Big Family Brewing Company Kitchen and Biergarten

The beer at Big Family Brewing Company shows up on the plate before it reaches the glass. House-made beer cheese sauce binds the bacon pizza; beer-pickled red onions sharpen the smash-patty burger; what the brewery makes turns up cooked into the kitchen rather than kept behind the bar. That overlap is the premise of the place — a Sarnia Bay brewery and restaurant where what gets brewed and what gets cooked are one project, run out of a single waterfront building where the patio opens onto the harbour.

The menu is short and built for comfort. The Big Family Burger stacks two smash patties with cheddar, garlic aioli, and those beer-pickled onions, and like every handheld it arrives with the kitchen's fries. Around it sit the Beer Cheese and Bacon Pizza, a Pork Schnitzel Sandwich, a BBQ Cheddar Brisket, the Donair Pizza, and a Dill Pickle Spinach Dip that comes breaded and deep-fried with grilled pita. Biergarten Pretzels and Biergarten Ribs carry the German framing, while the Broasted Pickerel Dinner pulls in Lake Huron and gives the comfort food a regional anchor. Signature Fries and a Caesar cover the simpler end, and a Chicken Mac and Cheese marks where the kitchen wants families to land.