Where to sip locally brewed craft beer in Ottawa

Not that we have anything against Bob and Doug McKenzie and their two-fours of Red Cap, but sometimes you want to step beyond brewskies and savour craft beers. With nearly two-dozen microbreweries in the Ottawa area – and more on the way – there’s never been a better time to enjoy the wide range of tastes that dedicated beer makers can concoct. Here are some leading servers of locally crafted beer.

By Peter Johansen

More from Peter Johansen

Whether it’s lapping up a latte, surviving a rafting trip on the Ottawa River or learning to make artisan soap, Peter Johansen enjoys exploring Canada’s capital region for a popular daytripping feature in the Ottawa Citizen. His stories in other outlets — from Montreal’s Urban Expressions to TAPS: The Beer Magazine – have won Canadian and international travel-writing awards.

A caffeine high in Lowertown: Great coffee stops

True enough, Ottawa ain’t the city that never sleeps, but that’s not because of a caffeine shortage, especially in Lowertown where coffee shops abound. If you can’t find something to give you a java jolt among these options, you really are sleepwalking.

Top hotel bars

Hotel bars aren’t a mere convenience for hotel guests. Some of Ottawa’s best are grandly sumptuous: perfect venues for a milestone occasion. Other bars are stylish and sleek, ideal for a dress-up date night. There are those where friends meet after work, and a couple that are perfect for the T-shirt-jeans-and-bottle-of-beer set. One thing our favourite hotel bars have in common, though, is decent drinks and nibbles.

Perfect restaurant patios for al fresco fare

Maybe it’s because our summers are short that all Ottawa citizens flock to restaurant patios as soon as the snow melts, and stay till it falls again. Some eateries plop down a couple of tables just about anywhere outside, abutting busy roadways where they snarl sidewalk traffic. But we’ve found great al fresco dining – from gourmet fare to burgers ‘n’ beer – that eliminates both sunstroke and exhaust fumes.