Bitter Tasting Room

I came here with a birthday party. The service was great, and everyone’s drinks & food looked fabulous. Unfortunately, I had to drive so I passed on the real drinks and opted for a craft root beer instead. I was totally impressed! This place has a great atmosphere and great staff. Would recommend!

I had an hour to kill on a Tuesday early evening while waiting for someone. I was feeling peckish and as it was Tuesday, my usual go to: niccli next door was closed. I headed to the Abbey as option two, this was closed for good. Then I remembered this place.
It was quiet for a Tuesday evening, the service was attentive, the Strange Fellows IPA hit the spot, and the scotch egg served its snack purpose, however, I’ve had better scotch eggs in the city, this one lacked in seasoning. All in all, I do like this place, it has a good beer list, not a huge food list, but you come here for the beer I guess.

Went here for my boyfriend’s birthday because he loves beer and he seemed to like it! The nice irishman behind the bar was very sweet — there weren’t many people in, but he definitely took the time to talk to everyone and make honest recommendations on different beers they might like. When we ordered food he even hooked us up because some kitchen issues that he was very upfront about.
The location itself is pretty cool — all those beers that are backlit look very impressive, and I like the bar being in a circle in the middle of the space so that everyone can approach it easily.

A great place to hang before a Cap’s game and they have a patio. Excellent beer choices and the food is decent too.

Vancouver, you’re expensive.
And I say this with love because I don’t live in a real city and I tend to turn up my nose to places with more than $ 5 for a beer and I don’t have to pay to sales tax. So, liquor costs in BC flabbergast and scare me.
But you were actually really awesome Bitter and I had a blast hanging out there.
We were just milling around the area and I was ready for a beer (I’m actually always ready for a beer but it was 5 o’clock BC time, or nearly, and thus actual beer o’clock). It was actually a few minutes before you opened but the nice bartender man unlocked the door and waved us in.
I actually have never had «a pint of bitters» and while I have no idea what a «bitter» beer is. I liked it.
The bartenders were still pulling things together when we sat down but after they finished getting ready were super talkative and let me use their wi-​fi because apparently I get the shakes of not being able to do all the things I should be able to on my iphone for more than an hour.
Made conversation about beer and Portland and friends with a guy sitting a couple seats away at the bar. Also got some pretty great recommendations on more places to go and check out that night, and next time we’re in the city.
Didn’t have any food (we made our way over to the Alibi for dinner) but for the space and the beer and the bartenders it was a total blast.

The beer is good. The food is awful. Sometimes, I don’t even know why certain dishes are even offered on the menu. There’s nothing worse than ordering something, tasting how bad it is, then having to pay quite a bit for that bad experience.

We came here thinking that we could grab dinner but once we sat down, discovered that this place only had appetizers and drinks.
We each ended up grabbing an appetizer and a drink and we all agreed that everything was just OK.
3 of the people that we were with got eggs of some sort. Everyone liked them at the time but all three ended up not feeling well that night. Could just be a coincidence. Or it could be the combination of eggs and alcohol. For once, I am happy to report, that I did not get sick.
I had a «Drifting Away» cocktail which had Driftwood White Bark, Spicebox Whisky, Sweet Chili Simple Syrup, and Citrus/​Coriander Foam) and a pretzel. The pretzel was just so-​so but the dipping sauces were really good! (I prefer Philadelphia pretzels… these were more like Bravehorse Tavern in Seattle pretzels.) The drink was pretty good — very sweet but it had chili pepper flakes of some sort that I didn’t care for.
This place would be great to come to get drinks with friends– they have a huge beer selection! But I would skip the food.

Great little place for beer aficionados and small munchies.
Since I know little to nothing about beer, I went for the pickled eggs. Ever since trying them out at last year’s Unilocal At The Museum event, I was hooked and couldn’t get enough.
So, for all y’all that get dragged to a beer tasting room and don’t drink beer: PICKLED EGGS, PICKLED EGGS, PICKLED EGGS.
And Shandies. Lots of Shandies.
And if it’s still available, the panna cotta with caramelized peach, drizzled in honey and toasted almond slivers.

We were over on Pender running some errands and noticed this place on our return. It’s on Hastings across from Pigeon Park. Bitter Tasting Room has a WIDE selection of beers by the bottle and on tap.
Aside from the beer, there is some interesting mixed drinks and of course a very British menu. Salted everything, and even some Scotch eggs!
Check this place out

I really really really wanted to rate this place a lot higher than 3 stars because their beer list is mind-​blowingly awesome. Unfortunately there are a few area in which this place falls a little flat. So lets get that out the way first.
Service here is slow. The wait staff is friendly, and extremely knowledgeable about the menu, but they’re not all that good on following up on your experience and making sure your doing OK.
The food is hit an miss depending on what you order. I was there with a few people so was able to sample a large swath of the menu. The Wieners, Beer Soup and Soft Pretzel are all winners in very big ways. The salads, sausage roll and the barley that accompanies the beef cheeks all fall flat.
The high points here are the beers! And holy crap on a cracker there are a lot of them. You’ve got a great selection on tap (go with The Back Hand of God stout) and a HUGE list in bottles. If you don’t know what to get, chat with the servers and they’re tell you all about the beer flights, flavour profiles, styles and tastes. They’ll be sure to find you something you’ll like.
I’m going to definitely come back here, but it’ll be for a quick pint of something tasty. It’s not the kind of place to make an evening out of.

meh.
Second disappointing visit here.
I thought Bitter was a nod to the eponymous style of British Ale, rather it’s a nod to how you feel upon wasting time and money in an overhyped mediocre establishment.
Unless you’re into poverty porn, and the opportunity to watch society’s less fortunate from behind screened windows and the comfort of a barstool supping on overpriced food and drink. there’s not much appeal here.
Yes, some nice beers on supply here, but seeing as everybody’s doing craft beer nowadays, in and of itself craft beer alone does not sell this place. Beer prices on average seem to be on the high end. The ‘food’ — self admitted pub fare — is worse than a lot of real pub food to be honest. The much-​hyped warm pretzels were runty, doughy and bland. The sausages, similarly bland left me feeling like a sucker that wasn’t in on the $ 15 joke. The beer and onion soup was pretty top drawer though.
But the biggest disappointment came from the service. Good service can make a lousey meal somewhat more palatable — not so here. The term ‘waiter’ implies attendant service, not waiting for someone to come around and see if you’d like to order, need another round, want to pay your bill and get the f*ck out. This was our second visit, and second time wait staff /​kitchen messed up the food orders. To add insult to injury, douchebag hipster bartender seemed more interested in holding court with his friends than um, you know, working…
I guess that pretty sums up the problem; you used to be able to reasonably bank on (Sean) Heather joints being of a reasonably decent calibre. Since singlehandedly kickstarting the Gastown gastro and gentrification scene, it seems maybe Heather is a little hands-​off with his empire — you have the bartender acting like he runs the place (badly) seems an indication that Heather is not running the place (at all).

Alright. I’ve been to Bitter once and I am already in love.
Tabatha Y. and I decided to go down and have a beer after seeing their beer list online. I had the Driftwood White Bark Ale, and she had the Crannog Back Hand of God Stout. Both were delicious. Their beer menu is quite impressive, and perhaps it was just me, but it was more extensive than I noticed on the website. Not that I’m complaining!
We both ordered the pretzel with mustard, and the Beer and Onion soup.
The pretzel came out first. It was sliiiiightly on the dry side, but I’d get it again. There was a grainy mustard and a super spicy dijon.
The soup. OH my GOD the soup. First of all, I love that the menu says it’s vegetarian. I rarely have luck with soup, so I’ve given up on asking about it unless I’m desperate. The Beer and Onion soup comes with melted Dubliner cheese on a crostini floating in the middle of the bowl. This is the best soup, EVER. I wish they sold frozen buckets of this.
GO GET THE SOUP.
Anyways, I quite liked the layout of Bitter. The tables seem to be placed only along the sides of the restaurant next to the windows, so it has a nice spacious feel with all that walking space between the bar and the chairs. The music was good and random. I recall hearing both Al Green and DJ Shadow… did someone steal my ipod?
Our waitress Megan was super friendly! I will be back as soon as I can. :)

I’ve been to bitter probably 6 times now.
Not because I freakin’ love it or anything, but rather one of my best friends lives next door.
So, I feel like I can make some educated statements on the establishment.
The beer is, straight up, overpriced. They’re charging like 10 bucks for a triple karmeliet, which is like $ 3/​per at the liquor store and maybe $ 6 – 7 anywhere else. That said, who cares. If i’m there with friends i’m not going to not order the beer i want.
The food. If you’re vegetarian or counting calories, keep on walking. The welsh rarebit (toast with a beer cheese sauce) will basically barricade itself in your insides. That said, it’s tasty bar food. The scotch eggs are good (although they’re frequently out of them)
I’ve had the cassoulet and it’s not bad either.
What i’d really like to see is this place step up the game a bit. The food is too simple, and too heavy. There’s a lot more that can be done with beer and i think in order to keep a clientele of regulars they need to lighten it up a bit. I’m not eating sausages and scotch eggs and beer 3x a week, thank you very much. Pay more respect to the brew and show how versatile it can be.

I’ve been to Bitter a couple of times now, both before and after Whitecaps matches. It seems to be the right atmosphere to attract a footy crowd because we were by no means the only people in our match-​day regalia on either occassion.
I’m surprised to see that so many people have had poor service here, as both times we went I found the service to be friendly, helpful and prompt. On our second visit we had a reso for the BF’s birthday (pre-​match) and we showed up a few minutes before they opened. One of the staff came and let us in and they were all very friendly with us throughout our whole stay. They even let us borrow the Tintin doll behind the bar for a photo op with my man, who bears an uncanny resemblance.
The food isn’t cheap, but it’s not super expensive considering all the trendy restos in Gastown these days. They do have a limitted menu of beer accompaniments, but everything I’ve tried has been tasty. I would say, stick with the snacky things (pretzels, brats, eggs, scratchings) and you won’t be disappointed. It isn’t somewhere to go for dinner, more a place to have some pints and laughs and a nibble alongside them.

Having sampled Bitter’s fare at Unilocal’s Night at the Museum event, I was pretty stoked to bring some friends here. Well, none of us want to come back.
Beer: Wow
Super extensive beer list with lots of hard to find beers in stock and even on tap. A trip here would definitely make a beer connoisseurs day.
Food: Hit or Miss (Mostly Miss)
The Eggs — Our favourites were the deviled & scotch eggs.
Sausage Roll — My friend declared it a winner and finger lickin’ good.
Pork Rillette — Total grease bomb.
Welsh Rarebit — Disgusting. Looked & tasted like a piece of stale Wonderbread smeared with caramelized onions, covered in cheap cheese, that had been nuked in the microwave.
Service: Meh
Our server, while nice enough, just couldn’t get it right. Drinks were mixed up, food orders plopped down randomly in front of people regardless of whether it was what they ordered… and no offer to rectify any of the mistakes.
I also ordered one of their beer cocktails to try — the server said it was really good — and I hated it… actually EVERYONE at my table hated it. I couldn’t even give it away! When I asked if it was at all possible to change my drink, she said «Sure, but I can’t take it off your bill.» Now I know that technically I ordered it, so they are by no means obligated to replace my drink… but seriously, to me this was a complete fail in terms of customer service. She even came by later to add «I can’t believe none of you liked it, everybody loves that drink.»
It’s too bad because they really do have a phenomenal beer selection. However, given that the staff’s attitude towards customer satisfaction is basically a flip of the bird I will happily take my business elsewhere.

I have included several pertinent points below meant to be informative and make me feel better about wasting time and money.
#1: Bitter Tasting Room should state on the Dine Out menu that the portions are sample size (aka miniscule) including the entrée. There should also be a warning that says that after your three course meal you will not be satisfied and you may in fact need go somewhere else to grab a bite to eat.
#2: I hate greasy food which is generally why I steer away from hamburger meat, bacon, and deep fried mars bars. So when I chose the roasted cauliflower I thought I had made a choice in line with my tastes. Unfortunately the dish that I was served was so greasy I would have preferred eating a plate of bacon as it would have been less oily and more filling. What I figure is someone served me the dregs from the bottom of the serving dish. The food was coated in oil, all the pieces of cauliflower were small and broken up, and there was hardly any kale. After consuming the dish, the plate horrifyingly resembled the one on the Dawn dish detergent commercials prior to being washed. However, at least this dish had some flavour. I tried my friends sausage and lentil dish and it was so bland I felt bad for her. Later over a slice of pizza she said the only reason she ate it was because she was starving.
#3: I guess technically a wiener is a sausage, but I think it is misleading to call a wiener a sausage on a menu as you may want to use a word that best fits the description of the product you are selling. If you read ‘pot of wieners’ you would less likely be disappointed when you received an actual pot of wieners in tepid water. If you read ‘pot of sausages’ and received a pot of wieners in tepid water you would likely be disappointed. This may be because you think you are going to get a pot of sausages oozing with flavour stewing in their own juices maybe accompanied with fried onions, or mushrooms or something equally mouth watering. The look on our friends faces when they opened their pot containing four European style wieners in water said it all. They looked bitterly disappointed.
#4: I usually don’t think, «Desserts coming. Thank God, I’m starving», and vainly hope that it will fill me up. The reason for this is because the entrée is usually much larger than dessert. However, I bet I could have fit my cauliflower dish into the 250 ml mason jar my dessert came in. Is this right? No it’s not. As sweet as my lemon custard sponge tasted, I was still bitterly disappointed.
Well now I don’t want to leave off with a bitter ending. I do like the concept of a beer tasting room with all the classic accompaniments. Great idea. Bring back eggs in their deviled, scotched or pickled forms. Sure, bring back pork rinds and vamp up the image of the wiener (just don’t call it a sausage). However, if it were my business I would take a serious look at the recipes some of the dishes are missing that little something something that makes them pop. This place does have potential, but when the initial popularity eventually wanes, without repeat customers, well we all know what happens. Unfortunately that will be a bitter pill to swallow for all those that worked so hard to put this place together.

Spoiler alert: THE POT OF SAUSAGES IS 4 WIENERS IN WARM WATER!
I had to get that out of the way in case you didn’t want to read the rest of my review.
I’m downright disappointed. The hype of Bitter Tasting Room, and some of the positive reviews made me overlook the negative ones. Not many restaurants warrant a «NEVER AGAIN» on my list, but this shoots straight to the top.
Six of us decided to give it a solid go. Some of us choosing the Dine Out menu as a good reason for a visit. The menu looked exciting as I glanced over it when the Dine Out 2012 list was announced, and instantly booked a table. Now, three weeks later, I wished I had never done that.
Let’s recap the evening.
We were warmly welcomed. Service was friendly. We were pleased at the promptness and politeness. I was a little bit surprised that, for a beer tasting room, the tap list was limited to only about 8 beers, and of those, none was a proper bitter. I settled for a Fat Tug IPA, which I do enjoy. The bottled beer list was extensive, but expensive, ranging from about $ 6 to well into the $ 30s. No way am I going to spend $ 19 on an Estrella Inedit. It looks as though all beers on that list have been simply marked up by 300% over the liquor store price. It doesn’t take much to stock up on bottles and then triple the price. The Alibi Room or St Augustine’s have an equally impressive list, but on tap! And most under $ 8.
That’s not why I’m not coming back.
I was a little hungry. I considered getting a few appetizers to share. I inquired about the ‘Handmade pretzels from our bakery”. It turns out its only ONE pretzel.
Singular vs plural much?
The food arrived. The salad was small. Nothing special. I finished it quickly to make way for the Pot of 4 handmade sausages entrée. Two of us at the table were awaiting this. This was going to be good. What surprise lied inside the large white covered dish that arrived at the table? I opened it. I looked inside. I looked around for Allen Funt.
A nervous laugh was all we could muster up as I uttered a phony «Mmmm».
My mind raced for options. Do I even try it? Am I judging it before trying it? What time is it? Is Save On Meats still open?
I will not enjoy wieners at the best of times, and this looked as unappetizing as anything Schneiders has to offer. Pink, skinny and four of them floating inside a white coffin of warm water. Perhaps I had gotten ahead of myself by expecting something stewed, roasted, with a tasty stock, or at least herbs, or a vegetable ragout. Something indicative of Irish comfort food, or some visual appeal. If you ordered these at $ 14 on the regular menu, you’d be sorely disappointed. I got through it. I got through it because the alternatives were none better. Others at the table had the roasted cauliflower, and the cotechino sausage with lentils. Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but it looked and tasted as though the ‘roasted’ cauliflower was deep fried. It was thoroughly OILY and was not finished. These weren’t nice cauli buds, but the shrapnel you’d find after a cauliflower fight at Mr Lube. Poor vegans. Another friend had the cotechino and it was served as a few slices of sausage on top of a bed of lentils. Small, and bland, bland, bland.
Scotch eggs? Bland.
We noticed that another table seemingly had the non-​Dine Out version of the cauliflower and it was bigger and served differently. The regular menu offers 5 sausages and the wiener variety is at the cheap end of the list. That’s another pet peeve of mine. I don’t like when Dine Out restaurants skimp and give you a half-​assed version of their regular menu. It doesn’t impress, and sets a lower standard. And lowers the appeal of the Heather group in general. I’ve been a fan of the Irish Heather for years, but this doesn’t cut it. Not even close.
Dessert, you guessed it, was small, and we headed out for a proper dinner elsewhere. Anywhere.

Backlit beers dominate the bar. Floor to ceiling windows span two walls. Smiling staff donning Bitter apparel usher you to tiny topped tables. And then… commence «sausaging,» a new term I’m using to describe tonging a wiener from a pot of steaming water.
Let ye be warned — the $ 15 – 16 price tag is there because that steaming pot o’ meat comes with FIVE links. Sharing is encouraged. Pickled carrots and celery, sauerkraut and mustard adorn their own plate, tasty accompaniments. I do wish that a bit of bread came with as well, but you can add on a pretzel for $ 3.50 if you are so inclined. The pickled eggs for $ 2 are herbed with tarragon and taste like little fingers of egged perfection.
3 people around a two top is a little tight, but on a Friday night, no one’s being that picky, just thirsty. And oh, the beer. I had hoped for a bigger selection on tap, but the bottles were mighty impressive and made up for it with their sheer amount. I was also happy to see a few other options for the non-​beer drinkers, mainly the bourbons and ryes and the beer cocktails. Bitter Chill and Milwaukee Float — I’m staring you down, waiting for my next encounter at Bitter so I can sip on you too.

Bitter… taste in my mouth.
This pains me. Really. I was so looking forward to Bitter. I mean beer and sausages! Who doesn’t love beer and sausage??? Sigh.
It is not often I give a lowly 2 star review sandwiched by 4 – 5 stars so I will make this one thorough to back up my claim. So grab a cup of jo or a stiff drink and settle in cause this is going to be a bumpy ride.
Bitter Staff — 2 stars
1– High staff: patron ratio — First thing I noticed was there were way too many staff with nothing to do relative to the number of people. Was greeted by 2 people, one poor guy was filling little mustard dipping bowls behind the bar the entire time we were there, bus boys were constantly cleaning up after us (it was a bit distracting and we often had to stop our scandalous conversations because, we didn’t feel like sharing gory details of our lives with Bitter staff)
2– Lack of knowledge — Our waitress had very little knowledge of the menus (food or beer) and when asked to elaborate on one of the sausages, she pointed to the menu and read off the sentence in print. Ya, we got that much, but thanks.
3– Seating — We were a group of 6 nominally good looking people (if I do say so myself) and walked into an almost empty Bitter. So why oh why are you putting us in the corner (please don’t make me quote Dirty Dancing again) when there are plenty of tables near the windows that would surely lure in passersby? I don’t get it. (also, it really didn’t fill up while we were there (1.5h) so other resos isn’t a likely excuse)
Bitter Beer — 3 stars
Admittedly a wide range of bottled beer although more limited draught beer menu than I would have thought. Also, the flights were not super enticing…- «wish it was summer» is a nice concept but fact is it’s nasty out and no one wanted to drink blueberry beer. What we would have really liked was to be able to pick our own flight from the draughts on tap. Don’t really understand why that isn’t an option. Just charge it to the priciest beer. Don’t think anyone would fight that.
As a side note would LOVE to see Blood Alley Bitter on tap… just saying.
Bitter Food — 2 stars
1– «Pretzels» — Sigh. I take issue with west coast interpretations of bread-​based goods like pretzels and bagels, the former being applicable here. Making bread into different shapes does not equate an entirely different product. So while the «pretzel» was tasty and fresh it was far from authentic pretzel and just left me wondering «did i just pay $ 3.50 for a piece of bread??»
2– Sausages — Clearly i have an entirely different concept of what makes a sausage appetizing… when i think yummy sausage, i think smoky, grilled, caramelized, juicy, fair girth (oh behave) sausages. The Debreciner that were served to us were basically weiner-​sized, flesh-​toned, with little flavour served up in a tepid bath of lukewarm water. I just wanted to cry. I get that perhaps this is the «Bitter» experience, something authentic from the good olé days? But sometimes the «good olé days» were actually kinda bad… let’s keep that in mind.
And then there was the sausage roll… mine was a fair size but served lukewarm (was it supposed to be cold or warm???). My main problem was the sausage itself… it was mealy and dry with very little flavour. There was also no side of mustard or anything so i had to ask for one to make it half decent. The kicker though was my friend ordered one for himself and it was literally half the size of mine!!! It was so sad and piddly looking in it’s little bowl we all kinda gasped and and burst out laughing when we saw it. I wanted to return it just by placing it next to mine to show them how crazy small it was in comparison but he was too hungry and couldn’t be bothered. Size matters people!!!
Lastly, the entire table was seriously craving some crispy carbs in the form of a fried potato of some sort… yes, yes i know, maybe they were trying to be creative with the chicharon and nuts but a really great homemade chip (or ‘crisp’) with some spices would have been a welcomed addition to our evening while still maintaining the upper hand to the lowly and oh-​so-​common french fry.
There were a few good food items people seemed to like though that I didn’t try… the scotch egg and the chicken and biscuit.
Let me close by saying I enjoy most of the Heather group restos and love the innovative things they do with the long table series and «work for food» events (e.g., pear coring dinner was awesome)… So, i will be back. I’m going to give them 3 – 4 months and try again. Just cause it’s Christmas, and I’m fly like that.

Bitter is the new sweet spot on West Hastings & Carrall. This newly opened Irish bar, a recent extension of the Sean Heather & S. Hawthorn (Irish Heather Group), and sip your way back in time while reliving Vancouver’s history of over 100 years ago (well before me). The 1909 building, the previous headquarters of a meat packing company back in the day, has been beautifully transformed where you can look out through the transparent images covering the huge glass windows and experience the illusion of looking out onto old Gastown (very cool) as it used to be when the neighborhood was full of ale & brew houses.
The room has this beautiful half round bar from reclaimed wood, that show cases some 40 – 60 revolving bottle beers and the 8 on tap lineup. The menu is keeping of traditional Irish pub food Scotch & Pickled eggs, various bar sausages & wieners, Welsh Rarebit and some tasty large plates like Cassoulet, Chicken & biscuit. This section of W. Hasting street is now starting to feel warm & user friendlier with the addition this sweet Bitter Tasting Room.