Name: Craft Beer Market
Contact: 1 Adelaide St. E., 437-922-2337, craftbeermarket.ca/toronto, @crafttoronto
Neighbourhood: Financial District
Owners: PJ L’Heureux
Chef: Cameron McGowan
Beer, of course. Out of the 160 taps, 145 of them are devoted to beer. The encyclopedic menu includes a handful of macrobrews (Bud Light, Guinness, Kronenbourg), a bunch of the bigger Canadian brands (Mill Street, Steam Whistle, Beau’s, Big Rock, Le Trou du Diable) and a surprising amount of Toronto and Ontario microbreweries (Blood Brothers, Brimstone, Elora, Collective Arts, Henderson, Clifford, Calabogie). The remaining 15 lines pour wine, cider, ginger beer and even kombucha.
This Calgary-born concept first spread out west, with locations in Edmonton and Vancouver, and then moved east to Ottawa before gracing Toronto. Everything here is Prairie-sky huge, from the 420-seat space, to the 160 taps, to the nearly 50-item menu, which includes just about every North American bar-food favourite: wings, poutine, burgers, ribs, nachos and fried pickles. A few international flavours (tacos, ahi poke bowls, coconut curry shrimp, Korean lettuce wraps) round out the offerings.
“This is my craft beer cathedral,” says L’Heureux, looking down from the mezzanine onto the bustling main floor below. The 16,000-square-foot, two-storey space will be even bigger by next summer, thanks to the addition of a 250-seat courtyard patio.
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Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.