What a treat!
We cruised up to Guelph, ON yesterday to check out Royal City and so thrilled that we did...
It's proof you can have a quaint little brewery with a cool setting & tasting room, friendly staff and Awesome beer in just a strip mall store front.
Not only does Royal City Brewing Co make fantastic beer they create a wonderful atmosphere to sit back and enjoy a pint!
Royal City has been around for 1.5 years and apparently Guelph is known as the "Royal City". Also apparent is that only people from Guelph know this...
We ordered flights and from right to left below (or right to left in my selfie) I had; Suffolk St Session, Dry Hopped Pale Ale, Smoked Honey & Exhibition IPA.
Just look at that photo like a beautiful Adult Rainbow....
The Dry Hopped Pale Ale was my fav out of this bunch and the Smoked Honey my least fav though I can appreciate it as a great beer. The owners (or brewer pardon my memory) wife is a bee keeper and proudly supplies the honey for this brew.
How cool is that? Bee keepers.. I have met a few and they are not short on interesting stories, what a cool job.
Dan was serving us behind the bar and was a great guy! Happy to chat, answer my questions and offer more info to us on beer in general... LOVE this! It's an important part of my visit to be able to chat with the staff and learn cool stuff.
Besides the awesome Rock n Roll soundtrack they had going on Dan gave us a sample of a Bamberg Smoked Lager. Along with the sample came an explanation and a story about Bamberg being a town in Germany and a bit about his adventures there touring breweries!!
Now I am not a huge smoked beer fan as I have had some terrible smoked beers (see Beer Advent Day 16) but Dan assured us this was worth a try and I trust Dan...
It was well balanced and not too over powering on the smoke flavour .. me likey.
Dan worked away at filling Growlers and Bombers from a cool looking machine we now call the;
"Dr Who Time Machine filler thing"
and though it is a slower process it actually assists in their Growlers lasting closer to a month in the fridge rather than a few days as those poured from draught do.
After they were filled he screwed on the lid and gave the outside a rinse in the sink.
He was carefully rinsing these bombers as if they were a new born baby getting a gentle rinse in the sink.
We now call him "Gentle Dan"... not really but that's funny.
We enjoyed another glass of the Dry Hopped Pale Ale, continued our conversations and can't wait to visit again.
As mentioned in the video Royal City Brewing Co will be at Burlington Winter Beerfest January 29 & 30th!! I have tickets for sale or you can get them at the door or their website for $20. It is going to be a blast so we better see you there!!
Cheers!
Tiffany