Craft Breweries in Toronto: Five Taprooms Across the City

Burdock says it has been brewing in Toronto since 2015. The Ontario Craft Brewers profile describes beers that are food friendly, refreshing, pale and easy-drinking. It mostly makes lagers and pale ales, with a taste for Grape Ales, which are beers inspired by wine. The Bloor Street taproom offers a rotating tap list and a menu made to match. The Kensington Market Tavern is where the brewery sends you for the full lineup and a place to settle in. Our pick if your plan is a long, easy dinner.

Godspeed’s site lists a retail shop, a taproom and the WVRST Kitchen at 242 Coxwell Avenue. The brewery says it honours centuries-old brewing traditions, often with the help of expressive Japanese ingredients. It also describes a growing pull toward authentic Czech-style lagers. Its online shop has a Non-Alc category. The brewery says it offers free pickup at the brewery, next-day home delivery and Ontario-wide shipping, which makes it an easy one to send to a friend in another city. Good for a mixed group where not everyone wants a beer.

Bellwoods began as a small brewpub in the west end of Toronto in 2012. The Ontario Craft Brewers profile says it has since grown to include two retail shops that sell fresh cans and bottles. Its site lists the Hafis Bottle Shop and Taproom on Hafis Road and a bottle shop on Ossington Avenue. The retail shops stock an ever-changing mix of bottles and cans, from hoppy styles and sours to crisp lagers and sparkling waters. The Ontario Craft Brewers profile adds that the brewery also has a production site in North York and makes about 10,000 hectolitres a year. A shop stop works well when you want to carry the evening home.

The brewery is in a renovated hundred-year-old horse stable in the Geary Avenue arts district. It says it seats 50 comfortably indoors, with patio seating for another 50 in the warmer months. The kitchen serves a Southern comfort menu, with meats smoked in-house over oak staves from the barrels used to age its beer. The Ontario Craft Brewers profile dates the brewery to 2015. Architecture and barbecue in one stop; that is our kind of afternoon.

Left Field was established in Toronto in April 2013. The Leslieville location is a Tap Room and Bottle Shop on Wagstaff Drive, in the east Toronto neighbourhood. The Ontario Craft Brewers profile adds that it sits at the brewery’s production facility. The Liberty Village location is described as a 300-plus seat brewery, tap room and kitchen. The brewery says its range includes hard seltzers and non-alcoholic options. Its site also invites groups to book semi-private event space. Our pick for a team outing that is not an escape room.