Image Attribution: By Smudge 9000 (originally posted to Flickr as The City Wall) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Beery John Bull, 1800s Quebec

Saying “Victoria” and “Quebec City” in the same breath seems contradictory. Quebec City, or Ville de Québec, is the historic capital of Quebec Province, French Canada’s heartland. It was founded in 1608 and has always been predominantly French, although its English-speakers in the 19th century formed a sizeable group, with an influence beyond its numbers.

Thus, from many points of view the city was British Victorian, at one time. Quebec province was ceded to Britain by the 1763 Treaty of Paris. This followed the fateful defeat of General Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham by General Wolfe of the British Army.

The Quebec Act of 1774 enabled the survival of French civil and religious institutions by recognizing the French language, the Catholic faith, and French Civil Law. But British rule in Quebec was consequential, to say the least.

One result was major areas of the economy became the preserve of incomers from Britain or the United States. A good example is the brewer John Molson who arrived in Montreal in the 1780s.

He established what is the oldest continuing brewery in North America, now Molson-Coors. Fortunes such as Molson and his descendants established were mirrored in many sectors including sugar, mining, furs, forestry, shipbuilding, insurance, and banking.

English incomers settled in Quebec City from the 1770s (and other smaller provincial centres), not just the larger Montreal. Quebec City is about 150 miles downriver from Montreal, east on the St. Lawrence River. It was and is the spiritual centre of the St. Lawrence Valley, the historic cradle of French settlement in Quebec. Indeed a 1940s projects for Quebec independence envisaged the new country as “Laurentia”.

While modern Quebec is a huge territory and is settled well beyond this heartland, its Laurentian core has always expressed its French character most completely. Yet the arrival of English commerce changed Quebec City and Quebec province considerably.

These “Anglais” or English were in fact a mix of Scots, English, Irish, and Americans, and later (1900s), Continental Europeans and others.

The anglophone group declined precipitously through the 20th century and today is hardly perceptible, although not quite forgotten. The Scottish-origin Simons have been in Quebec City for hundreds of years. They run what must be Canada’s oldest department store controlled by the same family.

Brewing fit in well in the new régime as, apart the historic connection of Anglophones and ale, beer had been brewed continuously in Quebec since the first arrivals, although never a major drink. The first commercial effort was in 1668 when Intendant Jean Talon set up a brewery on the site of what was later the Intendant’s palace.

Finally the site became a brewery again, in 1852, via the Anchor Brewery of Joseph K. Boswell, a Dublin-born settler.

In Quebec City in the 1800s the larger breweries were owned by Paul Lepper, James McCallum, and not least Joseph Boswell, none a francophone. Boswell’s sons continued to run the business until, and even after, the brewery became part of the National Breweries combine in 1909.

Their breweries reflected organisation and technologies similar to those deployed elsewhere in Anglosphere brewing. The sorts of beer made by Victorian Quebec brewers were similar to those made in Britain: porter, mild ale, pale ale, Burton ale, and Scotch ale.

Simply put, these were the beers familiar to the people who established these breweries, by dint of homeland memories or ongoing cultural connections. These traditions in turn were handed down by their now-Canadian progeny.

This brewing formed part of another story, the domination of the Quebec economy by English-speakers. This always rankled in French-majority Quebec province. (French-speakers after 1945 were and continue at about 80% of the population).

It triggered, from the 1960s, a series of social and economic changes in Quebec society, some enforced by language or expropriation laws. The result was to transfer a good part of the economy to French hands.

But the present post concerns an earlier time, when a brewery in Quebec could use English in advertising and signage without feeling obliged to include a French version. Today, that would be impossible, both socially but also under Quebec’s French language laws.

Let’s turn now to how Victorian residents of Quebec City, who took more than an average interest in beer, viewed its palate and quality. Two sources, one in English, one in French, shed some light.

Willis Russell

Willis Russell was American-born, from New England. He came to Quebec City at about 30 and soon was its best-known hotelier. His career is summarized in an early Canadian biographical entry. Russell was active in numerous other businesses and investments, and also in civic government.

He wrote a history of Quebec City in 1857, no doubt to promote his hotel interests, and took notice of the brewing trade in town. He lauds the plant and products of the Boswell brewery, in particular. Whether Boswell paid him money for this attention, we shall never know.

Some of Russell’s comments reflect an imperfect knowledge of brewing, but it is clear from his discussion that Boswell’s made India Pale Ale, porter, probably mild ale, and a strong, Burton-style ale.

Russell notes the beers were never sour and were made without addition of – permit the Victorianism – factitious ingredients. He stated some hops were imported from Kent in England but some were obtained in Canada and that barley malt was locally sourced as well.

He considered the local ingredients of excellent quality. While he approved the beers made by other breweries in Quebec City, only Boswell came in for extended praise.

In his estimation: “Indeed Quebec can produce the fine India Pale Ales of Edinburgh; the rich sparkling amber ale of Burton; the stingo of Dorchester; the entire or half and half of Barclay Perkins, London; and famous dark porters of Dublin”.

Hubert LaRue

Hubert LaRue was a French-Canadian physician, a protean 19th century figure interested in literature, agriculture, politics and history. He mixed with the elite Victorian set in Quebec City, and had connections with the French-language University of Laval, of which he was the first medical graduate.

Today, we would call him a public intellectual. This impressive figure took an interest in the topic of beer. In his 1881 Mélanges historiques: littéraires et d’économie politique, Volume II, he made observations on the beer of his native city and “Canadian” beer in general.

He noted hop cultivation in Quebec generally did not succeed due to early frosts or other problems; hops came from New York and Wisconsin but were variable in quality, and none could equal the best from England and Bavaria. He stated imported hops were used for the finest beers.

LaRue added that domestic hops reminded him of the nauseous quality of aloes. Aloe, or aloes is a botanical often described as bitter, acidic, and just bad-tasting: one source states baby vomit! This poor opinion of North American hops accorded with professional brewing opinion in Britain, at the time, and a few domestic observers as well.

Brewing took place, wrote LaRue, all year round due to the availability of ice, whereas malting  was seasonal. An analysis of Canadian beers by LaRue showed they contained 7-8% alcohol, specifically “Gay Lussac”, which means alcohol by volume. This level accords with much historical data on ales and porter of the day.

LaRue credited Montreal’s William Dow with bringing major improvements to Quebec brewing, inspired he said by English practice, and considered all Quebec-brewed beer improved as a result of Dow’s efforts.

LaRue made an interesting statement that Canadian beer reminded him of beer in Bavaria on trip he took in 1856. This statement can be parsed in different ways, but I believe he was referring to stability – Quebec beer, as the German, wasn’t sour or infected.

In good part this probably resulted from the liberal use of ice in Quebec, always easy to hand, and likewise Bavarian lager relied on ice and cold storage for its quality.

Britain in this period was not able to ensure the long-keeping of beer without some acidification or wild yeast development. This was despite the use of heavy hopping for some styles or the blending beers to obtain a more drinkable product.

N.B. [Added December 23, 2019]. For a continuation of this post see my “Canadian IPA in 1867 – a Heady Brew”, posted December 23, 2019.

Note re second and third images: the McCallum Pale Ale label is from the collection of the McCord Museum in Montreal. Details on its full name and ownership can be found here. The third image was sourced from the Thomas Fisher Library of the University of Toronto, similar details in its regard are available here. Images are believed available for educational and historical purposes. All feedback welcomed.