September 15, 1999 -- If the last time that you tasted fresh, draught Budweiser Budvar was when you visited the Czech Republic, you should probably have been in Québec over the Labour Day weekend. I was there, and let me tell you, the Budvar tasted fabulous.

The Best Beers booth was the brainchild of Festibière organizer and BièreMag publisher Mario D'Eer and BièreMag editor Alain Geoffroy. Making effective use of email, the two beer aficionados surveyed close to two dozen beer professionals around the world (yours truly included) and asked them to list the ten beers they would take with them to heaven to drink for eternity should they be called tomorrow. Emphasis was placed upon the beers that the respondent would want to drink forever, not necessarily those that they considered the greatest achievements of the brewing arts.

When results were finally tallied, the ten "Best Beers in the World" were as follows: Cantillon Bruoscella Lambic, Duvel, Guinness Stout, Orval, Pilsner Urquell, Traquair House Ale, Westmalle Tripel, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, and of course, that Czech Lager B.B. Four of those beers appeared on my list, as did two of the other breweries (which were represented in my heavenly ten-pack by different beers), but I'm afraid that is all I will be revealing about the content of my list. (Said list would be different today or on any other given day, anyways, as I suspect would be the case for the lists of the others surveyed.)

Other highlights of the day I spent at Festibière:

-- Québécois beers that I tried which were either new or new to me included Ambrée de Sarrasin from Les Bières de la Nouvelle-France (a pleasant buckwheat beer with a very spicy, buckwheaty nose and a lightly sweet, spiced body accented by hints of fresh apple), Cobra from Le Chaudron (a new, tasty, well-balanced IPA from a solid young Montreal brewery), the stout from La Barberie (wonderfully intense, roasty, chocolaty nose and a body which, although good, doesn't quite measure up to the aromatic advance billing), and a special Festibière beer from Les Brasseurs du Nord (a terrifically refreshing and palate-cleansing raspberry-ginger ale with a fresh and fruity nose and just enough ginger heat in the body to balance the raspberry sweetness.

-- X.O.Beer, a "Bière au Cognac X.O." from a company called L&L of Cognac, France. Said to contain 5% X.O. cognac, this is one of the most successful marriages of spirit and beer that I have come across (take note Tequiza fans!). The pedigree is apparent from the first nosing, with the beer's fruitiness blending marvellously with the complex cognac aromatics. In the body, the partnership is less successful, but only just, with a hint of roastiness accenting a fruity beer-cognac flavour. The finish dries nicely, leaving a distinct and very pleasant sensation of cognac on the tongue.

-- The beers of Montréal's newest brewpub, Dieu du Ciel, which I actually tasted at the brewpub rather than at their Festibière booth. They included a pleasing Blanche de Septembre, with a perfumey, floral-sweet nose and a very orangey body, as well as a wonderful smoked malt Charbonniere, which presented an only lightly smoky aroma but a very well-constructed fruity-smoky body with hints of cherry, plum and perhaps licorice. The latter brew reminded me a bit of an ale version of the Spezial Rauchbier that I so enjoyed in Bamberg, Germany, and that was most certainly a very good thing.

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