If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that Torontonians love their craft beer. We believe that the recent spike in craft beer popularity is all thanks to the wonderful people at Amsterdam Brewery… but we may be biased! The folks at Amsterdam Brewery have been making craft beer in Toronto since the 80s, long before it was a big trend here, and we were ecstatic when they opened up with harbourfront location back in 2013. The Amsterdam BrewHouse is now a neighbourhood staple for good food and drink.
It has been a crazy journey for them to get to where they are today. Their first location was on John Street, which they opened in 1986 and finally had a big space to brew their own beer. This was back when it was called the Amsterdam Brasserie and Brewpub. During this time their Nut Brown Ale became extremely popular, which is now known as the Downtown Brown. In 1988 they sold the John Street location, moved to King Street and was renamed the Amsterdam Brewing Company. Just under 20 years later, they outgrew this location and moved to a spot on Bathurst Street, and seven years later outgrew that outpost which sent them to their current location in Leaside. The Leaside location is where all of your favourite Amsterdam Brewery beers are currently made, in addition to a small on-site brewery at the Amsterdam BrewHouse on the Lake.
It’s such a fantastic restaurant and bar to have nearby because not only does it have tons of drink and food options, but it’s huge, has lots of indoor and outdoor seating, has a retail beer store (which means you may never have to go to the regular Beer Store again!), and is located in a beautiful, historical building. The BrewHouse building is actually a big old boathouse on Pier 4, which means it is literally right on the water! The space, of course, hasn’t been a boathouse for a while now and used to be home to the Toronto Maritime Museum before it made its way into the hands of our friends at Amsterdam.
Check out these photos which compare the building in the 1980s to today:
![Harbourfront. - [between 1977 and 1998]](http://pier27tower.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/s1465_fl0145_id0005.jpg)
Photo via City of Toronto Archives
If you feel like making a trip to the BrewHouse to see what all the hype is about, we recommend you go on one of their free brewery tours (Monday to Friday) and then sit down for a tasting flight, or two.
Enjoy!