 Beer Scene: The Rhino and C'est What |
It's difficult to pick one high temple of beer in Toronto. Bar Volo is devoted to casks, the Biermarkt is busy with beer events and sun-seeking suits, and the Granite Brewery is a northern outpost for beer afficianados. With its warren barrooms, extensive craft selection, and running string of awards from bartowel.com C'est What definitely has to be included in the list. This week, during their annual festival of beer, C'est What's devotion to craft beer can be enjoyed at its most diverse.
To warm up before the festival's opening day I made my way out to Parkdale for a couple of quick drinks on the patio at the Rhino. Great Lakes has done a tremendous job of getting some of their beer into the LCBO (most recently the Crazy Canuck Pale Ale) but for every pumpkin ale there are three of four of their beers that you have probably never heard of. Luckily, the Rhino is featuring a couple of their lesser-known IPAs on tap this week.
The GLB RoboHop Triple IPA came highly recommended by my server and it didn't disappoint. It has a dark copper colour, strong bitterness and intense length but most remarkable was the flavour of caramelised white grapefruit. My notes have this as "what Queen Victoria drank with her oatmeal."
The Aces High IPA from Great Lakes is more subtle with a much lighter colour and a really unique taste that called to mind cucumbers and cedar closets for me. Both of these IPAs are worth a shot, especially when the sun returns to the Rhino's spacious patio.
At C'est What an impressive crowd of committed drinkers were obviously enjoying the generous (2 to 3 oz.) samples that could be had for a buck.The wide selection of esoteric names–one demure patron kept herself from giggling by ordering the Big Butt Smoked Dark Ales as "the one from C''est What…the you know…" –is a good hint the flavours will vary just as widely. I managed to try ten of the twenty-six and was not disappointed with more than one of two.
My favourites were the Spearhead Hawaiian-style Pale Ale (grapefruit, pine needle, all of the floral, complex notes of honey without (much of) the sweetness), the Great Lakes Lackey's Caskey (medium copper colour, more intense flavours similar to Crazy Canuck, smooth mouthfeel, very refreshing) and the Durham XXX Cask (honey and strawberries, slightly bitter, definitely a sipper).
This is also a good chance to see how a particular beer in cask differs from the same beer in other containers. A couple suffered from this method but both the Duggan's #9 and the Mad Tom IPA from Muskoka tasted better than when I've had them from the keg or bottle.
For Tuesday through Thursday nights of OCB week (June 21 – 23) there will be twenty-six beers offered in sample-size portions for a dollar each. On Friday (June 24) they take this number up to forty and on Saturday (June 25) for The Great Beer Chaser do away with the samples and offer the week's special beers for $4 a glass or $6 a pint. Remember to make a concerted effort to tip the bartenders even though you're exchanging tickets and not cash for drinks.
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The Rhino
1249 Queen St. West, Toronto
416-535-8089
www.therhino.ca
Queen W west of Dufferin
C'est What
67 Front St. East, Toronto
416-867-9499
cestwhat.com
Front and Church
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