The Bar Towel

https://www.rorschachbrewing.com/

They have been open for about a month on Eastern Ave. near Coxwell, I think in the old Le Papillon space. Nice space.

The beer list is saison-heavy with some sub-6% IPAs and a stout. I only tried a couple of beers on our brief visit. I enjoyed the Enthralment IPA and was less enthralled with the Telepathy Dry-Hopped Saison.

Food is tapas-style with a focus on Mexican (head chef is Mexican) - tacos, nachos w guac, skewers, frites, currywurst. Everything we had was good, except the fried eggplant was boring, albeit exactly as advertised.

1L swing-top growlers available for take-out at $10-$12. Though I just opened one on the day of purchase and the beer is rather flat.

Tap List:
'reductionism' pale ale
'god spot' provisional saison
'truth serum' ipa
'latent construct' coffee oatmeal stout
'polygraph' wheat saison
'enthralment' ipa
'telepathy' dry-hopped saison
'dream day' ipa

my friend went last week. beer geek, home brewer.

brewery's typical toronto: really not good upon opening.
said 1 beer was ok and the rest weren't good. i don't know if it was Louis Cipher-level bad, but he said he wouldn't return.

tired of Toronto breweries not spending an extra month to get their shit together and brew something good prior to opening. the owners not tasting their beer?
drain pour batches.
this brewery likely cost close to $1 million to get up and running. what's an extra few thousand dollars in drainpoured test batches?

So any updated news on these guys? Anyone from around here checked them out recently? How are you liking the beer? Considering going to give them a go myself but don't want to bother if it they aren't doing nice things.

I tried one of their IPAs recently (Rorschach Reverse Psychology) and thought it was just about perfect. I'd give them a shot!

Tried two of their beers that a friend recently picked up for me:

Session Pale ale - average
Dry Hopped Sour - not very good

finally got a chance to swing by and grab a couple beers from these guys. got the plum ipa and super saison. the plum ipa was nice, subtle fruit. the super saison was amazing.

definitely want to go back. gorgeous space, too.

Has anyone here tried their flavoured stouts currently available in the bottle shop? Looks like 4 versions of Malevolent Benevolence. I'm finding reviews hard to come by.

Also, has anyone used their delivery service in the city? Their location and hours make visiting very difficult for me at the moment.

I've had the Mole and Hawaiian versions of Malevolent Benevolence. Both were excellent.

beerstodiscover wrote:I've had the Mole and Hawaiian versions of Malevolent Benevolence. Both were excellent.

Thanks

Just placed an order here after discovering them while looking for fruit beers.. their Hedonism line sounds amazing!

I only spent like 40 bucks on a test order but I have a feeling they’ll be seeing lots more of my cash if they keep dropping fruit beers

I haven’t heard anyone talk about this place much so I’m assuming they aren’t popular

duckdown wrote:I haven’t heard anyone talk about this place much so I’m assuming they aren’t popular

I think the vast majority of breweries in Ontario never got talked about before the pandemic primarily for two reasons:
1. most of them operate mainly for locals - not many offered shipping in the past
2. their beer may be good but not worth talking about

Now that virtually ALL breweries have jumped on the shipping bandwagon - due to being cut off from local sales through their closed taprooms - a lot of beer nerds across the province are "discovering" places like Rorschach.

I suspect once people receive their first order - with a range of beer that may be a week fresh to 6 months old - from many of these places, it will be their last .... with Rorschach possibly an exception, most of the beer isn't worth paying a "craft" premium for, let alone 15-20 bucks for shipping a 2-4.

Rorschach is worth trying. I'm not into sours or fruited beers but I like their IPAs. Can vouch for the current batch of Truth Serum, Master Status and Telekinesis. Their "crowlers" are actually 1 litre plastic medicine bottles since they don't have a canning station and they are currently not accepting growler returns or doing refills. They still have plenty of cans and bottles on offer as well.

They are in an odd, low traffic spot in the east end, but there are now two breweries within a block of each other on Eastern Ave (Black Lab is always busy on the weekend). With Left Field, Godspeed, Rorschach and Black Lab you can now do a worthwhile east end pub crawl.

Good info, and thanks!

I grabbed a couple of their Master Status IPA's as well, so if those are decent, even better!

portwood wrote:

duckdown wrote:I haven’t heard anyone talk about this place much so I’m assuming they aren’t popular

I think the vast majority of breweries in Ontario never got talked about before the pandemic primarily for two reasons:
1. most of them operate mainly for locals - not many offered shipping in the past
2. their beer may be good but not worth talking about

Now that virtually ALL breweries have jumped on the shipping bandwagon - due to being cut off from local sales through their closed taprooms - a lot of beer nerds across the province are "discovering" places like Rorschach.

I suspect once people receive their first order - with a range of beer that may be a week fresh to 6 months old - from many of these places, it will be their last .... with Rorschach possibly an exception, most of the beer isn't worth paying a "craft" premium for, let alone 15-20 bucks for shipping a 2-4.

Rorschach falls (almost) under your category 1. They have been shipping across Ontario for at least a year though. I'm not from Toronto but any local I've heard speak about them has had good things to say. I've had a number of their sours and pastry stouts. All excellent. My only critique is their pastry stouts are the sweetest I've ever tasted of any pastry stout, but whether that's good or bad is entirely put on each individual's perspective.

As for freshness, your suggestion of shipping stale beer is entirely conjecture. I, personally, would guess the opposite. I can't see any craft brewery, who most I know are passionate about what they do, would dare give a paying customer stale beer. Several breweries have publicly complained that the LCBO receives fresh beer but doesn't shelve it until it's past best-before dates.

cboden wrote:As for freshness, your suggestion of shipping stale beer is entirely conjecture. I, personally, would guess the opposite. I can't see any craft brewery, who most I know are passionate about what they do, would dare give a paying customer stale beer.

Not conjecture, real experience.
I'm not suggesting they are necessarily shipping "stale" beer but I just received an order containing:
4 cans of Euro dark lager and 4 cans of Pale lager, both canned Dec 10 (4 months old)
4 cans of Scotch ale canned Jan 21 (this one can take considerable time in the can, but 3 months isn't exactly fresh)
Munich lager & witbier canned Mar 25
a stout, IPA, & Dortmunder lager all canned Apr 2nd.
not from the LCBO but direct from a well respected brewery. Again, 4 month old lager isn't a big deal BUT not exactly fresh for lager!

I have received orders in the past direct from 2 other breweries with beer close to 6 months old and also received beer without date codes - which tasted fine but were probably 4-6 months old.

so, your statement that craft brewers are passionate and wouldn't dare ship stale beer is looking at the brewing BUSINESS through rose colored glasses.