The New Watering Holes — Flora Hall
After years of growth in the restaurant industry, it's time for Ottawa to up its drinking game.
Liquid Assets
The New Watering Holes — Bar Lupulus
The House of Beer
here's to the flourishing craft-beer industry
Bar Lupulus is bringing a new kind of culture to Ottawa — and it’s all about the beer.
“We focus predominantly on interesting cultures and wild yeast related beers — as in sours,” explains managing partner Anthony Spagnolo. “We're also carrying a good chunk of IPAs.”
If the words “sour beer” have you wrinkling your nose, you’re in for a pleasant surprise; sours bring flavour profiles like you’ve never tasted. Spagnolo might just win you over with his own personal favourite, Unheard Melodies, from the Indie Ale House Brewing Company in Toronto.
“This is probably one of my top favourite beers of all time,” he enthuses. “This is actually a sour porter, so it’s like a stout, with a crazy-big chocolate, smoky, roasty-toasty thing going on. Then, it just turns a corner and it has this total high acid, almost apple cider vinegar thing running through, like a dill pickle, really tart.”
Based on his vivid description, it’s clear Spagnolo is a trained sommelier. Previously, he was a partner at Johnny Farina on Elgin Street, then he ran the beer and wine program at the Brother’s Beer Bistro in the ByWard Market.
“I’ve switched my focus and found a common denominator between wine and beer, which is yeast and indigenous yeast and the lack of chemicals, pesticides and herbicides,” Spagnolo says.
Photo 1: Brussels sprouts with fermented kale, roasted cashews and guanciale, being plated by Emmaly Hentschel
Photo 3: With 20 frequently rotating beers on tap, Tyler Beckett can pair the perfect beer.
"Focus" seems a fitting word here — Bar Lupulus is serious about its beer offerings. An electronic board behind the bar lists 20 beers — and at least six of those are sours at any given time. Look closely and you’ll notice the word ‘Untappd’ in the bottom righthand corner of the board; that means it’s linked to the Untappd app — a geosocial networking service that allows users to check into beers as they drink them, sharing check-ins and locations with their friends. Translation: Beer geeks love it here and it’s not unusual to see a couple of connoisseurs diligently posting reviews on their laptops or iPhones.
The Untappd app also notifies all of those beer lovers every time Spagnolo changes the list, which is multiple times every single night.
“Our draft list changes all the time; we switch about six or seven beers a night,” he says. “It changes and it’s literally from my phone; I click one button and it’s all there — it’s changed on the menu, it’s going out on the app.”
Beer offerings are always out of the ordinary, far off the beaten path, which Spagnolo admits can be tricky in terms of logistics. “Getting them here is a lot of work,” he says. “We’re dealing with a lot of really small breweries that only have a certain allocation; so not only do they not deliver, but they only have so many kegs.”
Once a new beer is on tap, Spagnolo turns his attention to educating his servers — and subsequently the customer — about what they’re drinking.
“We want to take the beer and not just sell it, but convey it in the right light — and in the way that they intended the product to be,” he says. “Not only poured — like at the right temperature, in the right glass — but with their story and to really understand the product and all the hard work and time that went into it.
“People want to know, people want to be educated.”
That thirst for knowledge amongst consumers stems from a big shift in beer culture over the past few years, Spagnolo says.
Photo 1: With frequent lineups out the door and lots of media attention just a few months after opening Bar Lupulus, co-owners Anthony Spagnolo, general manager, and Jeff Bradfield, head chef, have a lot to smile about.
Photo 2: Squid-ink linguini with clams, peas and Pernod.
“Five years ago, the craft beer revolution was all about IPAs and who could make the biggest, baddest, dankest, most bitter thing possible,” he recalls. “It got to the point where people were like, OK, it’s too much — the hops are too much.”
Breweries are now experimenting with flavour profiles — with different varieties of hops delivering distinctly different tastes.
“It’s like in Bordeaux, you have the five basic grapes and you always use different amounts of the different grapes to get structure, some are for aromatics, some are for mouth feel,” Spagnolo says. “It’s the same with hops; some hops are more bitter, some hops are brighter, some hops are fresher; they all have their own distinct flavour profile.
“A brewer is like a wine blender, in a sense and it’s all chemistry at the end of the day; you’re just trying to put the pieces together and make it work.”
He explains that with the more delicate sour beers, you get a lot of that sour funk from residual yeast — so brewers are aging their beer in a wine barrel to get a secondary fermentation from the leftover, residual yeast.
“They’re using old wine or whiskey barrels,” says Spagnolo of breweries making sour beers. “So you get these beers that are very vineous in character; a lot of grape-y, sour, high acid, almost mineral-driven notes.”
Playing with different cultures brings different finishes to the beer. “Brettanomyces is one of the predominant souring yeast strains,” he explains. “You can also use cultures lactobacillus — cultures used in yogurt — which are tart and tangy.”
Overall, Spagnolo sees breweries taking a step back — to try and make beer more approachable than ever before.
“There’s definitely a paradigm shift in people’s palates and they’re becoming more refined," Spagnolo says. "They’re trying to explore; there’s a lot more refinement and complexity. People are really taking note of the fact that there are these incredible flavours and there really is a beer for everyone out there.
“We’re in the craft-beer Renaissance right now — it’s really at an all-time high.”
Beyond its beer focus, the menu at Bar Lupulus has already drawn the attention and praise of foodies. Chef Jeff Bradfield, who cooked at Social and recently competed in Ottawa’s Gold Medal Plates, seems to be striving for a calibre of food that matches the impressive and wide-ranging drink menu. With charcuterie, a raw bar and Mediterranean and Italian-inspired mains, customers can have a choose-your-own-adventure kind of experience.
“We have these four different areas that are interconnected,” Spagnolo explains. “The bar and lounge area features big, leather stools or customers can choose to sit further down at the raw bar. There’s also the street view or, if you want a more intimate setting, we have tables along the side wall for that, too.
"There really is something for just about everyone here."
Bar Lupulus
1242 Wellington St., W., Ottawa, Ont.
barlupulus.ca, 613.759.4677
Watering Holes
The New Watering Holes — Flora Hall
After years of growth in the restaurant industry, it's time for Ottawa to up its drinking game.
The New Watering Holes — Charlotte
After years of growth in the restaurant industry, it's time for Ottawa to up its drinking game.
Communities Near You
Related Stories & Recipes
The New Watering Holes — Charlotte
After years of growth in the restaurant industry, it's time for Ottawa to up its drinking game.