Cowbell Brewing Company Reviews

Before we even left, I was wanting to come/go back. We took a tour as an event planned part of our girls bachelorette weekend. I called my mother in law & husband, just ranting & raving about Cowbell; they will be who I visit with in the near future.

***COVID NOTES: they adhere to all protocols to protect the customers & their staff. There are signs everywhere & plenty of hand sanitizing stations. We all felt comfortable & safe***

Anyway...this brewery is phenomenal & only in full operations for 3 years. It is truly astounding as to what they have accomplished as a business. They are extremely environmentally friendly & super community oriented!!! I have not been to a brewery yet that has left such an impact.
Our storyteller, Gillian (pardon my possible spelling mistake), was THE BEST! She brought to life the story of Cowbell, the ins & outs, & all the things mentioned above. We absolutely loved listening to her as she guided us about our tour.
We loved the brews, but had also tried many in the past via LCBO, but got to try new ones no carried or just not able to be canned. My new fave is the Raspberry moon & I wish I brought home more than 2 cans.
We all ate lunch & left super full but extremely satisfied! My Ruben was on point & the secret sauce to dip my fries in...OH MY was that divine. I should have bought some while in the shop but just another reason to go back.
Their merchandise store is honestly one of the most elaborate ones I have shopped in. The assortment from socks to onesies to sweaters to watches to chocolate to secret sauce to beer to glasses...I could go on!!!
There is way to much to love about Cowbell, you seriously have to go see it for yourself!
OH, if you are a motorcycle enthusiast, they have a cement designation parking pad. It s just for your bikes, so that unlike when parking on asphalt, your kickstand won t sink into the hot surface in the warmer months!!! SO COOL!

Awesome staff!! Knowledgeable guides! Amazing food!! Beautiful building.

Awesome! Great place for great beer, excellent food and really good service!

Great bartender, great service, great first time experience!!

Rotten food and it was overpriced , stale bread (brewhouse sandwich) rotten tomatoes and brown lettuce the chicken was extremely salty like it was hiding something bad too, worst restaurant experience in my life actually.
This is an 18$ sandwich...you can find better at a local fast food restaurant for less...definitely had better..absolutely terrible.

Amazing experience, it is a must stop! It is country chic and they beautifully showcase Blyth. The food is crafted exquisitely...I love how they take the staples and twist them to the realm of anything but boring. Also you will be super lucky if you have Chelsea as your server...she went above and beyond for our table and made our experience just spectacular

Fantastic place! Sat outside and the staff were very friendly! Food was delicious, as was the wine and beer! Definitely try the pizzas!

Great place, excellent food and very good beer! Spectacular lunch on the patio!

Very good as usual. Great food and excellent service.

Good food good prices I'm going back and I'm bringing people with it was delicious

Is Cowbell worth the drive? Absolutely! Their devotion to local community building, locally sourced farm ingredients, environmentally conscious efforts, attention to detail, and exemplary service and staff are unmatched. Whether going for a quick pint or a full course meal, you will not be disappointed.

Beautiful space with lots of seating. Big selection of their beers on tap. Food is amazing. Gift shop on site for souvenirs.

Food was delicious..excellent quality..fast service..loved the shindig beer..the pizzas and Reuben sandwich were amazing..the mac n cheese excellent..will definitely go back!

We arrived in an RV and pleased that there were designated RV spots. However a bunch of small cars had taken these spots so we were not able to park. We will have to come back some time in a car as the RV parking is not enforced.

Called to make sure they had a a stout or porter on tap for a growler fill, after confirming they did I drove 30 min out of my way only to be told they don't fill growlers on the spot. Won't drink another one of their beers again.

Take the tour if you get a chance. Really fascinating history behind how and why it was built. We loved the tour + dinner.

Excellent burger and sweet potato fries! Live piano when we first arrived. Pleasant atmosphere.

My wife and I stopped in to Cowbell in hopes of a little tasting, but we're cordially welcomed and ask if we would like a tour which occurs every hour; the next being at 4:pm.. You can go by yourself or for $10.00 each with a tour guide. For $15.00, you get a guided tour as well as free draught beer ( 1 of 2 choices ). Our tour guide, Caitlyn was very knowledgeable and you could tell that she loved her job as guide and bar tender. We got our beer after the tour and was very good. I bought a T Shirt with my 15% discount card and since we had eaten a late lunch just before arriving, we're not able to stay for supper, but look forward to going again and have a meal and a beer. It was a wonderful time and a really beautiful building.

The building is beautiful, the service was great, food was delicious

Fantastic selection of tasty beer. Delicious food. Great atmosphere.

Great service and delicious beer. Too bad they don't have the Oatmeal Stout in cans or growlers.

Great selection. Food was top notch. Wish it was closer to the GTA

I had a burger.

It was a proper, house-made with real meat and cheese, burger.

You know it's full of all those things that your mother/wife/doctor says you shouldn't eat, but it was so special, you had to have it.

The French fries were good too! (Do they use beef tallow?)

Of course, fresh draught beer to go with it.

It's worth eating kale until Wednesday to even out the cholesterol afterwards.

Very fun brewery and restaurant. We went as a party of 8 and had an amazing time. The food was awesome and the beers are great. Fast friendly service.

Burger was dry, potatoes were bland.
Will not be returning.

Great beer! Arrogant ignorant staff. Was treated so rudely and non responsively that I will never go back. Not how good customers should be treated.

I visited Cowbell with a few friends and it was such a blast! We didn t mind the country aroma once we set eyes on the exterior...quite breathtaking! We enjoyed a few pints while we did the self guided tour, which was quite informative. Then we were seated in their main dining area, which is very large but somehow cozy and quaint. We ordered a variety of dishes and shared them all. Everything was excellent and I would absolutely return again! Highly recommend!! They also have rooms for staff parties or larger get togethers.

This place is amazing the building itself is beautiful and they have a tour area where you can see all the beer tanks and where they can everything as well as a bar and restuarant area it is a very cool experience

Saturday afternoon make sure you have a reservation or you're going to be sitting outside in the tent. Food was okay but was looking forward to a nice dining experience not a picnic table with take out. Would probably have not been a problem if there wasn't covid-19 restrictions

Beautiful interior,, great appetizers,, good service!?

Lovely place. Food is excellent. I love how they are conservationists. Taking care of the planet and community, great visionaries.

The beer and nachos were great. Our server Jordan was friendly, knowledgeable and fast.

Beautiful building in the middle of country. Decent selection of beer. Great staff. Pricey.

Great decor and service! Beer and food are excellent!

Visited Cowbell on Saturday October 21st. Had been wanting to visit this craft beer destination brewery since it opened and was not disappointed! The building is amazing and is an architectural wonder, built from the ground up. There is a great self guided tour of the brewery. The beer is fantastic, with thirty taps at the bar. We also had lunch there, an excellent burger and grilled smoked pork sandwich. Desert was excellent as well with a maple creme brule and a beer pie (chocolate and meraigne) This was the lunch menu, have not yet tried the main menu for dinner. Service was quick and friendly but had three different people serving us so difficult to know how much to tip, though they all did a great job.

Came here for our 20th wedding anniversary. Every person that we dealt with from the phone call for reservations, to the tour, to our awesome waitress and fun people at the store were amazing!! Thank you Cowbell for making our night fun and memorable!

Great service from Ben who was so helpful for our food and beer selections. Beautiful building

Great atmosphere on a sunny Sunday afternoon! Our server, Melissa, was fantastic! We'll be back for dessert this summer.

Beautiful building and nice atmosphere...but the wait time for 2 simple meals was out of proportion, considering it wasn t that busy when we were there. Very disappointed with the pizza and lasagna. Did not taste fresh, and was extremely bland. :( Had high hopes...not sure if we would eat here again.

Been to a lot of micro breweries but this has got to be my favourite. Amazing food, great beer & such a wonderful atmosphere! There is even a self guided tour! Definitely going back!

Beautiful building, loved the architecture. Craft beer was wonderful.

Our first visit to the brewery was on Sunday July 26/20, so there's definitely a COVID allowance. The restaurant was booked, so we sat on the patio. The front of house staff was not very welcoming ..for example we asked about eating inside but rather than saying "I'm sorry we are fully booked but we have space on our patio" it was more like "There's no space in here so you'll have to go outside". A subtle difference but an important one.
Once we got outside we discovered why they might not have been enthusiastic about our visit. The flies! Oh the flies! There were swarms of them crawling on us, our food, the walls, the tables... to the point that we decided to move further into the back part of the patio as there was a breeze so we thought it might be better/fewer flies.
I was stopped half way back by either another server or a hostess who was not pleasant. She asked if I'd checked with the hostess to make sure it was okay as "someone might want to sit there" and left to check for us...except she never returned. Our waiter caught my eye and took care of the problem.

The food: The gazpacho soup made with their pomegranate sour beer was great, and the bread with honey butter was awesome. As were the flights of beers we enjoyed! We took home some beer to enjoy.

Dinner was mixed. I had the 1/2 baked chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and chose spiced roasted corn on the cob for my side. The chicken was nicely seasoned but really overcooked...it was very dry, to the point of hard to swallow without a drink. The potatoes were good, but cold. The gravy was cold and had started to coagulate.
My partner had the clubhouse with sweet potato fries which she said was good.
An alcoholic fly landed in one of the beers in our flight which the waiter immediately replaced, which was great.
So, overall, a nice place with a mix of friendly and folks who still need a little coaching and the food needs to be more consistent.

I don't know how to fix the fly issue, but it's an ISSUE. Perhaps the entire patio needs to be screened in, including overhead. Without some solution the experience is pretty unpleasant.

I'm sure we will be back for another try and hopefully can post an updated, positive review!

Scott our server was great! Great food, drinks and staff. Very accommodating.

Excellent food, great building & staff. Food was very good. Reservations for sure anytime in summer.

Amazing place. Very good beer. Shared a salad and a pizza. Pizza Chef was working his buns off as they were a favourite. Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza was yummy although I would have preferred it baked a bit more. Cool tour. Very helpful and cheerful team.

Just there to pick up some delicious brews. Haven't tried any food yet, but the place is beautiful.

Food and beer are always great! We love this spot!.

Update: staff are still friendly, bills are still pricey ($10 for kids meal), but unfortunately my last two meals were barely ok for the $20 sandwich. Good fries though and still a cathedral to brewing.

Worth the drive to visit, but a little pricy final bill. Call in advance if you want to sit, but you can grab a pint and wander the brewery while you're waiting.

Stopped by here on the weekend. Very busy so make sure you call ahead if you want to eat. The front staff said they get booked up 3-5 weeks in advance. We got lucky and got a seat at the bar and could order lunch. Tried a few beers. All where good. Had the classic burger with a salad and my brother had a pizza. Both where really good. Staff was very friendly and helpful. Lots of parking and even charging available for electric vehicle. About 5 Tesla destination charges and 1 Crickle Creek charger for most other electric vehicles. Worth the drive especially in the summer when you can hit a beach after.

Amazing dining experience. Casual atmosphere. Food was amazing.

What a beautiful venue. So warm and welcoming. Great beers and amazing food. Our server was so friendly. Can't wait to come back again.

Great food, awesome beer, amazing facilities! Well done Cowbell Brewing, well done!

Poor table service, slow and not good for family with kids

Great place, Great beer, Great atmosphere, Great everything!!!

Very good. We'll definitely come again. Food was really good. Beer was lovely (according to hubby - I'm gluten free) so I enjoyed the Alton Estates Sauvignon Blanc which was surprisingly good. Want to bring friends back next time.

Cowbell Brewery was a very unique and stunning craft brewery! Very good quality beer combined with an even better atmosphere! Will definitely be back.

Quick friendly service. Chicken Caesar pizza very good as was the potato bacon soup. Tried a sampler of four beers. All were interesting. Some a little hoppy but all were very
good. A nice evening out

Great place! Beautiful brewery and restaurant. Will go back again!

Love this place! Go almost every weekend. Food and Service is impeccable. We really like that they use and promote local businesses. Be sure to make a reservation as it is enjoyed by many!

Beautiful brewery/restaurant, great beer and excellent food. This is a busy spot, so book a reservation in advance.

A lot of choices from the menu and excellent tasting beers.Best burger that I have ever had and all food choices are delicious, great atmosphere and beautiful building. Try to go once a month and worth the 40 minute drive every time.

Incredibly beautiful brewery - great place to have a good time with friends and family while enjoying fantastic beer. There's something for everyone to enjoy! Breathtaking visually, and the people that work there are top-notch.

Cowbell was a brewery that I would choose over others when faced with a craft beer selection at restaurants until today. I made a trip to the brwwery and restaurant for my birthday which was over an hour drive. Food was good, beer was good but then I attempted to take some beer home with me. $38.95 for a growler! That's absurd. They charge a $20 deposit on growlers which is just gouging. Every other craft brewery I have been to charges about $5. That's the last Cowbell beer that I will ever drink.

Was there on Friday January 10 / 20
I ordered the Meatlovers Pizza...it was horrible..very little toppings, undercooked, everytime i picked it up it flopped over, and I had enough flower on my hands from the bottom of the pizza I could have used to bake a cake..My spouse ordered the chicken and it was overcooked ..we will not be returning to this Restaurant..The Brewery itself is beautiful...very interesting history

Amazing how big this place is. It has a great atmosphere.

Cool place to check out, not near enough places to sit and a VERY small bar. We go to a lot of breweries and my hubby was very surprised they did not provide samples.

Food and service was excellent. Food and beverage selection was excellent and reasonably priced.

My wife and I drove from the Guelph area to have lunch at the Cowbell Brewery that we had heard about from a friend. We were pleased with the choice of food and reasonable prices. Choice of beverage was not limited to the products of the brewery so non beer drinkers could still have a choice.

Gorgeous place, really interesting to visit and nice menu. Great place to go on a drive to visit, then have a meal in their restaurant

Be sure to make a reservation if you're going for a meal - it is busy! Now we know why - food was delicious, as was our flight of beers and the atmosphere was fantastic. A beautiful place, even on a rainy day.

I think this the best and most interesting brewery tour I ever experienced. Beer and food is excellent. And definitely the most environment friendly brewery I have ever seen. Really sets the bar.

Good beer, lackluster food.

Although my husband and I enjoyed our samplings and pints of beer, the food was very disappointing.

We ordered a club, a pork sandwich, 2 kids meals, and a starter jalapeno corn bread. The club was more like a flavourless chicken salad. My husband, who usually eats anything and everything, sent over half of it back, refusing a doggy bag. My pork sandwich was over-salted and fatty. The kids food was okay but overpriced. The sides and corn bread were good.

The facility was lovely and servers friendly. The anniversary stout (Almanac) was good enough to buy from their store to enjoy at home.

We will continue to buy their beer from the LCBO but would not go out of our way to stop in at the brewery, other than maybe for a growler fill.

The beer and the brewery as amazing. Would
Recommend to stop in if you can.

This was our 4th visit here for a meal- did not disappoint. Great menu selection and always a delicious meal.

Our Waitress Amy was AMAZING! Everything was great!

This was on my list of breweries to visit for a long time. I've been to quite a few as I enjoy making routes that usually start with a hike and end with a beer at a craft brewery! I went with my gf to Hullett Wildlife Preservation for a trail walk and ended at Cowbell. The site itself is massive and a fantastic design, inside and out. It was a Saturday night, around 8 ish; busy enough including a bus tour - but got a seat inside near the bar at a high table with no wait (could have been on the patio but had already been eaten a bit by bugs from the walk so passed on that). Our server, Ashley, had only been there for several months but was well versed in the beer selection (even if beer wasn't her favourite beverage ;) ) and was extremely helpful with all of our questions. She forgot our water (for palette cleansing, of course) but she was busy and no worries. My gf had the Smokehouse burger and thoroughly enjoyed it - best part was the arugula matched perfectly with the apple aioli (if I have the correct toppings). The fries and gravy were good - a bit lacking on the amount of fries but to be fair, with the burger itself, turned out to be a good amount. You just get used to a certain amount of the side, I suppose. I was torn between trying the Herbivore burger and the veggie veggie pizza but decided on the latter. Thin crust, homemade, very good. Sauce and veggies were good - I subbed out olives for jalapeno peppers (definitely suggest the same if you like spice). I think, because it's thin, the cheese would come off in one bite which was annoying but just a personal taste. I added hot sauce (the one they use in their Caesars) for added spice - excellent touch! We took a walk around after food, checked out the top floor, watched some self guided tour videos, really enjoyed the whole architecture of the place. Very different from others I've seen. The beer is good - I've had Shindig & Absent Landlord previously - and I was satisfied. Tried a flight with Fly Girl, McNall's, Kelly's, & Bobcat. Fly Girl was a bit more charcoal than cookie for a stout; I enjoyed the hefeweisen & the honey brown ale. Bobcat is a red ale and hoppy but not too bad (I'm not a huge hops fan myself). I tried the Anniversary Almanac imperial stout - boozy at 11.3% ABV but I do like my boozy beers ;)
Final thought - Huge place, well thought out, great food (a bit pricey), beer is decent overall, and Ashley was awesome! Not too far away for many places so take a ride and enjoy a night out!

Tour was excellent. Bit expensive but worth it. Beer is excellent food amazing

Get a hot dog with your paddle of craft beer. Can't beat 2 bucks :) Best brewery in Ontario.

Thoroughly disapointing!!
We'd been wanting to go for about a year and on Saturday afternoon we decided to make the 1 hour drive there. I love the beer and the brewery part was great, hence the 2 stars, but the restaurant was a disaster. How on earth is it so highly rated? Upon arriving we were told it would be a 45 or 50 minute wait for a table for 2, despite half the restaurant being empty, and outside had 4 or 5 tables for 2 free the entire time. The 20 year kids who were working the table booking were clueless and it seemed like all the wait staff were far too young. In a "fancy" place like that you need wait staff who've worked in the business, eaten out at other places and have some idea about what decent service is.. The security guard was like 16 and I shudder to think what would happen if a drunken fight started between the many bikers who frequent the place. After an hour and 10 minutes we were finally seated by an unfriendly waitress and it took a full 12 minutes for her to come back to our table and take our drink order. We ordered food and when it came it was brought by a jolly older woman and not the surly waitress, we started to think things were looking up. The food was mediocre at best. I had the Meat Lovers pizza which was supposed to be "Tomato sauce, loaded with daily meat selection & cheese". The pizza had a bland tomato sauce apart from 1 quarter of it that had the BBQ sauce from The Absent Landlord pizza or BBQ checken pizza. Clearly the chef is using the same spoon to spread
both sauce types. The meat selection was incredibly bad and most of it seemed to be pieces of smoked hot dog wiener, which is certainly not what I'd expect from an artisan wood fired pizza. The crust was great though, but didn't make up for the poor quality of the rest of the pizza. My friend had the The Brewhouse Club. This was a tiny, sad, tasteless sandwich. The onion rings were very good though. Overall not a place I would recommend to anyone and I assume they were having an "off day", but if I was running that restaurant I'd get rid of the kids and get some proper experienced people in there.

Could not even get a beer at the bar. Plenty of staff, however no time for serving customers trying to buy a drink. I won't come back to try again given the terrible failure this first time there.

Our incredible server Amy was a gem. Clearly explained beer selections and menu specials.
My foursome of brews was great. 'The Grant' burger is the best. My wife's cheese pizza was good with an excellent tomato sauce. Overall...wonderful.
Will make a point to return. Thanks Amy!

Cowbell provides a great dining experience with uncomplicated but fantastic fare. The Renegade beers offer a great variety all through the year.