Lowertown Brewery, ByWard Market — Restaurant in Ottawa

The only reason I'm giving this place two stars is because of the service - the food deserved one or even zero. My partner and I had a gift certificate so went here before an NAC show. I expected a slightly more upper scale place, instead treated to old chairs and tables and ratty stained menus. The menu itself is poor in terms of selection at best with few options.

The beer was good, we had a flight to sample and some were better than others but I'll move onto the food because that was the big sore point.

They served us a "beer and cheese" fondue with absolutely no flavor. None. Tasted like paste. And with soggy bread. Then, my partners' fish and chips came (recommended by the waitress) and it actually had water in the dish, making everything soggy. This they did replace and took it off the bill without asking, which was why service gets an extra star. My dish was the meatloaf which was covered with some type of gravy but again, tasted like cardboard. Bland, bland, bland for everything and honestly poor quality. It seemed like the fish had been microwaved and my meatloaf wasn't even hot. One of the worst meals I've honestly ever had at a restaurant that charges $20 for an entree.

By the end we were trying to figure out what to buy to spend the amount left on the gift card because we would never go back except maybe for the beer. If you're looking for a good meal, definitely skip this place. Server was gracious and helpful and had good insight, I could tell even she was frustrated by the food quality. Maybe they need to...

It takes either a fantastic restaurant or an awful one to get me to write a review but let me tell you - Lowertown Brewery was hands down one of THE BEST establishments I've been to in my life! The variety of drinks (the peach cider was outstanding, and the ad for it was what caught my eye walking by) was superb, the food selection was incredible, and the building itself is beautiful. Big windows, outdoor seating, rustic and wooden aesthetic everywhere - I cannot recommend this place enough!! The food was INCREDIBLE! We got a pretzel as an appetizer and the beer cheese was so good we ordered more to dip our fries in. And the fries?! Best I've ever had in my entire life! I asked our server to "make them as crispy as possible" and they did just that!! Not enough restaurants crisp up their fries like I like them and Lowertown delivered the goods. I ordered the "Nashville hot chicken sandwich" and it had a delicious kick without being overly spicy - a perfect dish for me. In addition, every single food that was shared from my party was excellent and I cannot wait to come back to Lowertown!! I would love to attend a karaoke night as well - there was no live music during my trip here but I hope to see some next time. And speaking of the music, they had classic rock on the radio and you can't beat that!

I'm running out of adjectives, so please do yourself a favor and try this restaurant when you're in the area. You won't be...

Saturday November 24 three of us were in Ottawa to tour some local microbreweries using a combination of designated driver, Uber, taxi and walking. We started our tour at around 3h45PM. By the time we arrived at this place it was 10h45PM. Over the course of 7 hours we had drink approximately 4 pints of beer, with some water in-between, in the form of 4oz and 5oz tasters at 4 different local microbreweries. The hour leading to showing up here we had nothing to drink as we left the last place at 9h30 and slowly walked toward downtown on icy sidewalks (without ever falling) and then hailed a cab. We actually wanted to go somewhere else but the other place was booked for a private party. Therefore looking on Google Maps we noticed the Lowertown Brewery and decided to try the place. Alas! The person who "greeted" us turned us down stating that we had had too much to drink and they would not serve us anything. We suggested that we actually only wanted to eat. He replied that there were plenty of restaurants around. We followed his suggestion and went elsewhere still baffled by this inappropriate evaluation of our condition. Or maybe they don't like french-canadian at this place as were were talking in french between us. We'll never know as I'll never ever step in this...