After a very long week, Nellie and I wanted some place to relax, drink a few good pints of beer, and eat some great food. I convinced her that we should take a chance on Wvrst (ratebeer), a place on King West I’ve been wanting to try for a while.

And man, did it pay off. We had a great night. We’re already anxious to go back.

Here’s why we liked it so much:

1. The space is pretty different: it was a giant beer hall with communal tables, somewhat smaller tables along the side, a long bar, and a kitchen on the south wall. We chose to sit at the bar; everything else seemed to be reserved.
2. The atmosphere was pretty unlike what I’d expect to find at a newish place on King West. Read: not at all douchey. It was a very young crowd, but there were no popped collars or sunglasses on backs of necks. These, we would discover later, were unofficial house rules of the place. Which made us like it more.
3. The house speciality, as the name suggests, was sausage. Many, many kinds of sausage. I went basic with a calabrese, but can’t wait to try some of the more advanced options like venison or wild boar or kangaroo. You could also choose whether to eat the sausage on a bun or in a tomato curry sauce; I chose the latter. Nellie, meanwhile, had a pile of Belgian-style fries with chipotle and maple/rosemary dipping sauces. I ended up eating a lot of those too.
4. The beer selection was very solid indeed. I had a Dieu du Ciel Route des Epices, a Black Oak nut brown, a Central City Red Racer, and a Dieu du Ciel Peche Mortel. Nellie had equally tasty selections. While we both steered toward Canadian offerings, they had some interesting international bottles on offer as well. Definitely worth some return visits.

Throughout the course of the evening we ended up meeting the manager Bram, who gave us a couple of samples and introduced us to Justin from the Beer Academy. Twitter: helping tipsy introverts meet each other since 2009.

If I weren’t still full of turkey (MLK and CBGB had us over last night; we ate their food and they drank our wine…the perfect symbiotic relationship!) I’d be there right now.