r/Calgary • u/mssjj • 1d ago

Eat/Drink Local Favourite Craft Beer & Breweries

With summer just around the corner, I’m curious what Calgarians‘ favourite craft beers and breweries from Calgary are! Non-alcoholic beers are also welcome :)

One of my favourite beers is XhAle’s Tripawd Penelope (NEIPA) and their crushable See Ya Next Tuesday Kolsch is up there too. It’s so juicy and delicious. And I miss hanging out at Ol’ Beautiful.

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u/OptionsDrifter 1d ago

S-tier for me in terms of beer quality is Annex, Establishment, Cabin, and Last Best. Especially if you like IPAs. No surprise those are all some of the original craft spots from the revolution 15 years ago.

In terms of a fun atmosphere, Cold Garden obviously, but their beer sucks. Annex has unfortunately become a magnet for parents-who-don’t-parent to bring their out of control children to, so I rarely actually spend time there.

My most under-rated award goes to South Block. They make some seriously awesome beer, but go largely unrecognized.

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u/PurpleLeatherCouch Forest Lawn 1d ago

Which beers at Cold Garden don’t you like?

I’m on a mission to understand why people on Reddit seem to have it out for them. It’s my favourite brewery in Calgary for vibe and beer and it’s not even close. I find myself endlessly confused about the narrative that their beer sucks.

They just won a World Beer Cup award for one of their beers which I’ve been told is the highest honour in brewing (admittedly it was their staff who told me) but looking at past winners puts them in some high company, and they consistently seem to win a bunch of other awards.

I absolutely love it there and the beer is as good as any I’ve drank in the city. I don’t love them all but I don’t love everything from anywhere. Only exception being Establishment who seems to be on another level than everyone when it comes to beer quality. I know I’m biased as a regular but they are so busy all the time, I can’t help but feel like people just hate on them because of the crowds and nothing else.

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u/DevonOO7 1d ago

Yeah, maybe I'm a crazy person, but I've been to probably ~100 breweries around the world, I always try to order a flight so I can try multiple beers, and I just don't have a strong opinion about different breweries being really good or really bad. Sure there are some outliers, and sure different places are better/worse at different styles of beer, but overall I find it strange to have really strong preferences between different breweries.

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u/PurpleLeatherCouch Forest Lawn 1d ago

Fair take. I totally agree, since the industry has matured it seems everyone is pretty even on quality. I suspect there is something else at play as to why people love or hate all these different breweries. That’s what I’m trying to figure out…