Literally around the corner, still in historic Old Towne is Swans Suite Hotel and Brewpub (swanshotel.com; 506 Pandora Ave.). Enjoy one too many of the more than adozen beers on tap (the IPA gets mostly raves) while listening to live music and you can check yourself into the built-in hotel. Now that’s Canadian hospitality.
Traveling a few blocks north into the Rock Bay hood offers up three production breweries: Phillips (phillipsbeer.com), Vancouver Island (vancouverislandbrewery.com), and Driftwood (driftwoodbeer.com). Phillips is the largest and brewmaster Matt Phillips was perhaps the first to bottle what is known, in these parts, as a CDA (Cascadian Dark Ale), aka Black IPA. Originally called Black Toque, it is now Skookum Cascadian Brown Ale yet equally delicious for fans of both the hops and the dark-roasted malts. Two blocks away, still on Government Street, Vancouver Island Brewing (nee Island Pacific Brewery in 1985 but changed names in 1992) offers tours Saturdays only at 3 p.m. Make it to Victoria during the winter and enjoy Vancouver Island’s popular Hermannator Eisbock. Driftwood is quickly catching on with fans of “American-style” craft beer, so if you can find a bottle of Singularity, a barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout, it’d make an excellent souvenir. Likewise, look for Fat Tug IPA on draft. Mitchell cautions that there aren’t too many proper beer bars in Victoria, but points to Christie’s (members.shaw.ca/christiespub/taps.html; 1739 Fort St., a couple of km east of downtown) and CrossRoads (1889 Island Highway, 10 km west in Colwood) as each having dozens of local taps along with great food menus. There’s another brewpub around the corner from Driftwood, Moon Under Water (moonunderwater.ca; 350B Bay St.) that specializes in low-alcohol session beers such as Blue Moon Bitter gently tipping the scales at 3.8 percent ABV.
Founder of Phillips Beer, Matt Phillips, adding hops to beer which will eventually pour from the taps of CrossRoads Bar & Grill.
