Rain Dog Bar puts emphasis on carefully chosen beer
Rain Dog Bar a home for wayward beer connoisseurs
Over the last decade, Calgary has seen a small explosion of restaurants specializing in the pairing of food and beer. Beer halls, brew pubs, tasting rooms and relaxed bars with dozens of taps filled with local brews have become the norm.
But even those eateries have presented beer as a casual drink, best enjoyed with a fancied-up burger or plate of nachos. Generally speaking, few restaurants in Calgary have treated beer with the same reverence granted to wine.
This makes Rain Dog Bar, a relatively new spot on Inglewood’s main drag that opened just a few weeks before the pandemic hit, a bit of a niche affair. Named after a 1985 Tom Waits album and decorated with weird and wonderful thrift-store finds, owner Bill Bonar developed the restaurant as a way of showcasing his skills as Alberta’s first certified Cicerone, which is the beer-world equivalent of a wine sommelier.
Bonar, who has been kicking around the Calgary restaurant scene for the better part of two and a half decades and previously worked at places like Taste and Wine Bar Kensington, wanted something that felt like a wine bar with the emphasis on carefully chosen beers.
Bonar defines a “rain dog” as a dog whose “path has been washed clean behind them” and his (normally) 50-seat bar is “a place for those lost dogs to gather, to share, to find their way.”
He has filled the room with eclectic found items — one of the centrepieces is a framed poster of Alan Alda and Bonar loves pondering why the original owner would have paid for the expensive framing job and how it ultimately ended up in a thrift store. Touches like this, along with a collection of old lampshades, cinderblock shelving, and a rotary phone tucked in a back room (yes, this is the restaurant’s only phone) are all meant to feel like items left behind by those nameless rain dogs.
The beer list is, of course, front and centre, and first-time Rain Doggers may be surprised to see that it’s not simply a collection of Calgary’s top craft beers. There are some local selections, but there are also Belgian sours and Trappists, barley wines, and lesser-known American treasures, with brews going for as much as $24 for a single serving (with plenty of more affordable options). Bonar changes the list so regularly that he reprints his menus almost daily and, except for four taps, the beers are all bottled.
As for the food, Bonar brought in chef Chris Lorenz, who he worked with at Taste, to create a menu of what they call “northern food,” largely influenced by Eastern European cuisine. Lorenz has put together an extensive list of charcuterie, conserva and cheese so that customers can build own boards filled with items like house-made herbed duck rillettes, pickled fiddleheads and sea asparagus with lemon preserves.
There are also plenty of small plates to be shared, with highlights like braised onions wrapped around rich pork confit ($13), braised chicken wings with fennel crème Fraîche ($16) and beef-fat roasted potatoes with chives and caramelized onion sour cream ($10). Naturally, Bonar is on hand to recommend beer pairings with each dish.
It all sounds a bit fancy, but Bonar also wants to be clear that Rain Dog Bar is still a place to come in and enjoy food and a beer or two.
He’s careful the place doesn’t come off as too hoity-toity — while he takes beer very seriously, he also doesn’t want casual beer drinkers to be scared away.
“There’s no room for pretension here,” Bonar says. “You can’t be pretentious about beer. I know that I have a pretentious designation, but ultimately, this is the drink of Barbarians. We still want to make it approachable and fun.”
Rain Dog Bar is at 1214 9th Ave. S.E., on the second floor above Gorilla Whale and can be reached at 403-457-7263 or raindogbar.com. The restaurant is open Monday through Saturday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. The restaurant does not take reservations.
STAMPEDE FOOD
Stampede may not be officially happening this year, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the first two weeks in July as an excuse to indulge in pancakes, mini-donuts, and barbecue.
In late June, the Calgary Stampede announced it would be hosting a series of food-oriented events at Stampede Park, including a mini-donut drive-thru, a drive-thru pancake breakfast, and a food truck rally. For more information on those events, visit Calgarystampede.com.
Local restaurants are also joining in the fun.
The Stampede was scheduled to take place July 2-12 and over that time businesses like Modern Steak, Forage Foods, Free House, Common Crown and Paddy’s Barbecue and Brewery all have special Stampede programming planned, ranging from Western-themed dinners to pancake breakfasts.
Check with each restaurant to see what they have in store.