Raymond Beauchemin visits Saint-Arnould in Tremblant
Tremblant: what folk this mountain and village attract. There are the locals, of course -- been there generations -- to which is admixed the less-recently local, the moneyed skiing types, the residents of nearby farming towns like Arundel or lakeview communities like Harrington, urban daytrippers, old-time stoners up for the George Thoroughgood concert, racing fans and bikers.
Add to this beer enthusiasts. Folks loving a good, locally brewed beer can make Saint-Arnould a destination point.
Saint-Arnould is a microbrewery and restaurant/pub and a museum of beer history, particularly Quebec, in that it has probably the largest collection of cans and bottles of beer in the area. Even I, who remember having to pop holes in cans of Coors brought back from Colorado in the mid-1970s when the company had no national U.S. distribution, saw cans of Molson that I'd never seen before--the kind with no pull-tabs, no pop-top, no holes, requiring a can opener.
The pub and brewery occupy the same building, so you get to see the giant stainless tubs where the beer is made. Twenty-minute tours are available daily except Sundays and Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Saint-Arnould makes six beers, the first three of which are bottled: the P'tit Train du Nord, La Muchacha del San Jovito, Rivière Rouge. These others are available on tap: Vlimeuse, Blanche des Anges, de l'évêque.
The best way for someone unfamiliar with Saint-Arnould beers to get a sense of the range of these beers is the pub's samplers. There's a sampler of three for $4.75 and a sampler of six for $7.61. You'll get five ounces (140 mL) of each beer.
Several of the dishes on the pubfare menu are made with beer, including escargot with garlic butter, French onion soup, pizza made with beer yeast, sauces, onion pie,
Sampled recently were a bison burger, not gamey at all, but thick and juicy, and a salmon burger, the fish flaky and the batter rich, both accompanied by a generous amount of fries and a tossed salad; a half-portion of nachos that could easily have fed three people as a meal; and a fettucine Alfredo with a so-so spiced Cajun chicken breast atop. There's also a small children's menu.
The food is pub food. You can write home about it, for sure, but, in truth, the beer's the reason to stop here.
At my first stop here, in August 2004, I had a half-pint each of the Vlimeuse, Blanche des Anges and the L'évêque. In July this year, I opted for the sampler of six, which turned out to be a good idea.
The servers are supposed to be knowledgeable enough about the beer to suggest the order in which they are to be drunk, which is essentially from light to dark. Since the pub was out of the Muchacha, I had all of them in the order suggested: The P'tit Train du Nord is a 5.5% lager made in the dry method made famous by the Big Two Canadian brewers; Vlimeuse is fruity, about 6.5% in alcohol content; the Rivière Rouge is probably the best of the bunch, a full-bodied and sweet-tasting beer with just the right amount of bitter aftertaste; the Blanche des Anges did nothing for me; and the l'évêque, despite its high-alcohol content, left no alcohol taste but was nonetheless rich in body.
The Blanche des Anges, only 4% in alcohol, really should have been drunk as the second beer, which would have allowed me to taste its fruitiness. As the fourth of six, it was buried in the flavourfulness of the others. I ordered as my sixth sampler another Rivière Rouge and realized upon tasting it why the sample of six is a good bet. The second tasting of the Rivière was too bitter. Allowed to warm to its proper serving temperature while I drank the other beers, the first time around, the Rivière is a fantastic beer. Right out of the tap, the cold seems to trap the bitterness.
For more information on the Saint-Arnould microbrewery, see www.saintarnould.com/intro.html.
For more information on Le Circuit, the St. Jovite-Mont Tremblant race track, see www.lecircuit.com/en/events.htm.
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