Goose Island is opening a Toronto brewhouse

Goose Island is opening a Toronto brewhouse

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Toronto is getting yet another brew pub. This time, however, it’s not a local startup but a collaboration between Cara Operations Ltd., one of Canada’s leading restaurant brands and Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, a company that controls almost a third of the world’s beer. Chicago’s Goose Island is making its way north of the border and joining forces with Bier Markt to build Canada’s first Goose Island Brewhouse. So your local nano-brewery watering hole for neckbeards and the be-flanneled this is not, but the partnership means that the brand largely responsible for popularizing bourbon-barrel-aged beers will join a chain known for an extensive collection of local and import beers—inarguably an intriguing match no matter where you fall in the craft-beer-versus-big-guys argument.

The new brewhouse is scheduled to open July 17 at 58 The Esplanade (in the old Fionn MacCool’s space) and will have 18,000 square feet of dining space, a large patio on the south side of the building and a 60-person beer garden on its north side. Head brewer Bernard Priest, who comes by way of Quebec’s Les 3 Brasseurs, notes they’ve already spent time hanging out with local brewers and are eager to collaborate. “The Goose Island Brewhouse will have a guest tap featuring another great local brewery, and we’ll be creating locally inspired brews,” says Priest. “We’re experimenting with a great one right now using raspberries from St. Lawrence Market that we can’t wait to share.”

Correction

June 8, 2017

An earlier version of this post stated that the Goose Island Brewhouse was moving into the Bier Markt space when it is actually moving into what was Fionn MacCool's. It has since been updated.