The sexiest title we’ve ever had.
I recently had the opportunity to try out Calgary’s CRAFT Beer Market for a Sunday brunch. It seemed like a great idea – take the family out for a meal…while I got to take down a few beers before 11:00am. Solid plan. I had been to CRAFT several times before at night, when the place is packed with a wide variety of beer aficionados, and I was looking forward to seeing it in the light of day. Their selection is fairly impressive, with options ranging from frat boy favourite lagers to slow-sipping, sexy craft beers.
While perusing the huge beer menu, I chatted with CRAFT’s Cam Carter, who was very helpful and more than happy to hang out and chat about the craft beers on tap. Upon his recommendation, I made a move for the Deschutes IPA, which provided an aroma of gentle citrus hops paired with sweet maltiness. A solid dose of crystal malt flavour was balanced extremely well by the pronounced bitterness, making for a very drinkable, full-bodied IPA – a good start to my morning. My wife opted for the Pyramid Apricot ale, as she’s much more into the fruit beers. This proved to be a pretty decent fruit beer – big apricot in the aroma and taste, with a mildly sweet finish that was still rather quaffable…impressive, as I dislike overly sweet fruit beers.
The apricot ale was a great pairing with my wife’s meal – Avocado Eggs Bennie – as well with the shared order of pancakes that my children devoured. Actually, I took down some of the huge stack of pancakes, as well…they have to be the best pancakes I’ve ever had! My own meal – steak and eggs – was great, and it turned out to go surprisingly well with my continued IPA tasting.
(Shameless father photos of the kiddies…)
With a ridiculous number of beers on tap, CRAFT Beer Market was a great option for a brew-filled Sunday morning. Forget Wheaties…this was the breakfast of functionally-alcoholic Champions. However, a guy can only take down so many drinks in the morning; this calls for a full day of CRAFT exploration – all in the innocent name of research, of course. Someone order me another beer and call me a cab.
