Black Lab Brewing

I’m a lazy ol’ sod. Black Lab Brewing has been open for ages in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood, and its been my radar since before it opened, but, pathetically, I only just hopped on a streetcar and trekked over. And, to make matters worse, I only visited the bottle shop. I eschewing the taproom, which would have been my usual first point of contact, because a bout of extreme back pain made the prospect of sitting at a bar an almost certain study in agony. So, after nearly an hour headed east via the 501 streetcar, I only actually spent about 15 minutes in the place.

Fortunately, my brief visit to Black Lab’s bottle shop was stewarded by an extremely helpful and knowledgeable staff person named Ashley, who guided me in putting together an optimal six-pack of the beers on offer on this particular Saturday in July. I left with a suitable smorgasbord of 500mL bottles, some stickers for my home bar, and a playful piece of glassware.

So, stay tuned over the next several days for my thoughts on an initial, belated run of ales and lagers from Black Lab Brewing.

People's Pint Pit-Stop

Located in the former home of Junction Craft Brewing, People's Pint Brewing Company is tucked a bit off the beaten path in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood. It's a place I've long intended to visit, but never seemed to find the opportunity. That all changed on a recent Saturday afternoon, and I'm glad it did. Staffed with friendly folks, People's Pint provided a chill environment supplemented with a few stylistic flourishes (such as the beautiful carving on the side of the bar). They offer a great selection of styles and strengths, including a couple of nitro options.

I tried three brews during my time at the brewery and left with another four bottles. Stay tuned t the Bitter World over the next couple of weeks to read my thoughts on seven offerings from this excellent Toronto spot.

Brews from the Six

It’s not often that I am right on top of a new brewery when it opens, but The Six Brewing Co. is four blocks from my front door, so I’d have felt remiss if I didn’t get there in the first week. As it happened, I stopped by the brewery/bottle shop on their second day. Had a nice chat with one of the owners/managers(?) and left with a four-pack of the beers he recommended. A pale ale, a Belgian Wit, an IPA, and a lager. In fact, the brewery was so fresh that the beers hadn’t even been named yet—they were having a contest to name them when I came it (we’ll see if I win).

So stay tuned this week for my thoughts on four of the debut brews from The Six.

Northern Maverick Brewing Co.

It's a fact that when I moved into my current neighbourhood in Toronto in the summer of 2010, there were no easily walkable breweries. Zero. Zilch. Then, in 2011, I started this blog. As of September 2017, there are three walkable breweries, with a fourth slated to open later this year. Now, I'm not saying I'm solely responsible for this influx of craft beer to a once-overlooked, too hip for beer neighbourhood, but my blog and I have clearly been wildly influential. Right?

The latest opening is Northern Maverick Brewing Co. Located in a lovely and open space on Bathurst Street with a patio and a full kitchen, NMBC seems like a place I'll be getting intimately familiar with over the next few months. Today, though, I just breezed on over to take a look at the bottle shop.

I was instantly greeted by two friendly and enthusiastic dudes who were eager to help. Playing dumb, I let them give me the rundown on the five beers that were on offer, they shared their wisdom. and I came home with four: a hefe, a white IPA, a gose, and a dry-hopped sour, all sold in 500mL bottles branded with a polar bear in aviator shades.

Stay tuned this week for my thoughts on the bulk of NMBC's initial offerings.

Ricky and the Hendersons

After spending a highly enjoyable afternoon at Toronto's Henderson Brewing Co. with the ultimate friendship duo, MT and AK, along with the Bitter Wife, I decided to pick up a quartet of Henderson's offerings to review. The four I ended up with with Henderson's Ides of March 2017 (a dark saison called Face of Toronto), their Ides of April (a cucumber blonde ale), the Rube Goldberg tripel, and the Old Fashioned Premium Rye Ale. This four all came in 650mL formats and were housed in an excellent carry out box featuring a cutout of that phallic Toronto landmark, the CN Tower.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World for a Henderson Brewery theme week I'm calling Ricky and the Hendersons!

SingleCut Beersmiths

During my wife's 30th birthday trip to New York City, I dragged her all the way to Queens, or more specifically, to Astoria, New York, via public transit, to visit SingleCut Beersmiths. We tried to get there in time for the final tour of the day, but underestimated the length of the trip and missed it. Still, we found a pretty cool little brewery. The food was ordinary, but extremely affordable, and the beer was worth the trip. Plus, it was a hip industrial space and they were playing cool tunes.

 Stay tuned to the Bitter World this week for reviews of three of SingleCut's year-round brews: "Billy" Half Stack IPA, "Dean" PNW Mahogany Ale and "19-33" Queens Lagrrr!.

Left Field Brewery

During 2015's May long weekend, my wife capitulated and joined me on a trek to Toronto's east side to pay a visit to the Left Field Brewery, a long anticipated space that has recently opened its doors to the public.
 

Unfortunately, Left Field doesn't yet offer tours, so that wasn't an option, but on the plus side, I've been on enough brewery tours to know what they would've told me. The space is pretty cool--in keeping with the baseball theme, they have a working ballpark scoreboard that displays the brewery's hours. As well, they have a bottle shop where you can purchase bottles and cans of the good stuff on offer, and some pretty cool merch (although no shirts big enough for this portly beer geek--c'mon guys, know your audience!).

 

With lots of space, a neat alley location, and some cool baseball touches, Left Field Brewery has put together a a complete game three-hitter of a place, or if you prefer an offensive metaphor, they're a double away from the cycle. Either way, it's the kind of performance a player can be proud of and will be talking about for years to come. It's a bit out of the way, but well worth a journey.