One of the best things about Mondial is the fact that you tend to see everything related to the beer industry in Montreal at its absolute best. The brewers are happy because they’ve usually just spent a couple of weeks producing special products in order to impress and delight. The servers are happy because they’re almost certainly going to end up with a huge payday in tips. The customers are happy because of the brewers and servers, creating a feedback loop of high spirits which tends to lead to irrational exuberance and bonhomie.

This was certainly the case Thursday night at Broue Pub BrouHaha. Due to the fact that the anniversary of the pub’s opening tends to fall on the Thursday of the Mondial de la Biere, it becomes that evening’s destination for scores of beer nerds and also for those residents of the Rosemont area. The brewer had celebrated by bringing in some of his favorite beers from other brewers around Montreal and also by creating a few of his own for the occasion.

The pub is a split level affair. The bar is in the downstairs section, with an open plan floor and slightly overcrowded seating. It looks as though the album Rain Dogs should be playing over it at all time s, a fact which seems not to have escaped the owners as there’s a velvet painting of Tom Waits in the corner of the room. The upstairs level of the pub can more accurately be described as a Lynchian nightmare. There’s brown tile that looks as though it was rejected by a hospital in the early 1970’s and instead of paint or wallpaper they’ve opted to use floor length black velour drapes all the way around the room. In places where a bank in the ceiling protrudes, the sides of that protrusion are covered in fake cedar shingles. Aside from the candles, the only light in the room is the one shining directly at the pizza oven and the dull thrum of a sodium streetlight which shines through the propped open emergency exit.To suggest that it’s merely ugly would be comparable to calling Clint Howard aggressively handsome; A pointless exercise in disingenuous blather. It’s an impossible assault on the eyes and simply occupying the space tends to make you begin to doubt your own sanity.

I suspect that the reason it continues to exist is the fact that a lot of people are contributing to making it happen. This was their third anniversary an it’s very clear where their priorities lie. I suspect that all profits that have been made thus far have been channeled directly into research for new products and improvements on the brewery. All other thoughts seem to have been ignored totally, and this is the reason that the place works. They have a loyal if eclectic clientele of people who genuinely appreciate what they’re attempting to do. These are people who might even be offended if someone suggested a remodel. The customers are almost exclusively local as evinced by the annoyance of a local softball team that had trouble getting a table (in uniforms elaborate enough to make me suspect they were actually filming a remake of The Warriors.) No one in the bar is over 40. Our waitress wore enough plaid to qualify as a refugee from a Pearl Jam tour.

I sampled a couple of the house beers, and one that was from an off site brewery. The Luxura Double IPA is about 10% alcohol and has a significant amount of hop bitterness with some citrus notes and a nicely balanced malt. The Gaz de Course is about 13% and is in the style of an American Barley Wine. It’s too smooth if anything, which makes it dangerous and has a mellow sweetness instead of the harsh alcohol you might expect. The Vent des Anges was something entirely different, a sour beer at 8.5% the aroma of which, according to my tasting notes, reminded me of a cedar closet from childhood. It’s the kind of beer that dares you to forge an understanding of what the brewer is trying to accomplish.I’m going to call Brettanomyces on that one.

At approximately 10:30 a young man in an Iron Maiden shirt walked over and pulled down the roll-up screen and started a projector. The screen showed videos and still images over the course of the next couple of hours that were excerpted from 1980’s french language action films and various performance art installations. Periodically they would show entire levels of early nintendo shoot-em-ups being navigated perfectly.

Eventually they brought over some complimentary anniversary snacks. A plate of duck legs with a brash Jalapeno BBQ sauce. We were about halfway through them when a video came on the screen of a man in a g-string and cat mask slathering himself in several litres of peanut butter while sitting cross legged in the middle of a tarp. He was surrounded by a group of unmoving senior citizens seated in a semi circle on blue plastic chairs. They betrayed no emotion whatsoever. Nothing creates a shared bond amongst pub-goers like a mutually experienced sense of disgust. It also reinforced in my mind a valuable lesson learned years ago: If what you’re seeing is forcing you to do a double take, it’s probably past your bed time.

What you should know here is that Brouhaha is ugly, but it’s also far from unlovable. The number one priorities seem to be the quality of the beer being brewed and simply having a good time. I can’t say that it’s like this all the time as I’ve only ever been on special occasions, but it’s practically brew pub as performance art. It dares you not to enjoy yourself. I suspect that it would be impossible for it to exist anywhere else, and I know one thing for sure: You can’t do that in Toronto.