Federal Taphouse

Apparently this is a local chain, but I've only been to one of them, which is downtown and pretty spacious (2 floors, but I've only seen one). It put a bit of a bad taste in my mouth the first time we attempted to go, the hostess seemed super judgey and estimated a longer wait time than seemed reasonable given the amount of empty tables. We came back the next day at 3pm and it was totally empty so we got seats, woohoo. Anyway, it's a cool looking space, and the best part is the beer(/cider) list which is about 100 drinks long, all on tap and described and sorted by type. Very fun, although a little pricy at times. The food menu isn't anything special, mostly sandwiches and pizza and seafood, but it's decent. Our waitress was also really nice, prompt, and best of all, proactive and knowledgable about allergy stuff. Very much appreciated and I'd go back just based on that.

We got poutine as an app, which was good (lots of gravy) but not great. I don't think the cheese curds were actually curds - there was no squeak! They were just hunks of mozz. Still good but not really "poutine". A big amount though, so filling that I hardly ate my meal, which was the mushroom pizza. This pizza is big also and had a white sauce (boo) and thin crust and lots of mushroom (yay). It's really cheesey/alfredo-y, and tasted just like a chicken cheesesteak stromboli from Lisa's. So, it was tasty but not necessarily "pizza"-esque. I got an orange flavored beer from Germany that was bright orange and super fun, tasted pretty good. Overall a nice visit!

Cubano pizza: I split this with my boyf, who thought it was very bad and too mustardy. But I liked it! The pizza sauce is mustard instead of sauce, and on top is pork, cheese, scallion, yellow pepper. So mustardy! Very fun! If you like mustard, you'll like this. (But poutine is still better <3). 7/10

Overall
Cost: 4/10 (about 60$ for 2)
Taste: 7/10