A visit to Vancouver - Part Four - Brewers Row in Port Moody

On today's visit to Vancouver, Chris and I checked out Brewer's Row in Port Moody, BC. Brewer's Row is a pub crawl dream with five breweries within a five minute walk. The breweries consist of Yellow Dog, Twin Sails, The Parkside, The Bakery and Moody Ales. Since we quickly went from brewery to brewery, it's all a bit of a blur to me so you might not see as much writing this time around but hopefully you'll enjoy the photos! Warning: there's a LOT of photos. I could've split this into two parts but no, I'd rather get Brewers Row all in one shot.



Yellow Dog Brewing

The first stop we made in Port Moody was Yellow Dog Brewing. I've heard of Yellow Dog for a few years now, and every time I think about Yellow Dog, I think about the Yellow Dog Tavern in Winnipeg - a craft beer bar that I've had many amazing memories over the years with meeting up with Jonny (host of Weathered Beer Celebration), beer peeps who ended up opening up their own breweries and Flatlanders Beer Festival afterparty with the who's who of Winnipeg's beer industry. I've heard rave reviews about Yellow Dog Brewing in the past by many people so this was a must visit for our first stop of the day. In fact, I had three people ask me "are you going to Brewer's Row?! You have to visit!" when they heard I was going to Vancouver.

The beer menu, pretty affordable and something for just about everyone. I love the names of the beer because they're all dog themed.

Unfortunately right as we got there, we found out about the news about Kobe Bryant so that became the hot story at every brewery went to for the day.

The flight I ended up getting consists of Squirrel Chaser New England Pale Ale, Shake a Paw Smoked Porter, High Five Hazy IPA and Play Dead American IPA

Play Dead was a decent West Coast style IPA with a good deal of bitterness to it, a bit of pine and tad bit of tropical hops

Shake a Paw had a slight bit of peat, roasted malt and definitely was on point for a smoked porter

Fumé Rose Smoked Cherry Ale was interesting - tad sweet, cherry, smoked but not too smoked. It actually worked out pretty well

High Five Hazy IPA - juicy and tropical. It was definitely juicier than Squirrel Chaser (not pictured)

https://www.yellowdogbeer.com/




Twin Sails

When we got to Twin Sails Brewing, I had a gut feeling that I've had their before and not just the day before at Weathered but sometime in the distant past - Well, I did - I had one or two of their beers at Foudres Unis back in 2018, so that's why the brewery rang a bell for me.

Twin Sails is well known for their juicy IPAs - while some people are getting tired of them, I always love a well done one because I just never see them in my neck of the woods

NOIN NOIN!

Small taster of Space Armadillo vs Chris' 12oz pour of something nice

Have I ever said that I enjoy visiting open concept breweries?

Why not a third of the same picture?

Out of all the breweries I visited this weekend, this was the only brewery where I saw anyone working in the brewing area

Selfie with their Single Life American IPA - Very juicy and sweet, tad creamy. Notes of pineapple and orange peel. I forgot to get Dat Juice while there but ah well.. next time! 🤷🏻‍♂️

http://www.twinsailsbrewing.com/




The Parkside Brewery

Stop number three of five is over at The Parkside Brewery. I never heard of The Parkside before visiting so was interested to try out their beer. The Parkside definitely had the largest crowd out of all the five breweries we visited that day. The staff was absolutely friendly, inviting and gave great advice on what I should try while there.

Edit: My awesome beer buddy Len let me know that Granville Island Brewing's former brewmaster Vern Lambourne is one of the co-owners and head brewer of The Parkside. I remember the news years ago that Vern started up a brewery but didn't realize it was this one. I had the pleasure of chatting with Vern many, many times on social media about beer back when he was at GIB, I actually went out of my way to pick up any of his beers because they were always great and he was always responding to my messages. Props to Vern & co!

I really wish I got donuts that day but I really wasn't hungry, but I saw people absolutely enjoying the donuts from the stand.. cuz seriously.. who doesn't love donuts?

BREWHALL Honey Saison. Decent saison with lots of honey with a tad bit of nutty and oatiness to it

Dreamboat Hazy IPA - Absolutely hazy and citrusy, insanely sweet before you even get to taste it. Serious 5/5

http://www.theparksidebrewery.com/




The Bakery

Within two minutes of leaving The Parkside, we were already at The Bakery Brewing, that's darn close.. but all the breweries on Brewers Row are! The Bakery is another brewery I never heard of but I was told it was a spinoff of Moody Ales (which will be coming up next!)

The first thing I got from the brewery was that it was wayyyyyy too fancy for me, but in reality.. it wasn't. The beer was affordable and almost everything I had was experimental and something different - so a good amount of funky ales. The name The Bakery made me expect them to actually be a bakery but apparently the location once hosted a bakery way before the brewery existed.. thus.. The Bakery. The brewery's branding and bottles actually reminded me a bit of Brasserie Nonsuch out of Winnipeg, which has a very simplistic but very well done appearance to it.

I wish there was a year round food truck culture in my neck of the woods.. but the weather is just too damn cold 6 months of the year to make it feasible

Left to right: Chardonnay Barrel Wheat Wine, Blackberry Sage Saison, Wild Sasquatch Ale, Salted Chocolate Porter (Nitro)

Chris got hungry so got a nice little charcuterie platter, he said it was not bad

Chardonnay Barrel Wheat Wine - Amber, opaque, sweet, wineish, a bit oaky and dry.

http://www.thebakerybrewing.com/



Moody Ales

The very last stop of the day - Moody Ales, we were getting a bit exhausted by the time we got here, plus I hadn't had anything to eat yet. Again, I loved the open concept of the taproom/brewery.

The sign has a very old school vibe to it, as if the place has been open for several decades

My 24mm lens' lack of image stabilization causes kinda blurry photos like this.. ah well

Their Caribbean Stout - it wasn't quite reminiscent of the stouts I had in Jamaica but it was still great - sweet, rich and smooth.. just wish it had a bit more of that molassesy vibe that I crave from this style of beer

Fully stocked beer fridge! I picked up some of their Affable IPA to take home, review will be coming sometime in the next century or so

http://www.moodyales.com/

Bonus pic, whole chicken wings from Barcelos Flame Grilled Chicken, it was the only meal I had that day - Portuguese chicken! I ordered their chicken sandwich, fries and whole chicken wings - the sandwich and fries were scarfed down within seconds and I ended up devouring the wings as a midnight snack.

Check out my other Vancouver brewery visits:

Part 1 - Fuggles & Warlock and Barnside

Part 2 - Four Winds and Dageraad

Part 3 - Another Beer Co, Steel & Oak and Central City Brewers + Distillers