was drinking.
After finding out the mussels weren't an option, I had to decide on something else. One of my colleagues had ordered the avocado burger without a bun and a side salad. That sounded good to me, only I wanted a bun with mine. Well, as it usually happens with a large group they can foul up the order. I got the burger without the bun like my colleague had ordered. I didn't put up much of a bitch about it because I knew I'd probably tear a lot of the bun off. The avocado burger at Les 3 Brasseurs featured a thick high-grade beef patty that was flat-grilled. It was topped with deep-fried avocado slices and a smoked gouda cheese. Pico de gallo and a guacamole mayo came on the side. Actually, even without the bun, it was very good. It was cooked to a perfect medium with a bit of pink in the middle. Along with the salad, it was pretty filling.
One of my Canadian colleagues seated across from me got the classic chicken wings from the appetizer menu. He had them prepared with the barbecue beer sauce and they came with a side of blue cheese dressing. I've been on somewhat of a chicken wing craze over the past couple three months and those looked really good. And he said that they were very good.
Another one of my Canadian colleagues went with the Savoy Diots - sausages from the Le Savoie region of France on a bed of macaroni and aged white cheddar. The sausages are in a combination of beer, white wine, onions and beef stock. The two sausages were large and there was a lot of the white cheddar and mac underneath them. He's not a big guy, but he finished off both sausages and put a serious dent in the mac and cheese, so it must have been really good.
One of my American colleagues went the healthy route and got the lemon-parsley butter salmon that was served on a bed of steamed fresh vegetables. But to balance out the good with the bad, he also got a side of fries with his meal and it was a load of fries, at that. The fries were served with a dijon-mayo on the side - I've always liked the idea of mayonnaise with French fries, something that I picked up years ago during some of my first visits to Montreal. He gave me some fries to try with the dijon-mayo sauce and they were very good.
My Canadian colleague from the Vancouver area says that he gets enough seafood out there and he decided to get the ribs. He got the half-rack size of meaty pork ribs and those come with cole slaw, onion rings AND fries. He offered one of the ribs to me, but I declined as I was pretty full from my burger and stealing more fries from my colleague. But I did take him up on his offer of an onion ring. They had a great flavor with what appeared to be a beer-battered coating on the outside. He told me the ribs were actually pretty good for what they were.
As I said, most of the time with large groups there tends to be some foul-ups and one of my American colleagues from the Pacific Northwest has been on a vegan diet for the past few months. He ordered one of the flatbread pizzas with just cheese. It came out loaded with pepperoni on the top. He refused it - and I don't blame him. He had to sit there waiting for his cheese flatbread while we all dug in, but he was a good sport about it. When he ended up getting the right flatbread, he said the wait wasn't worth it. He was pretty disappointed all the way around.
But other than that - and that they didn't give me a bun with my burger - I have to say that I was pretty happy with the food, the beer and the service at Les 3 Brasseurs in downtown Montreal. They had 3 people taking care of a party of about 35 people and they were prompt on getting beer orders filled, food requests out, and make wrongs right again. I thought my burger was fine, but I did like the fries and the onion ring that was offered to me. For a chain of brew pubs - each one is supposed to have its own unique signature - I thought Les 3 Brasseurs did a pretty good job.
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