Welcome back to Thebeerchaser.  If you are seeing this post through an e-mail, please visit the blog by clicking on the title above to see all of the photos at the end of the post and so the narrative isn’t clipped or shortened. 

In the last post, I told you about our recent Holland America cruise from Montreal to Boston with our good friends the Noppers. https://thebeerchaser.com/2024/05/29/hop-on-board-with-thebeerchaser-part-i/

We had a night and a morning in Montreal before we embarked on the Volendam (on Saturday May 4th – my birthday) so on Friday, we took a ninety-minute bus tour of the city and then walked around to see historic buildings and, of course, bars and breweries.  

I might add that we stayed at the La Centre Sheraton – right downtown – which had a wonderful looking bar itself. The concierge recommended a couple of good places for beer.

Our first watering hole where we had some excellent beer was 3 Brasseurs. (That’s “brewers” in English). Evidently, it is a chain with establishments thoughout France and four locations in Canada – Montreal, Quebec, Toronto.

“Welcome to our brand with 30 years of experience in beer making, design and service of authentic and generous local dishes, for the greatest satisfaction of our customers.”

The bar had a great atmosphere inside with a long, attractive bar, but given the beautiful day, we sat outside on the expansive patio – right on the street which made it more interesting.  

And we sat next to a young and very friendly couple – the first of many great people we met on our trip – who were visiting from the Western part of Canada. We only had beer and they even offered to share their food with us since the servings were so generous. 

We declined and ate that night in an Italian restaurant – a mistake – we should have ordered a burger and fries at 3 Brasseurs.

I left the others for five minutes while they were waiting for our beers, to check out the other recommendation from the concierge – Brutopia – kind of an interesting name and I was sorry we didn’t have time to check it out.  It looked very interesting:

“Brutopia Brewpub is the premiere brewpub in downtown Montreal. Since we opened our doors early in 1997, our attentive, friendly staff has been serving full flavoured beers, freshly brewed on our premises.” (# – External photo attribution at end of post #1)

It looked like the brewpub had great food, but we still had places to see and instead ate that night in an Italian restaurant – a mistake – but I guess I already said that above. 

The ship left the next day at about 5:00 PM and we had some beautiful views of Montreal – by the way, the city is actually on an island….And shortly after we left the pier, I saw another brewery I would have liked to hit – I guess when we return.

It brought back memories of two of Molson’s slogans from the past:

“We’ll drink to that.” (2005)

“Molson’s makes it golden..”  (1986)   (#2)

Molson and Coors merged in 2005 and at that time, Molson Coors was rated the third largest producer of beer in the United States, and the second largest brewer in the United Kingdom.

It has continued to expand and in 2016, “per the agreement with the regulators, SABMiller sold to Molson Coors full ownership of the Miller Brewing Company brand portfolio.” Wikipedia             

Shipboard Life and Port Adventures

We quickly acclimated to life on the cruise.  The only issue which disappointed me was that with the exception of the second day, we sailed from port to port in either the late afternoon or after sunset into the morning hours and I didn’t get to see that much of the beautiful countryside and towns along the St. Lawrence.

Every day, we could either sign up for tours (excursions) ranging from walking tours, to tours of museums, historic homes to long bus tours e.g. an eight-hour ride (including lunch) which we took on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia to see the beautiful coast and mountains.

We sailed Saturday evening from Montreal to historic Quebec City. Before debarking the ship for the tour, we had our typical breakfast at the Volendam’s Lido Market Place – a buffet that had an amazing assortment from pastries to traditional faire to lox. 

 The first morning, I had lox and onions with my scrambled eggs, even though some would scoff at this combination. 

We then took a two-hour guided walking tour of the city of 549,459 settled originally in 1633.  To get from the pier to the upper level and most of the attractions, we took the Old Quebec Funicular (1879). 

At the top was a great view and an abundance of history.

The tour was very interesting, albeit wet, as a steady rain came down. It didn’t dampen the experience of seeing the:

Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac (“An iconic historic hotel in Quebec City known for its castle-like architecture and stunning views of the St. Lawrence River.”) (1893) (#4)

or

Notre-Dame de-Quebec Basilica Cathedral (“An historic and iconic basilica-cathedral, known for its stunning architecture and religious significance.”).  (1633 – original) (#5)

Since our excursion of Quebec City was over by lunch, we spent the rest of the day exploring the ship. 

The activities were an eclectic bunch of pursuits – keeping in mind that given the median passenger age, there could probably be an animated discussion of the Nixon vs Kennedy debate.

There were team sports or competitions from bingo to trivia to soccer goal scoring to cornhole to poker to pickleball to bridge, but these were not for us as was the case with “Origami Folding – Paper-bomb” or “The Art of Flower Arranging” to “Coloring for Adults” (not hair…) or “Adventures with Water Colors – Jellyfish….” (#6 – #7))

However, there were no offerings such as “The Colorful History of Pabst Blue Ribbon,” or “Hop Gardening,” although I have to admit given the median age of the passengers, I was surprised to see one actually entitled “Pampering the Ladies…”

One that piqued my interest was “Make Your Own Mug” until I found it that it pertained to coffee rather than beer and I blanched about spending 90-minutes in a session – “Make Your Own Flower Vase.” 

And these were just on the first two days so I thought with five more days left on the cruise, they might consider “Make Your Own Titanic” or “Make Your Own Submarine,” but Janet told me not to go anywhere near the Cruise Director with these suggestions.

We decided that we would enjoy walking the deck and then reading and viewing beautiful Quebec City from a higher deck – this while consuming one or two of our fifteen “free” drinks per day (unbelievably – part of the cruise package).

It made me think seriously about the assertion of Aloysius Archer, the protagonist in the Baldacci novel I was reading:

“If you’re going to drink all day, you have to start in the morning.”

While walking the deck, my mind was still at work wondering:

 “Do they really need the warning message on the bulkhead shown in the following photo?”

And while my initial “Make Your Own” suggestions were not viable, given the robust supply of cooking material on board, why not “Make Your Own Life Ring?”  (#8)

On a more serious note, I thought Holland America missed a good opportunity by not mimicking Portland’s Breakside Brewery which recently advertised:

“Make Your Own IPA Ice Cream, 11 a.m.-noon Saturday, June 15: Join Malek and Breakside head brewer Ben Edmunds – churn your very own beer-infused ice cream.”

The selections in the dining room for the evening meal were splendid as was the presentation and quality. We typically had two meals each day (along with an occasional cookie or ice cream cone in the evening.)

Given the expansive and plentiful availability of both food and alcohol, it made me wonder if any medical research had been conducted on the correlation between heart attacks and post cruise living.

I decided to banish that morbid thought the next morning when I had my breakfast which included lox and a bagel. (#9)

Stay tuned for our next port, Charlottetown – 721 nautical miles from Quebec City – so we had one full day of just sailing, before we docked at this next city – another one with a rich and interesting history. 

External Photo Attribution

#1.  Brutopia Brew Pub Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=903734435093709&set=a.485131863620637.

#2. Molson Canadian Facebook Page by Samuel Hurd Photography (https://www.facebook.com/samuelhurdphotography/photos/t.100064389773443/373652893053044/?type=3).  

#3.  Wikimedia Commons (Château Frontenac city at night – Quebec City – Wikipedia) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  Author: Wilfredo Rafael Rodriguez Hernandez –  27 September 2018.

 #4. Wikimedia Commons (2016-11 Château Frontenac 06 – Château Frontenac – Wikipedia)  Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  Author: 0x010C –  8 November 2016.

#5.  Wikimedia Commons (File:Basilique-cathédrale de Notre-Dame-de-Québec.JPG – Wikimedia Commons)  Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  Author: Sylvainbrousseau 16 September 2012.

#6. Wikimedia Commons (File:Adult Coloring program.jpg – Wikimedia Commons)  Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  Author: 
Jenn Gaylor – 22 September 2015.

#7. Public Domain – Wikimedia Commons (File:Jelly fish in watercolour.png – Wikimedia Commons)  Licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Author:  Midjourney AI prompted by Netha Hussain –  21 January 2023. 

#8.  Wikimedia Commons (File:Onion Ring (48075744183).jpg – Wikimedia Commons) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.  Author: Ryan Dickey – 16 June 20219.

#9.  Wikimedia Commons (File:Lox-and-bagel-02.jpg – Wikimedia Commons)  Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  Author: Kristina D.C. Hoeppner –  25 July 2012.