The Brewmaster’s sausage pizza ($16) was also palatable with its thin chewy crust and a host of rich meaty ingredients including beerwurt sausage, mushrooms, smoked cheddar and caramelized onion.  Drizzled on the pizza was a reduced Tempest beer which added a smoky savoury balsamic like taste bringing a bit of exoticness to the dish.  Overall, it was an average pizza that doesn’t blow you away but at least doesn’t disappoint.

Featured prominently at the top of the menu is the Amsterdam pretzel ($6).  Since I was hungry, I thought it’d be smart to order this given they were likely premade and just needed to be reheated and served.  Alas, despite asking our waitress to just bring things as they were ready (since we were sharing) our request was not heeded and even the pretzel took 45 minutes before it arrived.  Sure it had a good chewy texture and was topped with flakes of sea salt but lacked that yeasty smell and slight butteriness I enjoy from the pretzels you get in New York or sporting events.  It was served with two beer based mustards (sweet Natural Blonde red currant mustard and spicy Big Wheel Dijon) and a wort reduction that were a nice touch.

An offering that you don’t normally find on bar menus was the togaroshi chicken ($12), which is a spicy zesty Japanese spice mix that you can also find at ramen restaurants.  It sure sounded good on paper but what actually arrived were ridiculously small pieces of battered chicken.  Really, I just felt like I was eating pieces of fried batter – KFC’s popcorn chicken is probably double the size of any of the pieces we had. Topped with wonton strips, chopped cucumber, green onions and a side of red cabbage kimchee most of these ingredients stood out more than the chicken.  As for the togaroshi spice, I didn’t get a hint of it.

A UK dish, the Scotch egg ($9), was featured on Amsterdam Brewhouse’s menu.  The egg’s presentation is beautiful with a good covering of sausage against the yellow egg yolk.  Alas, the egg was overcooked and the dish arrived cold without any of the crunch you expect at all.  If you want to try one of these, do yourself a favour and go to Weslodge instead.

The only highlight of the night, other than the company of course, was Amsterdam Brewhouse’s beer tasting flights ($8).  Named after street locations of their previous breweries it’s a nice homage to their business.  With each tasting flight you receive four 5oz glasses of beer to allow you to try not only their own brews but some other Ontario microbreweries as well.  They range from lighter ales at the top to the hoppy stronger beers at the bottom of the menu.  I stuck with the first half of the menu and tried the “Richmond and John” and the “King and Portland”. 

The Richmond and John flight was the lightest tasting of the bunch including the Natural Blonde (my favourite of the night), the 416, an adventure brew (essentially the House’s pick; during our visit was an orange peel-like beer that could have been skipped) and the Raspberry Wheat (has a distinctive raspberry taste without the gross sweetness of a Früli).

The King and Portland flight was slightly richer but still easy drinking. Tastes of Big Wheel, Downtown Brown, Boneshaker and adventure brew (sadly the same one in the Richmond and John) were provided.  I’ll admit, by the second flight without food it was getting harder to really decipher the tastes of the beer itself so there’s little I can add to this.

All in all, Amsterdam Brewhouse has the potential to become a good microbrewery restaurant – they are situated at an ideal location, the dining room is open and features a breathtaking look into their distilling facilities, and their menu offers a good selection but is still small enough to be manageable.  Their downfall is its size - they simply do not have the adequate management and trained manpower required to deal with the enormous operations.  Even after eating there once, I believe a couple of key things need to be done to improve its operations:

To sum up, TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN!  The restaurant has been opened for over a month now so learning pains can no longer be used as an excuse for their inexperienced staff.  A lot of reviewers complain about the poor service.  I’ll admit, we didn’t have the most happy looking waitress, but I can imagine if I had to run around all night and have people complain to me the whole time I wouldn’t be in a smiling mood as well.  Better customer and employee satisfaction can be achieved just by ensuring staff are knowledgeable about their roles, the menu and the company they are working for.  Ensuring staff is happy or at least satisfied with their jobs is important as they are who customers see (and a grumpy looking waitress doesn’t make me want to order more beer).  After all, unhappy staff can lead to turnover which means the uninformed staff problem will perpetually continue.    

In the end, Amsterdam Brewhouse is a good place to go with friends to have drinks, maybe eat a salad (since it’s already cold) and enjoy the outdoors (if you can score a seat on one of its three patios).  I would advise against going there for just dinner unless you’re going during a non-peak time or with a group of two. So, maybe Wallymagoo’s is now gone but the replacement is still looking like a bit of a tourist trap.