Oh Brasserie Harricana,
I want to like you; I want to understand you. I had so much hope.
The beer scene in Quebec can be a touch myopic, and tends to be a bit behind the beer scene in the rest of Canada and the States. Brasserie Hurricana has made a couple of choices that are decidedly internationally oriented.
First of all Basserie Harricana participates in the Mikkeller Beer Run. Mikkeller is a prolific Danish "gypsy" brewery that makes an extremely wide array of beer in collaboration with other micro breweries. They particularly tend toward doing many variations on the same beer. Paying attention to the international beer scene and participating in this way is definitely a point in Harricana's favour.
Of greater note is the fact that Harricana has a very fancy beer system known as a Flux Capacitor. This system allows the beer lines to be micromanaged individually, and is present at only at a handful of places including the excellent Torst in Brooklyn.
In the space between the potential of the flux capacitor, and the reality of its use, is where we find disappointment.
Brasserie Hurricane has 40+ beer lines, at least when we visited they were only using 9. All 9 beers were house beers and the two we tried were disappointing.
For now Brasserie Harricana is a bit of a disappointment.
There is one brewery in the country that has really succeeded, in terms of its beer, as a brewpub, Central City in Surrey BC. I hope in the future Harricana decides to stop trying to be everything to everyone, fill the lines with beer from other breweries and focus on making 1-3 of their own.