Sunday Dinner Club - Taco Night at Half Acre Balmoral

 

I like Sunday Dinner Club and have been to many of their events.  Their regular space above Honey Butter Fried Chicken is nice and cozy, but it's also fun when they do a collaboration with Half Acre Brewery.  Most of the time they will do it at Half Acre's original location on Lincoln in Lincoln Square which is still in operation, but they recently decided to hava Taco Night at Half Acre's newly opened tap room on Balmoral in Bowmanville which is part of Half Acre's Production Brewery.  While the address for the brewery is on Balmoral Ave, and there is a sign there, the entrance is actually a block north on Rascher.  There is a parking lot on Rascher which is surrounded on three sides by brewery, so it's easy to see that this space is much bigger than their original space.  There is also a large bike rack at the front of the parking lot, which I really appreciated.  Entering from the parking lot leads to a long hallway which passes by the windowed kitchen and eventually into the taproom.  The bar is on the same side of the room as the entry hall and stretches the length of the room, as opposed to the bar at the Lincoln taproom that is basically in a corner.  The room is brick walled with a light wood bar and floor.  There is also a wood frame on either side which support open rafters and joists.  It looks both unfinished and very open and lodge-like.  There are also a couple of windows on the bar side that look into the brewery itself.  At the time that I was there, it was filled with palettes of highly stacked cans.  There were lot of palettes, but there were passages between them so you could see just how deep the space was.

I sat at the bar because it allowed me to follow the action better and gave me better access to the bartenders so I could more easily ask questions.  The wall behind the bar had a large wood covering that was the same color as everything else that was engraved with parallel lines of decreasing length making an interlocking triangle pattern.  Half Acre was engraved at an angle in one of the triangles.  It was a cool design and could keep someone's eyes busy for a while.  Generally when I go somewhere several times, I try to try something different, even if I have a favorite on the list, because what's to say that I won't find another favorite among the new things that I try?  There were a lot of new things on the beer list that I hadn't tried, so there were a lot of things to try.  I started with Longhouse Belgian Single.  I am much more familiar with Dubbels, Tripels, and Quads then Singles.  All of these start with Singles, so I decided to see how their single was.  Like many Belgians, it had a nice head.  It was slightly foggy and flavor wise reminded me of a light Tripel with a light, sweet, malty flavor.

As this was Taco Night, I couldn't not have a beer called Taco Day.  Taco Day was what they called a Wakatu Pale Ale.  I had no idea what that meant when I ordered it, so of course I had to ask.  Taco Day, is apparently a Single Hop Beer, and they use it to experiment (kind of like Old Irving Brewing's Trendii Series).  For this version, they used Wakatu Hops, a New Zealand Hop Varietal.  They also dry hopped the beer with Wakatu Hops.  The beer had a nice citrus lime flavor and medium bitterness.  While I was enjoying Taco Day, my Tacos came out.  They were very definitely not authentic Mexican.  I would probably call them authentic Midwestern.  Having said that, they were very good, though.  Built inside Fried CornTortilla Shells,  the tacos had some good quality Spiced Ground Beef, Lettuce, Tomato, Cheddar, and Sour Cream.  The tacos (We were served two) were served with Black Beans and Spanish Rice, which were much closer to authentic Mexican and had a good texture and flavor.  While I was enjoying my tacos, I ordered my next beer.  We got four, in total, with the meal.  I had a Dopee IPA, one of the more clear beers that I have had from Half Acre.  It had the nice bitterness of a good IPA with some nice herbal flavors.

To finish things off and to pair with my dessert, I went with my biggest beer, Bivouac Double IPA, which, in actuality, is kind of small for a Double IPA at 8.1%.  Having said that, it was full bodied and slightly sweet, though it did have a dry finish.  This, I paired with a cookie that I saw recently in SDC's Pizza Night.  It was a Lemon Frosted Cornmeal Cookie.  It was very good with Pizza, it also finished a very nice Taco Night.

I always enjoy Sunday Dinner Club's dinners, so I will continue to go to them.  It's also a lot of fun with Half Acre because I get to try a variety of beers.  The Balmoral facility is very cool and I will have to return and try some of their regular fare.