Port Coquitlam guide
Breweries and Pubs in Port Coquitlam
PoCo's brewers have built a taproom cluster on the city's east side, and the old-style pubs still hold their corners. A guide to drinking locally in a railway town.
Written by Fern Kellaway
Beer has always fit a railway town, and PoCo has never lost the habit. What has changed is the shape of it. The city's pubs are the old kind of rooms, the ones with a bar, a kitchen and a corner of regulars, and they still hold their blocks. Alongside them, a brewing scene has grown up on the city's east side, close enough together that you can reasonably call it a taproom cluster. Between the two, a night out in PoCo can be planned entirely inside the city limits, which is how I think a night out should work.
The brewery cluster is the easiest place to start because the geography does the work. Tinhouse Brewing and its Tinhouse Tasting Lounge share the Sherling Place plazas, Side Quest Brewing sits in the same cluster, and Boardwalk Brewery is just over on Seaborne Avenue. Three stops within a small stretch of the east side, each with its own room and its own list, and all of them set up for the way people drink now: a flight, a pint, something from the kitchen if the room has one. Ask at the counter what is fresh and what is seasonal. And if you are driving, the responsible answer is the same here as anywhere: plan a designated driver or split the tasting.
Northpaw Brewing rounds out the brewing list on the Glenwood side of the city. The taproom model is the same everywhere in PoCo: independent rooms that make their own beer, keep their own hours, and rely on the neighbourhood to keep the stools full. Check each listing before you head out, because taproom hours are the most likely thing in this guide to change with the season, and nothing is worse than a dark tasting room on a Friday night.
The pub side of the map is older and steadier. Gillnetter Pub holds its corner on Argue Street, Meridian Arms Pub anchors the Coast Meridian Road corridor where the east side gathers after work, and the Cat and Fiddle keeps its own room on Brown Street on the river side. The Bennett Craft & Kitchen brings a craft-kitchen version of the pub to the Lougheed corridor, with the food carrying as much weight as the pour. These are the rooms where the city decompresses: shift workers, commuters home from the highway, and weekend regulars who have held the same stools for years.
The practical part. Pubs in PoCo run on kitchen schedules, so if you want food, arrive within the kitchen's hours rather than assuming the menu runs all night. Taprooms may welcome all ages during the day and shift later in the evening, and the listing pages note what I have verified, while a phone call settles the rest. The railway heritage runs under all of it, and there is something right about ending a walk on the Traboulay loop with a local pour, the way railway towns have always done. Start on the east side if you want the brewers, start downtown if you want the old rooms, and take your time either way.
From the directory
Mentioned in this article
Every place named above has its own page here, with the address, the hours and the nearest station.
Boardwalk Brewery
Craft brewery on Seaborne Avenue pouring small-batch house beers in an on-site tasting room.
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Cat and Fiddle
Neighbourhood pub on Brown Street with draft beer on tap and a relaxed room for catching up over a pint.
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Gillnetter Pub
Pub on Argue Street in Port Coquitlam pouring drafts and serving pub fare in a casual neighbourhood room.
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Meridian Arms Pub
Pub on Coast Meridian Road pouring draft beer, wine and classic pub fare in a casual room.
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Northpaw Brewing
Craft brewery in Port Coquitlam's Glenwood neighbourhood, part of the wave of local breweries that has spread across Metro Vancouver.
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Side Quest Brewing
Craft brewery and taproom on Sherling Place in Port Coquitlam serving house-brewed beer by the pint.
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The Bennett Craft & Kitchen
Pub and craft kitchen on Lougheed Highway in Port Coquitlam with a food-forward menu and a full drink list.
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Tinhouse Brewing
Craft brewery at 2140-550 Sherling Place in Port Coquitlam brewing its own line of beers for the tasting room and beyond.
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Tinhouse Tasting Lounge
Bar and tasting lounge at 2140-550 Sherling Place in Port Coquitlam pouring house-brewed beers by the pint and in flights.
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Who wrote this
Fern Kellaway
Fern Kellaway grew up in Mary Hill, three streets from the rail corridor, and her grandfather worked the CPR yards for most of his life. She lives near Lions Park now and has walked the Traboulay loop weekly for twenty years, which is how she knows which businesses are still there.
