Junction Craft Brewery pours inside The Destructor at 150 Symes Road, a restored 1933 art-deco incinerator near the Stockyards that now holds one of the most striking taprooms in Toronto.
The brewery sits on Symes Road just north of the old Junction, in a 1933 City of Toronto incinerator known as The Destructor that was decommissioned in the 1980s and restored in 2018. The result is a taproom with concrete bones, tall windows and a patio, set apart from the strip-mall taprooms most breweries settle for. blogTO and Destination Toronto both flag the building itself as the reason to make the trip out.
Junction Craft built its name on a railway theme that runs through the lineup. The Conductor's Craft Ale is the flagship pour, an easy amber that anchors the board, with an Engineer's IPA and a darker Stationmaster stout filling out the rotation alongside seasonals that change with the calendar. Flights are the smart move for a first visit, since the range covers more ground than a single pint can.
What to order: start with the Conductor's Craft Ale to set a baseline, then move to the IPA if you want more bite or the stout if the weather has turned. Pints run in the 7 to 8 dollar range, and the taproom usually keeps a short food offering or a rotating truck for anyone settling in for a session. The retail fridge means a growler or a four-pack can go home with you.
The crowd is neighbourhood regulars, cyclists off the rail-path nearby, and beer travelers who came for the building. Best time to go is a weekend afternoon, when the light through the tall windows does the work and the patio opens up. Who it is for: drinkers who want a sense of place with their pint, and anyone who treats a brewery visit as a small outing. Who should skip it: a downtown crowd looking for a quick after-work pint, since the Symes Road location is a deliberate trip rather than a walk-up.
The taproom keeps the industrial bones of the old incinerator on show: poured concrete, exposed steel and a ceiling that climbs well past a normal bar, with a patio that opens when the weather allows. Google Maps reviewers return again to the space itself, calling out the building as the draw as often as the beer, and noting that the Symes Road spot is a short ride from the West Toronto Railpath that cyclists use to reach it.
Junction Craft has been part of the west-end beer scene for over a decade, first in the old Junction and now in the restored Destructor, and the move gave the brewery the room it needed for a proper taproom rather than a tasting counter. The railway theme that runs through the lineup is more than branding, since it ties the beer to a neighbourhood built on the rail yards, and it gives the core board a steady identity that regulars can navigate without a menu in hand.
The setting carries this one. Junction Craft would be a solid neighbourhood brewery on the beer alone, but the restored incinerator makes it a destination rather than a stop, and the railway-themed core lineup gives the board a backbone that newer breweries chase for years. For more taprooms in the west end, see our guide to the best craft beer in Toronto, browse the full Toronto bar guide, or compare it on our citywide craft beer roundup. Nearby, WVRST in Toronto and Left Field Brewery in Toronto round out a west-end beer day.
