Home of the BrewNosers

Hi guys,
I went there twice yesterday and the place was packed and I didn't stick around - I know some of you made it - so how was it?

Went with Chalmers yesterday and checked out the brewery and beers. Definatly some new styles for the market place and all the beers were tasting great

I was down in the early evening. Place was absolutley jammed and all the staff told me that was the slowest it had been all day. Nice looking spot, beers are all tasting great. Overall 10/10 would drink there again

Hi Tim, good to see you, sorry it was too busy to stay and chat!
The beer is great, hopefully you're able to pull a seat up at the bar before too long, definitely worth a visit. Worst case Ontario, grab a few cans to enjoy at home?

Hi,
We were staying @ the hotel next door - no kids that night - everytime we went there it was packed!
My wife is bringing home 2 4-packs tonight - I can't wait!
Thanks guys!
Tim - Cheers

Same thing for us, ended up standing by a concrete pillar drooling over the equipment. Took a NE IPA and a table beer. Both were awesome. GF took a Pilsner, generally am not pleased by a Pilsner but this one is great. I found the atmosphere to be a little not to my style very commercial/industrial but as soon as it slows a bit and I can relax in there I'm looking forward to going back to try them all.

'Met the guys at one of their houses back in early fall, real nice people.

Stopped in with the harem. Had a flight of there beer and a pint. Good beer and an interesting space.

Sandy

I wasn't a huge fan of the table beer myself when I managed to get in at launch but that seems to just be a "me" problem from how popular it is.

Polyanna might very well be one of the best beers I have ever had though. A ton of the small batches they had for launch were also great (bakeapple sour and brett IPA in particular).

Agreed on the Polyanna. Definitely one of the tastiest news brews I've imbibed recently.

MitchK wrote:I wasn't a huge fan of the table beer myself when I managed to get in at launch but that seems to just be a "me" problem from how popular it is.

Polyanna might very well be one of the best beers I have ever had though. A ton of the small batches they had for launch were also great (bakeapple sour and brett IPA in particular).

Thoughts on their pilsner?

Tried 2 Crows last weekend, filled up a growler. Got the NE IPA and it was decent, light bodied. Sampled a few others before filling, but it was my favourite of the 4 I tried.

Honestly, in a way I feel for many of the local micro brewery's around, as most of them took years to get to where the are now, to open up small "holes in the wall" that are awesome, with great atmosphere! 2 Crows is a situation where they had money and it was all easily put in place and handed to them. I'm huge in supporting local businesses, but I'm more interested in supporting the ones who worked their way up the ranks and earned everything they have. I'm not saying I won't go back to 2 Crows, but I will most often choose to support the smaller "worked for everything they got" brewery's.

This is just my 2 cents.

Aside from the reallly small start ups, I think you will find that most of the breweries in town started up with significantly more than 'personal capital'.... Based on your statement, you're limited to beer (in Halfiax/Dartmouth at least) from Tidehouse, Brightwood, and possibly North.

Oh I totally agree that most start with some type of capital. From what I've heard though, 2 Crows started with 1 million available, I don't know how much of that was used, but given their state of the art set up, location, and mass production with cans, I could only imagine the cost, along with bringing in one of Canada's master brewers. Not many local breweries go from nothing to canning right from the start. I honestly have nothing against 2 Crows and where the 2 of them are local, I fully support that and their business. I just like to see people work for what they get, and this was handed to them.

And I definitely don't limit myself to just Halifax and Dartmouth. But the three you mentioned are definitely the smallest breweries, I know Brightwood, I went to school with Matt in High School back in the day, works out one of their basements.

I guess my main point is, I just like to see things earned, and in business, too many of the "BIG FISH" have everything handed to them. It's unfortunate but I guess that's life.

How do you know that capital was handed to them? Legit question... do you know? Was it in fact handed to them? Maybe they worked relentlessly for a decade to raise this cash? I do not know first hand either way, but it can be extremely difficult to raise a million in capital investment. So unless you know the complete behind the scenes picture, you're jumping to a lot of conclusions.

Also not sure where you draw the line.. 1 million for a start up is considered by many to be a baseline for a full production brewery with some distribution. For sure many of the other breweries in this part of the world have started up with way less than that, but also most of the them started with way more than the faces on the front lines could have possibly 'earned'. If 2 Crows started with a budge of 500k instead, would that change things in your mind?

whitnes10 wrote:Oh I totally agree that most start with some type of capital. From what I've heard though, 2 Crows started with 1 million available, I don't know how much of that was used, but given their state of the art set up, location, and mass production with cans, I could only imagine the cost, along with bringing in one of Canada's master brewers. Not many local breweries go from nothing to canning right from the start. I honestly have nothing against 2 Crows and where the 2 of them are local, I fully support that and their business. I just like to see people work for what they get, and this was handed to them.

And I definitely don't limit myself to just Halifax and Dartmouth. But the three you mentioned are definitely the smallest breweries, I know Brightwood, I went to school with Matt in High School back in the day, works out one of their basements.

I guess my main point is, I just like to see things earned, and in business, too many of the "BIG FISH" have everything handed to them. It's unfortunate but I guess that's life.

Your comments rub me the wrong way. Good on them if they were lucky enough to have someone invest that kind of money off the get go. You can't tell me if someone came at you with a proposition like that that you would turn it away. So they started off big to avoid having to go through the process of upgrading equipment as the demand grew...sounds like smart planning to me. And based on the size of their brewery...you can't tell me they aren't working their asses off as we speak to fill the demand.

If you haven't listened to the 902Brewcast that featured the crew from 2 Crows...you should. They sound like a solid crew who are passionate about their craft. I've exchanged messages with them a few times asking questions and they were always quick to respond and offer up information and answer questions.

1 million in start up money seems low for 2 Crows given what's in there and the work that was done to get the space ready. Good Robot is much smaller brewery and from what I've heard they spent well north of a million. Tidehouse spent more than you think and most of it was borrowed from friends and family. Starting a business is expensive, and a business that's big enough to be profitable and have employees is very expensive.

Point is though, who cares? If the beer is good, drink it. If it's not, don't. That's literally all that matters

@Makay75 - I have nothing against them or their business. And I'm sure I will go back and fill up more growlers, especially as they come out with new brews. I'm not knocking on them or how lucky one of them was to their father willing to invest and help start up their company. Everyone just isn't that fortunate, and I feel for the "little guys".

Maybe it's a generational thing, I don't know. But I'm not hating on anyone here, some people just have it easier than others, I'm not one of them and maybe that's why I feel this way.

Having the Pollyanna right now. Nice beer. Doesn't look like orange juice so I'm happy about that.

Broob wrote:Having the Pollyanna right now. Nice beer. Doesn't look like orange juice so I'm happy about that.

is it maybe a mislabelled can? it looks much darker than the other pics of polyanna on untappd. but it could just be lighting.

KB1138 wrote:1 million in start up money seems low for 2 Crows given what's in there and the work that was done to get the space ready. Good Robot is much smaller brewery and from what I've heard they spent well north of a million. Tidehouse spent more than you think and most of it was borrowed from friends and family. Starting a business is expensive, and a business that's big enough to be profitable and have employees is very expensive.

Point is though, who cares? If the beer is good, drink it. If it's not, don't. That's literally all that matters

My new brewery will be well above 1 million once it's complete next month or so. So I can certainly attest to the costs involved in opening one. I'm thankful that I've been able to do it with no investors at all, but starting a brewery this size is fucking expensive. I certainly don't hold it against anyone that is able to leverage other financial means to fund their brewery.

And you're absolutely right, if the beer is the good.......who cares about anything else or how they might of got there.

CorneliusAlphonse wrote:

Broob wrote:Having the Pollyanna right now. Nice beer. Doesn't look like orange juice so I'm happy about that.

is it maybe a mislabelled can? it looks much darker than the other pics of polyanna on untappd. but it could just be lighting.

That was the colour. Tasted like an IPA to me, a pretty good one.

hfx902 wrote:

MitchK wrote:I wasn't a huge fan of the table beer myself when I managed to get in at launch but that seems to just be a "me" problem from how popular it is.

Polyanna might very well be one of the best beers I have ever had though. A ton of the small batches they had for launch were also great (bakeapple sour and brett IPA in particular).

Thoughts on their pilsner?

I enjoyed their pilsner as a beer, but not as a pilsner; it is way out of style.

Tidehouse here, I'd just like to point out that out of all the breweries and local businesses that have helped us little guys get started (and we're still just getting started) The 2crows crew have offered the most help out of everyone.
I don't care if they started with 50 million, if they're willing to help their closest "competition" at the drop of a hat with no question or strings on the regular (weekly) than they're good folks.

Good folks making great beer.

When is the last time we had a local brewery open with so few flaws/problems?
Kudos to them for an exceptional launch and execution of their plan. PS: Jeremy, Mark & Kelly have been working their butts off.

Maybe they don't have to slug it out like us smaller breweries, but it is in no way a less earned operation.
That said, stop buying their beer already and come on down the hill.

sheanhiggins wrote:Tidehouse here, I'd just like to point out that out of all the breweries and local businesses that have helped us little guys get started (and we're still just getting started) The 2crows crew have offered the most help out of everyone.
I don't care if they started with 50 million, if they're willing to help their closest "competition" at the drop of a hat with no question or strings on the regular (weekly) than they're good folks.

Good folks making great beer.

When is the last time we had a local brewery open with so few flaws/problems?
Kudos to them for an exceptional launch and execution of their plan. PS: Jeremy, Mark & Kelly have been working their butts off.

Maybe they don't have to slug it out like us smaller breweries, but it is in no way a less earned operation.
That said, stop buying their beer already and come on down the hill.

Thanks for the insight. It's always good to hear this type of thing from personal experience. My wife and I will surely be down to Tidehouse to fill up growlers! What do you have on tap right now?

Standard core four lineup today and tomorrow, however this weekend we have a blueberry kettle sour and an American IPA going on. Ian Wheatley (brewnoser) brewed them up over a month ago on our system for a "one off" special release.