BATCH. Stop #1 of Brewpub Hopping in Toronto

Today, we visited BATCH, a brewpub (micro brewery cum pub) in downtown Toronto's Victoria Street, a stone's throw from Eaton Centre mall and Hudson's Bay Company (iconic historic department store).



BATCH is located in a historic building at the intersection of Victoria Street and Lombard Street. All around Toronto's downtown core, high rise gleaming glass and steel condos under construction are towering over heritage masonry buildings.



Pushing open the heavy front door at BATCH, the first thing we saw was a wall of canned and bottled beers. There were BATCH beers in bottles brewed right there at the shop and canned beers by Creemore Springs, BATCH's parent which in turn is owned by Molson Coors (world's 7th largest brewer by volume in 2017).






Inside BATCH, the ambiance is casual, warm and welcoming, understated yet classy. The inviting heavy, well padded furnishings are very comfortable.





Taking the stairs down to the basement, there's another bar, a games room and space for private parties.



BATCH brew their beers right there at the shop everyday. The kettle room is on our right as we enter the brewpub - we can smell the distinctive aroma of brewing hops (much like you smell brewing Arabica in good coffee shops).



Head brewer Chloe Lovatt brings to BATCH, infectious passion and a wealth of experience. Thanks to her, I caught the brewpub bug.



Torontonian Chloe learnt her craft starting at Matilda Bay Brewery in Melbourne Australia and worked in several leading breweries including Little Creatures in Fremantle (near Perth) before coming back to Toronto.

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International Women’s Day is about celebrating the strong females that make what we do a success. Watch our head brewer at BATCH, Chloe Lovatt speak and demonstrate how women are making their mark in the craft brewing industry. Featured on CBC News. Join us tomorrow as we take part in the International Womens Collaboration Brew, and celebrate IWD from 8 AM to 5 PM 🍻

A post shared by Batch Toronto (@batchtoronto) on Mar 7, 2019 at 9:21am PST

Chloe joked that a beer brewer's job is part chef and part janitor because a big part of a brewer's work day which starts at 7am consists of cleaning and scrubbing. This is because the brewing process is highly sensitive to cleanliness and hygiene - the slightest contamination can ruin a whole kettle.

Head brewer Chloe with her team Justin and Cassandra. (Another member, George was on vacation during our visit.)



Chloe graciously showed us around the kettle room. In the room were a mix of original vintage wood cladded copper kettles, as well as modern steel pots.



Justin feeding hops into the kettle.

No preservatives, no additives are used and BATCH beers are non pasteurised.



The beers on tap today. Six were freshly brewed right there in BATCH.



The best way to sample beers is in a Flight of Four. We can pick any 4 of the 6 brews of the day.



I like every beer I tasted today, with the more robust tasting Black Lager being my favourite. Though I enjoyed BATCH's beers a lot, I'll be faking it if I just copy the taste notes and pretend they are mine. I am learning more about appreciating beers, but meanwhile here are the taste notes according to BATCH's menu:

🍺 Cream Ale (ABV 4.8%) Corn, mild hops, stone fruit, clean, easy finish

🍺 Black Lager (ABV 4.5%) Dark chocolate, rye bread, espresso, hints of dark berries to finish

🍺 Lombard Lager (ABV 4.5%) Lemon spritz, crackers, light dry finish

🍺 Maibock Lager (ABV 6.5%) Honey cracker, light floral hops, clean finish.



Daily fresh brew at 5 bucks a pint (US pint = 16 ounces or 473 ml). Jolly good deal - that's cheaper than most generic canned beers in restaurants 😄



BATCH has a menu of beer snacks / appetisers, salads, sandwiches, and mains. We picked Fiddleheads because we had no idea what they were 😄

Turned out that we all loved it 😋

It's fresh ferns on bagna cauda dip and whipped ricotta cheese with garlic pickle and brown butter (price CDN14+).



Fiddleheads are like sayur paku that we get from East Malaysia, but the green coils are bigger with a stiffer crunch to the bite. It has similar fresh green taste as sayur paku.

Fiddleheads go really well with the tangy sweetish savoury rich creamy bagna cauda and whipped ricotta.



Recommended for you 👍 Tasty daily fresh house brews, nice bites, cool ambiance, comfortable furnishings, great service, good value. If you are brewpub hopping in Toronto you gotta include this hoppy place. 

My other blog posts on Toronto 👈 click

The building which BATCH is in today was the Comstock Building in its past life. The building was built in the 1890s 👈 click




Restaurant: BATCH
Address: 75 Victoria St, Toronto, ON M5C 2B1
GPS: 43°39'05.3"N 79°22'39.0"W 🌐 43.651465, -79.377486
Nearest TTC Station: Queen
Tel: 1 (416) 238-1484
Hours: Opens 11:00am.  Closes 12:00 midnight (Sat & Sun) | 1:00am (Mon - Weds) | 2am (Thurs - Fri)




Ideas for brewpub hopping in Toronto.

Date visited: 6 Jun 2019