My wife and I live in the Junction and were eagerly awaiting the opening of the Indie Ale House. We went Friday night after work and had a flight of 5 of the independent microbrewery's ales from the left side of the board.To eat my wife had the mac and cheese with mushrooms and I had the burger. We shared bites - the mac and cheese was spectacular, and while the burger was good it fell a bit flat in taste (needed some zing - for my money a Rowe's premium lamb burger BBQ'd with fixings and the Fred's bread bun is the best in the city (but you BBQ it yourself ;) ). The beer was excellent and featured a wide range of beer styles and flavours (stouts, ales, IPAs etc.). Our favorite was the Broken Hipster. It was good enough to go again Saturday night and try more.
I'd like to see more inventiveness in the the burger that we saw the next day in pizzas. Consider different meats and blends and layer in more flavor. You can make a killer pizza sauce clearly - so a killer burger sauce/flavouring should not be impossible.
Saturday we returned for dinner and had a flight from the right side of the board - which included the interesting and super-fruity raspberry infused Spadina, and a very Coffee-and-chocolate tasting stout. Yummy. What blew our minds was the pizza - we are big thin crust fans and have had pizza from Vesuvios countless times and have had from Buddah Pie (when they were delivering). I was not expecting to get served pizza we now consider to be better than both Vesuvios and Buddah Pie. I had the Three (sorry can't recall the name exactly) Pigs pizza (three kinds of pork) and my wife had the Junction Pie. Both pizzas blew our minds - unbelievably good. The crusts were thin and crunchy as they should be (not thin and oily) the flavours were incredible. The sauce on the Three Pigs pizza was amazing. Both pizzas were top notch. We ended up with leftovers and it was just as excellent cold the next day.
Service was excellent, the atmosphere great, the serving staff knew the food and beers and could make recommendations.
I would highly recommend the Indie Ale House without hesitation to family and friends. Please keep up the great work - and please - 1) work on the burger; and 2) introduce take out! The mac and cheese and pizzas we tried - I can vouch for as outstanding.
We will be back! (With friends!)