The Bar Towel

Went yesterday, tried almost all the beer they had. Almost everything was good. Nothing was mind-blowing, but I would say it was all pretty solid.
They now have two BA beers, a Belgian Golden aged in Chardonnay barrel with brett, and an Oud Bruin.
Bottles are pricey, but really pretty. It's exactly what a brewery in NOTL would be.
BIG downside is no food and no space for a kitchen. I hope they can fix that.

they bring in food quite often. when i was there a few months ago they had regular sushi night, sounds like they now have paninis mon-thurs, pizza sometimes, etc. they also have 4 or 5 regular bar 'snacks'

distr0 wrote:they bring in food quite often. when i was there a few months ago they had regular sushi night, sounds like they now have paninis mon-thurs, pizza sometimes, etc. they also have 4 or 5 regular bar 'snacks'

Yesterday being Friday, our options were $3 for a paper cone of peanuts.

I finally had a chance to go there about two weekends ago and have to agree that pretty much every beer of the 7 I tried was at least good to very good. the nice array of well done and interesting styles easily pushes them to top of the breweries in the niagara region (I know, not heavy competition, but still nice for a brewery in its first year). I would love to have some of these beers as staples in my fridge except they have decided to brand themselves and market themselves as Canada's "premium" brewery and are more concerned with selling their beer in a fancy, novelty bottle at NOTL souvenir prices rather than at the average market rate. I have no problem paying top dollar to breweries like jester king, cigar city, and hill farmstead, but a brewery producing solid beers that are easily replaceable off the shelf both here and at the stores in Buffalo is not getting my repeat bottle business.

hopefully, they will fix their format and pricing issues so I can stock my fridge with their beer. for now, they will just be another nice venue in downtown notl for my wife and I to grab a drink before or after dinner that I would definitely recommend to other beer nerds as stop when visiting niagara (especially over the other two breweries in virgil).

Stopped in for a sampler and agree the beers were quite nice. Some IPA variants, an Oud Bruin, a couple of Weiss - a nice spot with tasty beer.

Is it just me but is NOTL a lot of hype and not much else? Besides Exchange, the main drag of NOTL had lots of people and lots of things but not much quality.

One year anniversary tonight from 3pm - 9pm. Think I'm finally gonna make a trip out there.

Anyone been recently?

my wife and i went at xmas and enjoyed it. very classy room, more like a high end wine bar. a great selection of styles compared to most startups, and well done too. they have some small bites on the menu also

Dropped in last night and I pretty much enjoyed all the beers I tried. A few were quite top notch beers. My favorite of the night was the Flanders Red ale followed by the Belgian Golden ale. I'm amazed more brewers don't take a chance on these styles. They are so drinkable in any situation but I would imagine the smell with the addition of Brett in the golden ale could easily turn some people off. They had a few casks out as well. I tried a very nice Maple Porter and a raspberry stout but unfortunately I was disappointed that the Oud Bruin w/ clementines isn't getting opened until today.

My problem with this brewery is the prices. You're going to have a very expensive night there even if you just want to sample beers. At $3 a pop for samples you'll be paying more then you would at some of the beer fests out there. I also feel like I paid extra for the ambiance and silly 750ml wine like bottles everything comes in. I'd much rather be able to purchase smaller bottles or even better yet cans.

Unfortunately this is a one and done for me. Great beers but the prices are what you would expect from Niagara On The Lake and I'm not a wealthy person living in NOTL.

CoolB wrote: My problem with this brewery is the prices. You're going to have a very expensive night there even if you just want to sample beers. At $3 a pop for samples you'll be paying more then you would at some of the beer fests out there. I also feel like I paid extra for the ambiance and silly 750ml wine like bottles everything comes in. I'd much rather be able to purchase smaller bottles or even better yet cans.

How big are the samples? $3-5 per sample doesn't seem too far off from most bars in Toronto depending on the beer.

JerCraigs wrote:How big are the samples? $3-5 per sample doesn't seem too far off from most bars in Toronto depending on the beer.

Many can recall when bottles were $3 and premium pints were $5.

And now some days you order a 'pint' and bars DO bring you a glorified sample size. So it's all relative.

JerCraigs wrote:

CoolB wrote: My problem with this brewery is the prices. You're going to have a very expensive night there even if you just want to sample beers. At $3 a pop for samples you'll be paying more then you would at some of the beer fests out there. I also feel like I paid extra for the ambiance and silly 750ml wine like bottles everything comes in. I'd much rather be able to purchase smaller bottles or even better yet cans.

How big are the samples? $3-5 per sample doesn't seem too far off from most bars in Toronto depending on the beer.

I'd say they were just about like these ones.


I haven't lived in the big smoke for close to 20 years so I'm probably not accustomed to paying for samples.

I was recently at a another new brewery in Fonthill and the owner there was glad to hand out as many samples as we wanted for free. Granted they were smaller but I guess the philosophy was to want us to know what we want to bring home. We sampled pretty much everything he had and then left with close to $50 worth of his beer.

I'd understand the paid sample thing better in a straight up bar but at a brewery I think small free samples are the way to go then we can buy what we know and like.

I want to be clear that these guys make fantastic beer and they have niche in NOTL. Just the price points don't fit my budget too well.

To be honest it's not 100% one and done. If i'm in town I'd still drop in for a pint.

Interesting - https://on.thegrowler.ca/2018/09/21/exc ... neous-ale/

Anyone tried?