Toronto Brewery Crawl

With summer coming to an end and me entering my 34th year on planet earth, I gathered some of my dearest and closest for a day of exploring Toronto’s breweries. Toronto is home to quite a few breweries with many in the downtown core and for my birthday we did a crawl to five of them. My parents are only in town for a bit longer so we utilized their babysitting skills and set off at noon to  link up with the rest of our group. We even had a friend’s baby along, just so that I had a chariot to carry my purse! 😉

Ofcourse we were drinking and so we were all extremely responsible and were Hailo-ed around during the day. A big thank you to Hailo for getting us around the city in style. Given the size of our group, we split up into four cabs and for the most part was able to easily HAIL(o) our way around very easily. If you haven’t used HAILO before, use the code BABYANDLIFE and get $10 off your first ride!

India Ale House : We started out at one of my favourite spots in the city (promise a kid friendly write up soon!), India Ale House. Not only do they have a great rotating offering of beers, but they also have some awesome dishes. Don’t worry, I didn’t get the same dishes as always. Well…I still got wings but Papaya Habenero ones! Which was a good pairing with a mango ale I had. This was a great spot to congregate at and we spent two hours leisurely.

Junction Craft Brewery : Most of us had never been here and it was such a cute and rustic spot. It’s a small spot but just what we needed as our second pitstop. They were a ten minute walk down from our first stop so we enjoyed the sunshine as we wandered over. We spent an hour here marveling at the decor and the lego trains as a few of us enjoyed the sampling paddle.

Bellwoods : Always a favourite, we got here just as their lunch menu was ending. It was a hot day and the patio was packed but they were gracious enough to host our group upstairs. With lights twinkling above our heads and candle lit vases around us, it felt like the entire space was just for us! The garlic fries were ah-mazing and the fact that I was able to have one of my favourites, the Dieu de Ciel Aphrodisiaque, made it a great midpoint stop.

Get Well : We couldn’t have asked for a more laid back and super fun spot that this one. Having been here before we were hoping we could snag the couch at the back so that those relaxing could watch the action of those playing some old school video games- we did! Pinball featuring Dolly Parton and Tetris were popular but my favourite was my atari Gallaga! They had a ginger beer ale here and that’s what I enjoyed over my games.

Mill Street Beer Hall : I had made reservations here and asked my parents to head over with the little ones so we were quite the large group at this point. They were ready for us but sadly the evening here turned out to be quite disappointing. I’ve always loved stopping here during our day time beer crawls and I think that’s where we lucked out…with daytime visits. This evening they were busy and were extremely understaffed. The manager apologized and tried to make things right but with only one bartender for the entire large space, drinks were slow coming out and waiting for hot sauce meant that my burger was cold by the time I ate it. I won’t mention how they goofed out a birthday dessert for me! It was funny though. I’ll return for an afternoon here with kids (coz they have lots of kid friendly services and change tables in both men’s and women’s) but I’m going to steer clear during our group outings.

All in all a great day exploring some of the many great Ontario craft beer options and we still have quite a few to visit. Perhaps a part two next spring? We’re already counting down to our third annual 12 Pubs of Christmas!