It’s a good time to be a craft beer lover in the Ottawa region. Beau’s has quickly grown from fledgling start-up to local craft beer institution. Brasseurs du Temps, a Gatineau brew pub, opened its doors in 2009 and, if you’re willing to make a pilgrimage across the river, you’ll get to experience a number of fine brews. It wasn’t long ago that word arrived of two new local upstarts, Kichesippi and Hogsback. Both have now found their base and are beginning to embark upon interesting paths. Just last year, Mill Street came to town. I personally couldn’t be happier with their new brew pub in Lebreton Flats.
There’s more! In the past year alone, there has been an onslaught of beer news throughout the region. Summer 2011 saw the opening of the potentially haunted Ashton Brewing Company, and Broadhead Brewery set up shop in south Ottawa. Cassel Brewery is on the verge of launching in Casselman. Les 3 Brasseurs, a chain of resto-breweries based in Québec, plans to launch an outlet at 240 Sparks Street this fall. Though not a brewery, the new Brothers Beer Bistro is already serving as a hub for beer enthusiasts. And Big Rig Brewery, a brew pub that gained local notoriety when it emerged that Senators’ defenceman Chris Phillips was a principal investor, opened recently in the east west end.
Despite only being open for a handful of days, Big Rig has already experienced its first disaster. An electrical fire caused $30,000 of damage in the kitchen and forced it to close during what would have been its big opening weekend. Fortunately, the precious kettles and vats were spared. Amazingly, things seem to be back on track already.
My partner and I dropped in a few days ago to check out the pub and didn’t see any evidence of the fire. In terms of atmosphere, Big Rig Brewery feels like a slightly upscale sports bar, or as my partner put it, “what would happen if The Keg and Local Heroes had a baby.” There are TVs mounted on the wall to provide sports junkies their fix, but they were actually rather unobtrusive. The feature that really draws the eye is the brewing room. Patrons can gawk at three giant stainless steel kettles through a huge glass wall and maybe even watch the brewing process take place.
I got the feeling that the owners want their customers to focus on the beer. It’s an effect that is almost ruined by the silly uniforms the serving staff wear. Women are decked out in ultra-short black mini-dresses and colourful baseball socks. It seems a bit impractical for the women servers; every now and then, we would see one of our servers struggle to negotiate the shortness of their skirts with various tasks around the pub. Men’s uniforms are far more practical, replacing the mini-dresses with jeans and t-shirts. Speaking of servers, ours were attentive but a bit scattered. Four different waitresses served us over the course of our meal, creating some confusion and at least one fumbled order. It was clear that the serving staff were still ironing out some of the kinks associated with working in a new establishment, so we gave them plenty of slack.
Things got interesting when the beers started to arrive. Big Rig currently offers five standard brews plus an alternating seasonal. The current seasonal is a Hefeweizen, a style of German wheat beer that is a personal favourite of mine. Other stand-by brews include Big Rig Gold, Rideau Red, Byward Brown, India Pale Ale and Stud Stout. Unfortunately, the India Pale Ale and Rideau Red weren’t available during my trip, but such is life in a brew-pub where the beers are made in-house.The four beers I sampled were competent and enjoyable. The Gold is a moderately carbonated, crisp beer with a light mouthfeel. This one would work well on a patio during the summer. The Byward Brown is a hoppier number featuring caramel and coffee notes. On their website, Big Rig describes the Stud Stout as “a velvet painting of chocolate and beer making out while listening to Barry White, painted by Otis Redding.” I’m not sure if that quite describes it, but what I tasted was a lightly carbonated, rich and rather competent stout. Of the four beers I tried, the Hefeweizen was tops. I think the brewers really nailed this one, producing a cloudy golden brew with spicy and aromatic notes.
My partner and I ordered a few dishes with our drinks, including mussels, guacamole and sweet potato fries. The mussels were a little odd, not served traditionally in their own sauce or steamed in beer as you might expect at a brew pub. They arrived in an aioli made with Big Rig Red. While the aioli was pleasant and the mussels were tasty, we missed being able to mop up the juices with bread afterward. The guacamole was quite standard and the sweet potato fries were nothing to write home about. Strangely enough it was the homemade ketchup, infused with cloves and other goodness, that truly managed to steal the show in terms of food.
After finishing up and heading to the door, we stumbled upon the brew store. It was surprisingly well-stocked for such a new brewery, offering clothing, glasses and beer paraphernalia. I was excited to see that 1.8 litre growlers were available for sale. I left happily with one full of Hefeweizen and another distinctive bottle for my collection.
In the end, Big Rig offers up some worthwhile brews. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for those seasonal beers as they become available. If you can’t stomach the trip out to the west end, Big Rig plans to bring its brews to the LCBO in the near future. There’s also talk of expanding into different locations. As far as I’m concerned, the more players there are in the burgeoning Ottawa craft beer scene, the better it is for us beer lovers.
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