Vices & Versa is a warm neighbourhood bistro on boulevard Saint-Laurent that has made itself the great showcase of the Quebec terroir — a place devoted to the province's producers and artisans, where craft beer, local spirits, hearty cooking, and live culture all flow together. The formula is generous and proudly local: some forty taps of artisanal products, including cask-conditioned ales served the old way, a terroir-driven kitchen, and one of Montreal's most iconic terrasses on which to enjoy it all.
The tap list reads like a map of Quebec's brewing scene, changing constantly but always deep and adventurous. Recent rotations have poured Dieu du Ciel!'s legendary Péché Mortel imperial coffee stout and its hibiscus witbier Rosée d'Hibiscus, hop-forward IPAs from Messorem, Brasserie du Bas-Canada, Le Castor, and Noctem, a sea-water gose from Le Naufrageur in Gaspésie, smoked lagers, English milds and nitro-creamed pale ales, barrel-aged curiosities like a wheat wine finished in apple-brandy casks from Mille-Îles, and collaborations brewed with the bar itself — alongside Quebec ciders, honey spritzers and mead-based creations from Desrochers, and alcohol-free sours and kombuchas. Pints of the regular pours sit at gentle prices (around $7.50–9.50), and the "Carrousel," a flight of six galopins for $23, is the classic way to roam the board. The bottle cellar goes further still: a quarterly-changing private-import list featuring Gaspésie's cult farmhouse brewery Auval, barrel-aged wild ales from Aléa, true Belgian lambics from Cantillon (Rosé de Gambrinus, Saint Lamvinus), and a remarkable range from Brasserie Levain of Besançon — the spontaneous-fermentation project of Aymeric Tissot, trained at Cantillon and rooted in the Jura's Tissot wine domaine, whose beers are aged on wine lees and macerated with Pinot Noir, Poulsard, and Trousseau marcs, fresh quince, mirabelles, cherries, or even Jura-grown Sichuan pepper. Through its private-import arm, Vices & Versa even lets you order these exclusive bottles and kegs for pickup at SAQ outlets across Quebec.
The kitchen follows the same philosophy — cuisine du terroir built on Quebec products, comfort food made to accompany what's in your glass — and the room doubles as a stage. The programming runs from jazz concerts (recent evenings have featured quartets led by saxophonists Éric Plante and Erik Hove) to traditional Québécois music jams, the Rire & Versa comedy night, the convivial "Dimanches du Vices," and festive one-offs like a St. Patrick's Day of boxty, Irish-inspired beers and cocktails, and live Irish music — much of it with free entry, in true neighbourhood spirit.
Convivial, curious, and deeply rooted in its province, Vices & Versa is at once a bar, a table, a stage, and an embassy for Quebec's brewers and artisans — the kind of place where a flight of six little glasses can take you from a Gaspésie saison to a Jura-aged wild ale without ever leaving the Main.