Merit Brewing — Restaurant in Hamilton

BEWARE if ordering "plant based" sausage!!!

I'm a breastfeeding mom and my 4 month old baby has a milk protein allergy. I called ahead and asked if their plant based sausage had dairy in it and the person on the phone said no it does not, it only has egg in it. I said ok great... prior to ordering I confirmed with the person behind the bar that the sausage does not have dairy in it. She said it has egg so I explained that egg is not dairy, but it does make the sausage NOT VEGAN. She didn't know that egg was not dairy. This should have been a red flag for me.

Anyways, I ordered the "milk free" sausage, it came, I ate half of it... at which point she came back and told me that the naan bread that it's served on actually has buttermilk in it. BRUTAL! I mean I told her it was my baby that had the allergy, so you would think she would take the extra precaution and check the ingredients prior to serving it to me... The staff is clueless and not educated on the menu which is unacceptable if you're serving "plant based" products. It should specify on the menu that the sausage has dairy and egg in it.

I'm so disappointed and my baby will be sick now because of this irresponsible behavior from the staff... so beware if you're vegan... don't have any of their products cus they have no idea what they're serving....

Giving a two star review because the service was good and the staff was friendly. The food that we ordered, however, was absolutely atrocious. We ordered two sausages, and if you know anything about food/cooking, the way in which they're prepared defies all cooking skill. The sausage was crumbly (meaning the meat was not worked enough to create a classic sausage texture) and didn't have a good snap like a natural pork casing sausage should have. The sausage meat itself was also quite dry. The buns were toasted on the OUTSIDE rather than the inside, which were then smeared with wet ingredients. This left the buns to become a soggy, disastrous mess, splitting in half after the first couple of bites. The flavour overall was okay, but not worth the mess, and absolutely not worth $15 each. For this price, I'm expecting very high quality for something so simple. You can get a significantly better sausage eating experience at denningers, or, if you really want great value, head to your local Costco.

The beer selection is good, and a lot of the beers offered are also good. Just do not go for the sausages, they were a massive...

Really great little brewery and you need to get out and support them. Imaginative and quality selection of beers, and the food menu - sausages and small plates - Perfect!- is spot on. Try the butter chicken sausage : sublime

Will likely be a regular here. Support good beer. Drink local.

Update dec 2019: So ... I’ve had to remove a star, owing to the last 2 visits. Both times, exactly same thing - pop in while walking up James, with plan to take a few bottles home, sidle up to bar (as the sign says “check with the bar staff for bottle shop purchases”) and... wait. And wait some more. “Be right with you”, I hear. But then see same server off taking orders and off to the kitchen. 5 mins becomes 10. And on last visit, it was nearly 15. Checked, made sure I wasn’t in ghost mode, but eventually just gave up. I think it’s possibly a case of overworked staff, or that there’s less emphasis on walk in business at the bottle shop. I dunno. But it’s been 2x now, and that’s cause for concern for me. I’m easy money strolling in the front door, and I’m now easy money strolling back out...