We're at Le Square Phillips. Any tips on local shops would be greatly appreciated.
I can't wait to try to order some of those DDC beers with my complete lack of French. We should be OK actually...the wife took French in high school 20 years ago.
You won't have any issues ordering anything in MTL while speaking English. If somebody talks to you about some crazy french speaking people forcing you to speak french, forget about that. Those are random yet very rare cases you won't encounter. Montreal is completely bilingual, no worries.
FYI, keep in mind that we're pretty f*cked with laws here for beer. Beer shop can only sell locally produced stuff or stuff that has a brewery here. Like, an american craft brewery cannot come here and just say "hey, I'll distribute my stuff in Quebec in beer shop". No, they need to go through SAQ (Société des Alcools du Québec), the government-owned wine/liquor/beer stores. Only thing: they don't care AT ALL about beer. They only sell sub, sub-par stuff at their location (not to talk about the small selection) and they're payment for breweries takes so much time that nobody wants to deal with them in the end. Only solution for us, to get nice stuff from the US or out of province is to go through private imports to get stuff or to travel. Big pain. That's why you won't find any US craft beer stuff around and close-to nothing from the rest of Canada, a few exceptions asides. But anything local doesn't go through that painful process since... well... it's local. Anyway, that was just to hint you!
The nicest place in MTL to buy beer is not close to a subway station, but is really worth the trip. It's called Peluso (
https://goo.gl/rL4OtO), and it's not too bad to get there by bus. Right beside DDC, there's Depanneur AS (
https://goo.gl/n0ziS2) with a very good selection. It's convenience store (like most of the beer shop here), but the beer selection is great.
Veux-tu une Bière (
https://goo.gl/cJtDKy) is nice also, easy to go there by subway. If you go there, ask if Dominique is there. He's a good guy who knows it's stuff (he's actually opening up his own shop at some point this year, but I think he still works at Veux-tu une Bière). Au Coin Duluth (
https://goo.gl/uxG4QN) has a good selection, easy to get there also.
The Fromagerie du Marché Atwater (
https://goo.gl/cySvZN) also has a decent selection. Not the place you'll find gems, but it's easily accessible. The market is nice and fun too and it's a trendy spot, near the Canal.
Épicerie Unique (
https://goo.gl/LzkncH) on St-Laurent has also a pretty good selection of beer. But the owners don't care about beer. Often, some product have a premium on it (with the exchange rate, this will not affect you much however, hehe). It's however a place where you can end up finding some gems. Everytime I'm going I'm always finding some stuff I'm just "WTF" and "why is this still sitting there?". Love/hate relationship. Check the dates if you buy IPA's or something out there, just saying. It's really a hit or miss place.
Feel free if you have any other questions, I'll try to see if I can find any other spot I'm forgetting!
