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Stopped by for lunch today. Had one of their house beers "Vanessa", a saison brewed with meyer lemon and hibiscus. Brewed in collab. with Nickel Brook. Very impressed by it.
Current tap list:
Vanessa by Brux House/Nickel brook
Bretty White by Brux House/Oast House
Le Paysan by Nickel Brook
Lake Effect by GLB
Pompous Ass by GLB
Harry Porter by GLB
Fallen Idol by Indie Ale House
Kentucky Sour by Nickel Brook
Frost Quake by Wellington
Kentucky Bastard by Nickel Brook
18 Hands by Amsterdam
Brettal Head by Bellwoods
Roman Candle by Bellwoods
Taplist will go up to 16-18 beers total. No plans on a cask engine but will likely see some gravity casks on the bar in the future.
Bottle selection includes Bellwoods (Skeleton Key, BOYD, Boogie Monster) and many Belgians like the Westies, Rodenbach Grand Cru, Dupont, etc. Also spotted some Amsterdam Sour Cherry Imp. Stout. This will also grow, and they also have plans to "cellar" certain beers for future release.
Had the elk scotch egg, and a pork schnitzel served with pretzel spaetzle. Both very well done. The chef appears to be the former Sous from Quatrefoil. The rest of the lunch menu looked promising. Looking forward to seeing the dinner menu soon.
Easily the new #1 spot in Hamilton for beer. They have a true passion for beer, which seems to be lacking from most of the other local bars. The main downside is that you're paying fine dining prices for the beer on tap.
A shark on whisky is mighty risky. A shark on beer is a beer engineer.
I'm actually serving here part time. I figured I'd be there all the time anyway so why not right?
Cale gave a pretty acurate description of the current tap list - and it's only going to grow from here. Tomorrow we should have our Brux House/Sawdust City brett IPA on tap and there should be a few more added by the end of the weekend too. As mentioned, Vanessa is really tasty and we also have Wild Vanessa coming soon too.
Gabe from Quatrefoil is heading up the kitchen. I've tried the majority of the menu at this point and everything is tasting great.
I'm really passionate about beer (which is probably self evident since I frequent this forum ) and I think the rest of the staff are too. It's great to be excited to go to work and I hope that we can get a lot of support from the local beer community.
Open table will be up and running for the restaurant soon but in the mean time if anyone wants a reservation feel free to send me a PM and I can get it set up for you!
Yeah, so kind of hand my eye on this and blown away in every possible way.
Crazy tap list for Hamilton, and really, top tier even for TO. Well curated with some unique, well done semi-exlusives. 3 collab brews between Mark at NB and NB proper, Oast and Sawdust with more to come that will excite hardcore beer-geeks and newbies alike. All offerings good to great. Knowledgeable servers and passion for good beer and to be trend setting. Really awesome to talk to Mark from NB and his love for both hoppy aroma/flavour as well as wild things. Nothing but up side from my visit today. Went in for 1 beer. Stayed for many, many. Can't even recall the last time that happened.
This is going to be great from a beer perspective. Food did not disappoint either and has great pedigree. Very little excites me in terms of beer now-a-days and this excites me. Well done and bring it on!
Haven't been here yet but as soon as I saw the draft list I thought the exact same thing.
boney wrote: 3 collab brews between Mark at NB and NB proper, Oast and Sawdust with more to come that will excite hardcore beer-geeks and newbies alike. All offerings good to great. Knowledgeable servers and passion for good beer and to be trend setting. Really awesome to talk to Mark from NB and his love for both hoppy aroma/flavour as well as wild things. Nothing but up side from my visit today. Went in for 1 beer. Stayed for many, many. Can't even recall the last time that happened.
This is going to be great from a beer perspective. Food did not disappoint either and has great pedigree. Very little excites me in terms of beer now-a-days and this excites me.
This is fantastic news for Hamilton. Gonna have to make a special trip down for this place!
"Bar people do not live as long as vegan joggers. However, they have more fun." - Bruce Elliott
We tapped a keg of the new Citraddiction XPA from Great Lakes right as I was leaving last night. Rodenbach Grand Cru should be on in the next few days as well.
Some of the new beers hitting the tap list in the next couple of days:
- Brewdog Punk IPA
- Sawdust City Winding Road (rye saison)
- Dieu du Ciel Aphrodisiaque (really pumped for this one)
I'm going to try to encourage them to start posting the tap list on their twitter page every couple of days too.
Not many places in the world with great beer and food: publican and eataly in Chicago, Isabel in Toronto (although it's been lack luster recently) and I would like to add Torst to that list but my meal at Luksus was horrible.
With Mark on Beer and Fraser/Gabe on food, this will be wildly successful.
Makes me want to go to the hammer more often.
Last edited by cveerman on Sat Dec 13, 2014 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
We just added Bellwoods Boogie Monster to the tap list and we also have bottles of barrel aged Grandma's Boy available if anyone wasn't able to make it in to the release in Toronto.
Also, if anyone's interested, we just announced that for New Years Eve we'll be doing a 3 course prix fixe menu for $65 with beer pairings available for an additional $20.
Kegs of Peche Mortel and Moralite just arrived from Dieu du Ciel and are waiting to join Afrodisiaque on tap. Karma Citra will be arriving soon as well.