Le Cheval Blanc

Micro-​brasserie dans le Quartier Latin
Bonnes bières
J’adore la bière à la framboise maison l’été
Bonne ambiance, lumières tamisées, pas trop de monde mais assez pour faire des rencontres, discuter et s’amuser! On dirait qu’il y a toujours quelqu’un qui est prêt à venir vous parler :) très sympa

Best beer that we had while in Montréal! Had the Popeye (pale ale), it was super good. Staff was also very nice and helpful.

We came here on a friend’s recommendation and it looked like a mistake when we arrived as the place was dead. Nice décor, clean, and friendly service but not very happening for a Saturday night. Then we looked up at the board and saw Jameson’s shots for C$ 3.50 and it all became clear. US$ 2.70 Jameson’s shots in Miami would start a [crap]show that would probably evolve into a full scale riot. Needless to say we started drinking heavily when we saw shots that cheap. It might not be the most happening place, but this is a great spot to either start or end your night.

For tasty, inexpensive micro-​brews in a lively atmosphere — Le Cheval Blanc is definitely worth a visit. My fave brew was their Popeye IPA — full flavoured but not too in-​your-​face hoppy, just a fantastic balanced IPA. My next was also delicious, a pale ale with Cascade hops from New Zealand I believe. Once again it was a fun bar to hang out, enjoy yummy in-​house brews, good music and no TVs! Perfect.

Although I had some green unripe beer here once they have excellent stuff, and this slightly downtown-​feeling bar is slightly hardcore but fun. Interesting locals and good unusual CV beers you might not see elsewhere, good stuff. Definitely go back.

In Montréal, you will not find a 100 plus beers on tap. You will find, however, bars that make there own beer. Known as A Micro Brew.
Unfortunately, I have no sense of taste and I drink the same «AMBRE «beer each time I go to Cheval Blanc … come to think of i, I really can go for a FRANBOISE right now !!! Or a nice tasty CH’FAL DUBLIN Irish Red. Ok, I am off. See ya there!

I was so glad to come back here after many years away to see it’s twice as big and still retains the design and feeling of this beautiful old brewer’s bar. Dim, long bar, raised area in the back, and a great selection of homemade beers including a nice clean sharp IPA and a sour raspberry lambic. Service is busy, don’t hesitate to wave them down, food is snacky but fresh and good. Beer lovers should check this place out, it’s tucked a few blocks off St Denis and is in many ways the perfect bar.

This is very much a no frills place but they serve excellent beer and the prices aren’t too shabby either. Expect to pay around $ 5.50 for a pint and the quality is very high for what you get. I tried the raspberry beer and I have to say it is one of the better ones that I’ve tasted here in Montréal. There isn’t much foodwise but the nachos everyone shared were pretty good.

great inexpensive beer!
service is fast and furious. place is buzzing with people so if you come with a group, you’ll wait quite a while to get a table. i was lucky enough to get one before our cmye meet.
and since its jam packed, it is quite loud despite not having much music (or no music at all)
as for beers, i got the raspberry one. its one boozy beer and its sourness gives it that smooth finish which is perfect for me.
their sour cream dip for the nachos did fooled me! i was wondering how it could defy the laws of gravity but it was in a porcelain bowl that gave the illusion that the cream was floating somehow. well done white horse, well done!

The beer is outstanding. The service is outstanding. What are you waiting for? Hop on a stool and let’s drink!
I’m a fan of the Blonde, a standard but good drinking beer, and the Berliner Weiss, a light, crisp and fruity brew. I also ordered a sample of the APL, a lager that I couldn’t bear to finish.
The bartenders are friendly, and she could see I wasn’t enjoying the APL. Instead I was offered another sample size (samples are $ 2.50 and generously sized), and I wasn’t charged for the original APL. Impressive.
A regular pint is only $ 6, which is totally reasonable for a craft beer bar.
Business was picking up just as we were leaving. When we arrived (maybe around 7:00 p.m.?) the small patio area was full, but the inside of the bar was near empty. Nice place to relax if you don’t like big crowds.

Kind of a David Lynch vibe goin’ on. Great place to get drunk before the tragic bus ride back to NYC.

Goutez à la bière coco bonheur (IPA crémeuse ananas et coco, pas trop amer) Elle est excellente! Pinte avant 8pm, pas cher. Excellentes bières
Nourriture = petite quantité

Bön choix de bière en général. Trop peu à grignoter malheureusement.
Beaucoup d’espace, grand choix de bières. Bref, un must

Cadre sympathique, bon service et surtout de bonnes bières

I was pretty jetlagged when I got there. So my impressions might have been altered. I was there on a Saturday night around 9 PM. And there was almost nobody: there was like five people outside and then maybe five people in and that was it. So, I was a little disappointed. Maybe I was too early.
The beer was good. I had the «mini IPA»: a fully hoppy beer but not as strong as a standard IPA. A little too bitter for my taste but had an amazing floral aroma.

We didn’t try any of the micro beers but the drinks were great and the nachos were so crispy! We were here on $ 2.50 Wild Turkey night so we were happy!

Fun place. belle ambiance décontracté. J’adore !!!

The sparkling clean, tile-​encrusted brewery of Le Cheval Blanc shown to me by the brewmaster after we had a couple of pints, doesn’t produce much (its a six barrel system), but it certainly churns out fine beer to the taps of their dimly lit brewpub, embroidered in deep leather red, accented by steel and wood. Six CAD for a pint of a fine IPA (spiked with citron), well balanced, not too bitter, the citrus backed up by a judicious application of Citra Hops. Six CAD for an Imperial of cream ale; rich, filling, warming.
Me and the brewmaster talk in broken French and broken English about our favorite wines and beers, foraging for morels, cooking large dinners for friends. Music plays softly; a back patio waits for the snow to melt. We go outside and smoke a Gauloise cigarette apiece, swearing against the cold (he in French, I in Arabic). Its a nice moment; we speak of our beer and food, the failures of both of our nations (Canada apparently sucks as much as the U.S. these days), of the loves and losses and pains of everyday life in a big city. He wants to move to San Francisco, I want to move to Montréal. We both laugh at the improbability of either happening.
I fall in love with the bartender, her boyfriend walks in, they share a lingering kiss. I fall out of love with the bartender.
A quick shot of whiskey (on the house), and I have to move out, my ruddy complexion sophomorically optimistic in the face of a cold too profound for a man from San Francisco to comprehend. The bartender gives me a half-​wave and a smile, I fall back in love.
My mustache freezes in the winter air.

Simple brew pub in Montréal. Price is good for what you get. One of my favourite places to grab a pint in the city. I’ll never forget the first beer I had here was a curry beer. A pint of curry beer is delicious as it sounds.

Not terribly impressive, but at least our waitress was friendly and the prices were good. My pint and a shot were just $ 9.50. The selection is minimal, and when we ordered pickleback shots, we got shots with pickles in them. Not sure if this is just a Montréal thing… especially since it may be my fault for asking her for something quintessentially quebecois to drink.

I know my jumping up and down, waving my arms vigorously for attention of a server would have been appreciated one day… and my Unilocal Friends would be so thankful that I able to get them their beers at Le Cheval Blanc.
Finding a table or even a chair is not easy. I know it is a Friday night. Everyone in the bar here are looking for a chair. as I viciously guarding that empty chair waiting for the last of our threesome to arrive with 10+ people trying to steal it away.
Picking what to drink was easy as I know I want to do a sample tray. 8 beer of different style all labelled and the beers at Le Cheval Blanc is quite delicious.
We sampled:
— Blanc
— Cream Ale
— Stout
— Export Porter
— Amber
— American Pale Ale
— Triple IPA
— Imperial Strout
Nothing stand out to be my favourite but they all true to their style and were quite enjoyable.
The music here though a little too loud, definitely not a place to chill or talk to your friends! But hey, you can scream at them after a pint of cheap drink or 2?!
I would avoid coming on a weekend… I just want to enjoy my beer not spending the whole evening trying to get my beer!

2.5 stars
This was one of the many brew pubs I visited on my last trip to Montréal. Unfortunately, it was probably my least favourite. I generally love all beer pubs and appreciate local craft beers but the overall experience resulted in fewer stars.
We had a table towards the back of the pub and it got so crowded. Every two seconds someone bumped into me, backpacks and purses hit me in the back of the head and I could barely hear my friends talking. The overcrowding also made the pub very hot and uncomfortable. The worst thing was the music — some crazy industrial music that sounded like someone scratching their nails on a blackboard — just painful (and this is coming from heavy metal music fan for almost 30 years).
Given the above, it would be hard to enjoy any beer. My friends ordered a sampler of 8 beers so I tried a few including: Blonde, Imperial stout, Triple IPA, Export Porter, cream ale and Amber. My favourite was the triple so I proceeded to order two pints. I found the other beers to be in the «average range». They had roughly 10 brews on tap which rotate.
The next problem was ordering the beer. Not sure they have enough staff here as it was rather painful to wave someone down (and I have a friend who is very good at this). Once we got someone, the were friendly and language was not an issue — they spoke English. Tourists should feel comfortable here.
Also odd was paying for every drink right away but I found this to be a common practice at other pubs in Montréal.
Not sure I would return but if I did, I would arrive earlier in the evening when its not so crowded.
BK

To be honest, I think that my favorite part about this place was not the beer, but the layout. I love DDC and Benelux, but I hate that they’re so crowded. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the Metro at rush hour in the winter in there.
Le Cheval Blanc was not like that. Granted, we were there pretty early, but just the layout suggested that there would not be the claustrophobia of the other places. For one thing, the number of tables in there seems proportionate to the amount of air a person would need to breathe and lift their beer to their lips if all of the tables were full.
That said, I did find that their selection was a bit unimpressive. We didn’t ask about anything but their beers on tap, so I don’t know if they do bottled or have a secret stash or something, but from what I could tell they were only offering 8 beers, and 3 of those were imports and wildly expensive (one of them was $ 22). They do, however, do flights/​samplers, and the beer is very tasty.

This place is a go to for me and my friends now. First off the beer (especially cream ale) are delicious and modestly priced $ 6 a pint. They are brewed there so that’s pretty cool too. The music is always good and is magically the perfect level, loud enough to enjoy but you never have to talk loudly to hear each other.
No dance floor, no outside patio for smoking. Lots of seating.
I recommend this bar for relaxed nights with good conversations not really to get wild, party and cut a rug, but hey, who wants to do that all the time right? :)
Definely go!

This place is the first handcraft brewery that opened in Montréal, and is still one of the best and one of the most affordable.
You don’t go there for food: they can sell you panini, olives or nachos, but they don’t have a kitchen, so you usually don’t take your meal there.
You go there for the beers!
I’m going to this place since 15 years, and like all handcraft brewery, the quality and the choice of beer may vary a lot from time to time. But in general, the beers are really good, the bartenders are really friendly, and the prices are lower than then the ones you find in Montréal. Moreover, it’s a really relax place, the music is not too loud, the crowd is sympathetic. Perfect place to discuss and enjoy good company.

Le Cheval Blanc est la brasserie devancière, celle qui a su propager le germe du brassage artisanal à Montréal, voire, à la grandeur de la province. Ce broue-​pub vaut bien le détour, né serait-​ce que pour la reconnaissance et le respect, bien légitimes, que chaque bièrophile devrait émaner à son égard. Le rouge prédomine; lanternes et chandelles créent une submersion lumineuse d’autant plus agréable que chaleureuse, rien de trop intime, idéale tant pour les pintes solitaires, que les ralliements augurant une soirées rugissante. D’ailleurs, l’endroit est souvent l’hôte de soirées culturelles: lancements de livres et albums, expositions d’arts picturaux, spectacles musicaux, etc.
La maison propose normalement une huitaine de bières bien distinctes: blanche (fermentée avec la levure originale du Cheval Blanc), blonde, ambrée, noire (stout crémeux à l’avoine, torréfiée), une saisonnière, et quelques créations risqué-​tout. Je me suis justement pris la Märzen (seulement 4,00 $ le verre), une ocre d’inspiration viennoise au nez agréable, mais un peu trop pétillante pour le peu de saveur qu’elle offre. Je n’ai su dénoter qu’un très vague arrière-​goût céréalier. C’est loin d’être la meilleure création, mais je vous rassure, la grande majorité des bières a du panache gustatif. La brasserie n’est nullement surestimée…
On y sert quelques mets pour les gourmets tels des nachos, paninis, saucissons, etc. Il est aussi à noter que plusieurs bouteilles importées nous sont proposées. Il faudrait cependant discerner les bonnes occasions des moins bonnes… Par exemple, la Houblon Chouffe (Dobbelen IPA Tripel), une bière de format 750ml, est vendue à 20 $ la bouteille, alors que l’on peut se la procurer pour la moitié du prix dans une SAQ du coin…
–On y vend des chandails à l’effigie de la brasserie et des types de bière.
–Bière servie en «cask» disponible!!!

Le Cheval Blanc, qui a été une des premières micro-​brasseries de l’histoire du Québec, propose bien davantage que la blanche qui porte son nom, mais qui est aujourd’hui brassée par Les brasseurs RJ. Le petit brouepub long et étroit propose un bon choix de bières brassées sur place. Si vous y passez, je vous recommande l’Imperial Indian Pale Ale, une bière houblonnée que vous né manquerez pas d’apprécier.