Flying Monkeys Brewery: Barrie’s Best Craft Beer Bar

Flying Monkeys Brewery is located on Dunlop Street East in downtown Barrie.

The award-winning Ontario craft brewery offers visitors a retail store, bottle shop, beer bar, brewpub restaurant, outdoor patio and daily tours.

Flying Monkeys Brewery produces a year-round core range as well as a rotation of creative seasonal beers.

The Flying Monkeys Brewery patio is a popular spot to drink craft beer in Barrie.

Step inside the quirky dining room at Flying Monkeys Brewery in Barrie.

History of Flying Monkeys Brewery

The Flying Monkeys Brewery is an independent, locally-owned, craft beer mecca in Barrie. It’s regularly celebrated for helping launch Ontario’s Craft Beer Revolution.

Barrie’s best brewery first opened its doors in 2005 as the Robert Simpson Brewery. It was named in honour of the first mayor of Barrie, who was also the owner of a local brewery in the 19th-century. The company changed its name to Flying Monkeys Brewery in 2009. It was the perfect leap for the quirky craft beer brand, giving the brewery a makeover that was more in-touch with its outside-of-the-box personality.

The Barrie brewery’s president Peter Chiodo explains the name, “Flying Monkeys Brewery is a little left of centre. The name was inspired by a sign I have on my back porch: ‘Don’t make me get out my Flying Monkeys’. It is indeed from The Wizard of Oz, which is really a pretty trippy adventure.”

There’s no better way to describe Flying Monkeys Brewery’s interior design aesthetic than trippy. Stroll through the brewpub and tap room and you’ll find plenty of funky decor including an eclectic mix of music posters, neon signs, colourful chalkboards, painted seats, vintage telephones and a wall of antique radios.

Flying Monkeys Brewery's bar offers new and creative craft beers. — Flying Monkeys Brewery’s bar offers new and creative craft beers.

Sample a selection of four Flying Monkeys Brewery beers by ordering a flight at the bar.

Barrie’s Best Craft Beer

Barrie’s best craft brewery is not one for a producing basic beer. The brewing team seeks to push the envelope by creating beers that express unique flavour profiles. Chiodo adds, “We make beers you don’t typically get in Canada, flavour-wise. As well, our beers are generally higher-gravity beers, a technique that results in a higher alcohol content.”

So how does the creative team at Flying Monkeys Brewery dream up Ontario’s next best beer?

Chiodo explains, “We actually have an area of our brewery that makes 3 hectoliters in a test vat where we constantly have several different recipes in various stages of production in an effort to create the next Flying Monkeys taste sensation. Sometimes it’s magic like with our peppery Matador 2.0 or the sweet Amarillo flavour in the Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale. There are other moments when ingredients you swear should blend together to provide an exquisite taste instead taste like a monkey’s… well, you know. But that’s why we enjoy the whole experimentation process here at Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery. It’s tricky, but it’s a lot of fun.”

Today, the Barrie brewery employs 89 people and exports to over 23 countries making it the largest international shipper of Ontario craft beer.

If you’re visiting Barrie, skip over to the Flying Monkeys Brewery bar and you’ll find 16 different taps frothing with fresh beer. Eight are core or seasonal beers, while the remaining taps are small batch pilots the brewing team are tinkering with. Some one-off brews offer unique flavours that you might only experience at the brewery in Barrie.

Antigravity Lager: light lager with brush of Noble hops
Sparkle, Puff, Galaxy Starfighter: triple dry hopped triple IPA citrus peaches
Confederation Amber Ale: malt backbone with caramel sweetness
Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale: toasted biscuit with amarillo and cascade
Smashbomb Atomic IPA: explosion of citra hops at 72 IBU
Juicy Ass IPA: highly hopped unfiltered IPA at 69 IBU
Live Transmission Milkshake IPA: IPA with lactose, coconut and orange
Chocolate Manifesto: imperial triple chocolate milk stout
12 Minutes to Destiny: rose-hips, hibiscus, raspberry lager
Wonderstart Botanical Lager: zippy tartness, currant, hints of juniper
Killer Cupcake Panda: double IPA with pandan leaves and sabro hops
Low Ridin: oat pale ale with ariana hops
Reverse Toxin: farmhouse ale hopped with barbe rouge
Forget Me Not: barrel-aged barleywine aged on cherries
Calling All Earthlings IPA: refreshing IPA brewed with Jack Astror’s
Dark Side of the Roast: porter and freshly roasted coffee from Epic North

Chicken wings and hand-cut fries pair perfectly with a craft beer flight.

The Yardbird is a fried chicken sandwich served with a fresh seasonal salad.

The Pickle Pizza is Flying Monkeys Brewery's signature dish. — The Pickle Pizza is Flying Monkeys Brewery’s signature dish.

Flying Monkeys Brewpub Menu

Heading to Barrie on a craft beer pilgrimage and feeling peckish?

Chef Paul Tingley is responsible for the menu at the Flying Monkeys Brewpub in Barrie, featuring fun sharables and beercentric dishes. Chef Tingley is a graduate of the University of Guelph’s Hotel & Food Administration program, later furthering his studies at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa Culinary Arts Institute.

Chef Tingley explains the brewpub’s food philosophy, “Craft beer creates little communities at each table, so lots of our fresh, homemade food is designed with sharing in mind. And because we’re a brewery, naturally we use our beer in much of our menu. The menu at Flying Monkeys Brewpub is small, creative and fresh, just like our craft beer. Folks love our fat pretzels, sprawling sheet nachos, and famous burger. A particular favourite seems to be the Yardbird, which is a crispy, buttermilk fried chicken sandwich with fresh fennel slaw and spicy, beer-infused sriracha mayo.”

Like the craft breweries seasonal beers, the Flying Monkeys restaurant menu also changes with the seasons. The kitchen switches up the menu 3 to 4 times a year and offers a special prix fixe menu and some really funky, creative offerings for winter Barrielicious, Barrie’s annual food festival. Chef Tingley is famous for creating trendy foods as well as fun and weird dishes. Memorable dishes from the past include Fruit Loop encrusted Chicken & Waffles, a decadent donut burger and 12 Minutes to Destiny-infused Raspberry Hibiscus creme brûlée.

If you’re planning to enjoy a night out in Barrie, contact the brewpub in advance to inquire about what entertainment they’re offering. Beer lovers in Barrie can enjoy live local music five days a week.

Snackies: beer nuts, cajun mix, chocolate covered raisins.
Soup du Jour: served with two slices of sourdough baguette from Homestead Bakery
Warm Olives: blend of St. Lawrence Market Sicilian & Mediterranean olives sautéed with olive oil, rosemary and garlic. Served with toasted baguette.
Twice-Fried Hand Cut Fries: sprinkled with garlic, chopped chives, asiago. Served with housemade Antigravity Ketchup and garlic aoili.
Garbage Pail Tots: crispy tater tots loaded with cheddar cheese, chopped green onions, crispy bacon chunks topped with spicy melted cheese and sour cream.
Pickle Pizza: crispy flatbread slathered in garlic and dill bechamel, topped with crispy bacon, dill pickles and mozzarella cheese.
The BF Pretzel Board: house pretzels served with Netherworld beer cheese sauce and housemade Hoptical Illusion Whole Grain Mustard.
My Big Fat Greek Salad: red and green peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, feta, kalamata olives, chickpeas, fresh salad greens, lemony Greek dressing topped with marinated grilled chicken breast and tzaziki.
The Yardbird: crisp buttermilk fried chicken topped with fennel slaw, crunchy lettuce, tomato, slathered in spicy siracha-mayo on warm brioche bun.
Monkey Wings: crisp chicken wings tossed in Buffalo-style hot sauce (mild, medium, hot or honey garlic). Make them “monkey style” with blue cheese.
Sprawling Sheet Chorizo Nachos: toasted on a one-layer baking sheet. Crumbled chorizo sausage, black beans, sweet corn, shredded lettuce, chipotle salsa, cheddar and jack cheeses, drizzled with garlic cilantro sour cream.
Release the Crackin’ Burger: 100% ground chuck burger encrusted with cracked peppercorns, topped with bacon and carmelized onion marmalade, creamy peppercorn and horseradish aioli, melted havarti and gruyere cheese. Served with hand cut fries and fennel slaw.

Learn how craft beer is made on a tour of Barrie's best craft brewery. — Learn how craft beer is made on a tour of Barrie’s best craft brewery.

Flying Monkeys Brewery Tour

The entire Tap Room & Brewery is designed for folks to experience the quirky culture of Flying Monkeys. Since brewery tours are free, they don’t include a set tasting. People usually linger after the tour to enjoy beers in the Tap Room or on the patio in summer. The free beer tour in Barrie draws approximately 70,000 curious imbibers each year!

So what’s the biggest surprise on the Flying Monkeys Brewery Tour? Realizing just how small the operation is! Every Flying Monkeys beer found anywhere in the world is brewed in the 2400 square foot brewhouse in downtown Barrie. The brewing team produced an astonishing 24,000 hectolitres in the brewery in 2019!

WEEKDAY BREWERY TOURS: 2pm
SATURDAY BREWERY TOURS: 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm
SUNDAY BREWERY TOURS: 1pm, 2pm, 3pm and 4pm

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Take home Barrie's best craft beer by visiting Flying Monkeys Bottle shop in Barrie. — Take home Barrie’s best craft beer by visiting Flying Monkeys Bottle shop.

Retail Store & Bottle Shop

Skip through the front door and you’ll arrive at Flying Monkeys Brewery’s bottle shop and retail store. Ontario craft beer fans can purchase a wide selection of branded gifts, from glassware to t-shirts, tap handles and bottle opener keychains.

For those looking to pop by the brewery in Barrie before enjoying a cottage holiday in Muskoka, a large fridge can be found stacked with ice-cold tall cans. Beer lovers can also order growlers, filled with your choice of fresh beer, straight from the tap.

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