darby’s has seen some interesting changes over the years. one of my first memories of this place was just before i moved to kits, they used to host a guitar hero night in the back section of the pub which no longer exists where we’d go every so often to show off our skills. well, okay, it was mostly me showing off, but the others did alright. since then they’ve renovated the place quite a bit, and it has a pretty awesome rooftop patio that’s great for a hot summer day. sadly i’ve been there dozens of times but i’ve yet to see this mythical patio…. one day. i did a couple visits for the sake of this blog since i wasn’t happy with the quantity of food i had after the first visit. i first went here last month with alpha nerd late in the evening after work for a few beers and snacks. it was almost completely packed despite there being no canucks game on and a regular weeknight, a lot of which appeared to be regulars. the music was blasting in typical pub fashion, a little too loud almost. our server came by in a timely manner and took our drink orders. they have a fairly extensive beer list on tap as well as bottles that’s all reasonably priced, along with a couple nitro taps. alpha nerd has an obsession with nitro taps so he started with the american stout (6.5%) while i decided to try something new, the st. bernardus apt 12 quadrupel (10%!) which is a belgian beer. i have a thing where i generally have to order the strongestbeeron the menu which generally translates to me really liking belgian beers. this is probably my new favouritebeerand if could be found everywhere then fat tug would be taking a back seat a lot more often. it’s an extremely smoothbeerconsidering it’s 10%, it doesn’t taste like it at all. my vocabulary for describingbeeris quite limited, so i’m going to say it was quite complex with some fruity and spicy flavours. really