Moon Under Water Brewpub

If you need evidence for what the hospitality labour shortage looks like go here. Two people working a packed brewpub on the long weekend. They were the hosts, bartenders, servers, and one had to be the manager. By no means is this a complaint and it has no impact on the 3 star rating. I felt really bad for them. They were working hard. Must have been a stressful night.

The 3 stars is because I just don't think this place would be any better even with a full staff. The food was meh. Reminds me of a Boston Pizza without the pizza. Typical bar food you can find pretty much anywhere these days. The flavours and presentations is actually very comparable to the food at Cineplex VIP. Even their beer menu is nothing to get excited about. We came to try their shaft flight but it's only available at their lounge which is closed on Sundays and Mondays. Anyway, if you want the details for the food:

- Cauliflower bites with watered down Thai chilli sauce ($10) - For the price you can't complain I guess. Tastes like battered cauliflower. That's the best way I can describe it.
- Deep Fried pickles ($8) - You get four bug slivers. They're good. Had a good crunch to them. Again, for that price I can't complain

Would I come back? Not to the brewpub. It's a skip. I'd return to try their lounge though.

I was really annoyed to find out that they charge 2.5% for using a credit card. There is no notice of this until you receive your bill at the end of the evening. If they told us when we ordered or put the information on the menu, but no..

Our last brewery visit of the trip was at Moon Under Water. I've seen their bottles at the liquor store but it's a mixed bag when it comes to how their beers taste.

We dropped in on a Monday (around 3:45pm). It wasn't busy and oddly, their beer pub was closed (even though there were people inside). We were informed to go to the restaurant instead. Service was brutal; our waitress messed up our flight and didn't bother to tell us anything about the beers that we had ordered.

There were 11 beers on tap. For food, the menu consists of pub favourites, soup & salad, appies, sandwiches, rice bowls (er...) and tacos. Monday specials was $5.00 pints all day/night and a bunch of appies on special. Two flight options were half moon ($8.50 for 4) or a full moon ($10.50 for 6)

- 2x Flights ($8.50 for 4) - we went with the drinkgeld dubbel (Belgian dubbel), azacca kettle sour (which our waitress messed up and gave us an oatmeal stout instead), year 6 (barrel aged wheat wine with citra) and pineapple pound town pale ale (no pineapple flavour tasted). Our friends got a flight of creepy Uncle dunkel (dark lager), hip as funk (farmhouse IPA), darkside and azacca kettle sour. The only one I liked was the kettle sour. The rest were bland and mundane.

Don't waste your time and money at MUW. Make the short trip over to any of the other nearby breweries: Île Sauvage, Driftwood and Hoyne.

Fabulous pub. Enjoyed the IPA! The service is excellent and the bathrooms are clean.

The tranquility IPA and Darkside was drinkable but the others were horrendous, especially the white marshmallow stout. I ordered cauliflower (commercially made) and chicken wrap with yam fries which tasted like dirty oil. I wasted my money and calories at Moon Under Water.

Terrific beer and food. Husband had the Creepy Uncle Dunkel and loved it. We had the poutine, BBQ chicken sandwich and butter chicken. All were excellent! If you are visiting Victoria, check this place out.

This is a cool stop for lunch. It was recommended by one of the other breweries in town.

Good selection of food and good prices.

We had fish and chips / fish tasted ok but too much batter.

Tacos were beautiful great flavor, and the Yam fries were a fabulous.

Good selection of beer on tap.

I'll bet this place is really busy at night.

A buddy and I sauntered on up here whilst our ladies were having a girls day a the spa. Naturally, we needed beer and empty carbs while they were enjoying a foot soak or something that cost more than our hotel room that evening!

We walked here from downtown and it's a bit of a hike through a not so great, but not terrible area. The sort of spot you wouldn't be surprised to saw something a bit unsavory. Very industrial area of town so it was a weird transition from downtown. We ventured on as we were hungry!

We came in around 5 pm on a Friday - about 90% of the tables were reserved, despite there being a number of us wanting to dine and dash. There was a trivia night or something that apparently they take very seriously.

The beers here were nothing super impressive, but what earned it that extra star was the POUTINE! Holy gravied cheese curds batman - this stuff was excellent! Good enough to share and delicious enough to go after with a spoon so as to not miss any of said goodness!

Service was fine, beer was meh and the poutine was grand! Based on the other spots we'd hit, our expectations were high and the outcome was very up and down. For those magical curd bathing in a delightful sea of everyone's favorite mashed potato topping, it's worth a look!

We have been to Victoria on many occasions and usually end up checking out the local breweries, this one always seemed too far to walk to from the downtown area, but its definitely not. We decided to make the trek to check out music bingo which is currently on Friday night. They do take reservations 2 weeks in advance as it seems like this often fills up. We did play music bingo at another bar and that one was more fun, but its still a great way to pass some time while hanging out at a bar.

We received excellent service while seated at the bar on a very busy night. The bartender was great and checked in with us very frequently. We enjoyed the fry bowl with gravy and some zucchini sticks. They have a large variety of sauces to go along with your food choices. Its nice that they serve both beer and mixed drinks. I do wish the website was updated with the current beers available.

I love that they have many bathroom stalls here, which is how a brewery/pub should be. The sayings on the wall to and from the bathroom also kept me very entertained.

I wasn't expecting much being a pub, boy was I wrong. I ordered the Thai chicken wrap with poutine and my daughter ordered the red curry rice bowl with chicken. Everything was so flavorful and the service was spot on.
Add this to your brew tasting walk you won't be sorry!