Brewery crawl

[chickenfeet]

 We did a rather weird brewery crawl yesterday.  We started out at Rainhard as they were doing a Berliner Weiss launch.  Getting there was just weird.  From the streetcar (512 at Gunn's loop) we crossed a small park then walked down a longish residential street of fairly new townhouses.  Very trim and, looking too modern(*) for most Toronto neighbourhoods,quite suburban feeling.  Then we hit a wall.  A fifteen foot high concrete wall.  Pass through one of the gaps in it and suddenly it's all industrial and there are three breweries.  We skipped Junction.  It's a decent brewery but basically makes craft versions of the most popular (hockey) beer styles.  Rainhard was good.  The peach/ginger Weiss and a sangria sour were particularly good.  The second part of the plan was to grab empanadas at People's Pint but on the way we stopped off at Shacklands which neither of us had ever heard of.  There was a land acknowledgement on the door, a sign prohibiting any kind of discrimination and a "Smash Fascism" sticker.  The owner is an anarchist and the Belgian influenced beers are really good.  We finally made it to People's Pint but the empanadas were the puffy fried kind and insubstantial.  Also Maris, the brewery cat and a dead ringer for Jane was off hunting.  We headed back to Rainhard for something a bit more substantial.

That whole neighbourhood is an amazing place for a brewery crawl.  If one started out at High Park Brewery, a total of about 30 minutes walking would let you do five breweries and a gin distillery.  And Rainhard, Shacklands and People's Pint will all have something other than the "standard" craft beer line up that every Toronto craft beer place has. (IPA, ESB, Pilsner, some kind of session beer)

* It's the Stockyards neighbourhood.  When I first moved to Toronto this was the final destination of many a cow and pig.  

Comments

[cmcmck]

I think you'd like our favourite local pub- they brew on site.

Rowton Brewery, Wellington, Shropshire.

[sabotabby]

I had something from Rainhard and really liked it. I had not heard of either People's Pint or Shacklands but I'm into anarchism and brewery cats, so I shall have to check out both.

[chickenfeet]

Shacklands and PP don't have anything in the LCBO so you have to go there or find one of a very small number of bars that carry their brews.