Please, no jokes (Beaver Street Brewery)

Member Name: ermintrude

Product:	Beaver Street Brewery
Date:	19/06/01 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Real beer brewed on the premises, good selection of pizza toppings, generous portions of fondue

Disadvantages: Sports on TV, the word "groceteria"

I did my entire final year dissertation on beavers. The mess those little beggars can make of the landscape, yeesh... but not as bad as the mess that this place will make of your waistline.

Beaver Street Brewery is a pub as well as a brewery, and it serves food. Pub food, but good food. Wood-fired pizzas, home made bugers, Things That Are Fried. It also does a mean line in fondues, believe it or not. And of course, it brews beer.

Served in Imperial pints if you like (a mammoth 20 fl.oz for $4 compared to the usual wussy American measure of 16 fl.oz for $3.50), there's four or five beers all made on the premises, and all pretty tasty. I didn't sample them all (long day coming up and all that), but the Railhead Red was a decent, average coppery ale, and the Bramble Berry Brew was very good indeed, if maybe a little too fruity. They slipped down easily enough, anyway.

Being the adventurous souls that we are, my friends and I all had pizza. Just the right amount for one person, without too much uncovered crust (my pet hate if there's nothing to dunk it in, which there wasn't), there were enough slightly exotic toppings such as marinated chicken, portobello mushrooms and walnuts to keep us all happy, and at $7-8 apiece, they were a bit of a bargain. Cooked in a wood-fired oven for that genuine smoky taste and charcoaly fingers, too.

There's a disappointingly small selection of uninspiring desserts (4), so we were daring and ordered the Whistle Stop Fondue ($10) to share (all the railway references are due to the proximity of the railway line, if you're wondering). I've never had fondue before, so can't comment if it was a good or bad example, but it was enjoyable, if a little too much. The savoury-winey-just-about-liquid cheesy stuff came with a sweetish, dryish beer-bread, sliced red and green sharp-tasing apples, and grapes, all of which went fairly well with the cheese. It was just so filling! Definit
ely recommended for at least four people, even if they haven't had pizza beforehand. We couldn't finish it.

As for the atmosphere, it's quite bright and open for a pub, although quite busy and noisy. There's an obvious crowd of regulars by the bar, watching sports on TV, and plenty of tables for those eating. You can watch the pizza makers at work if you don't like TV sports, or check out the old photos of when the place was a "groceteria". Although our waiter looked too young to be working there, he was very good at recommending beers and at remembering what we'd ordered, so full marks I think. And the final touch? There are newspaper pages pinned on the walls in the immaculate (ladies') loos. I like this place :)

Summary: