North Brewing at Battery Park

North Brewing at Battery Park is the smallest and most central of North Brewing Company's Halifax addresses: a beer-to-go counter on the ground floor of Battery Park Beer Bar & Eatery, at 62 Ochterloney Street in downtown Dartmouth. The setup is simple — cans, growler fills and one-off batches from a brewery that built its name on saisons and sours — and the location is about as convenient as beer shopping gets on the Dartmouth side of the harbour, a short walk from the Alderney ferry terminal. The Google listing for the counter holds a 4.7 rating. The full sit-down experience belongs to Battery Park Beer Bar & Eatery upstairs and next door; this counter exists for the carry-out. Context for the Dartmouth side of the harbour is in our Dartmouth guide, and the two-minute ferry ride that puts you within walking distance is covered in the Dartmouth ferry ride.

A Retail Counter That Was Part of the Plan From Day One

The counter's origin story starts in 2015, when Brooklyn Warehouse — then one of Halifax's most respected restaurants — teamed up with North Brewing Company to open something new in the former Nectar Restaurant space on Ochterloney Street. The collaboration became Battery Park Beer Bar and Eatery, and the plan always included a brewery footprint: as The Coast reported at the announcement, part of the building would be designated a North Brewing Company retail shop for growler filling and one-off brews, with brewers Peter Burbridge and Josh Herbin supplying the experimental end of the program. George Christakos, the Brooklyn Warehouse co-owner behind the project, framed the ambition in neighbourhood terms: "People in a neighbourhood want to be proud of their neighbourhood. And we want to be part of the fabric of Ochterloney Street."

A decade on, that fabric has held. Ochterloney Street has become downtown Dartmouth's most walkable eating stretch, and the North counter remains its beer-carry-out fixture — the place you grab a four-pack before a picnic on the Dartmouth Common or a night in with the Ferry Parkland as a backdrop. The name on the door matches the name on the cans, and the beer travels a few metres from cold storage to your bag, which is the entire point.

Saisons, Sours, and an Alternative Approach to Business

North Brewing Company describes itself as being "all about great beer and an alternative approach to business," and both halves of that sentence show up in the beer. The brewery's early reputation was built on Belgian-influenced farmhouse styles and sour programming — The Coast's beer coverage tracked its Saison de L'Ac and the pineapple-lime Breakwater sour through the late 2010s, alongside dark lagers like the Dartmouth Dark that became a quiet local standard. Production has since consolidated in the Woodlawn and Cole Harbour communities of Dartmouth, with the company brewing, canning and distributing across the province from its own facilities rather than contracting out.

The "alternative approach" part is structural. The brewery has run on community financing and neighbourhood partnerships since the Battery Park crowdfunding campaign, publishes scholarship and job programs on its own site, and has stated a goal of operating as a zero-emissions brewery — a commitment it was making back in 2015, well before it was fashionable. For a visitor, the practical effect is a company that behaves like a neighbourhood business at every scale, from the Timberlea taproom to this two-tap counter by the ferry.

Three Addresses, One for the Ferry Crowd

North Brewing now operates three public-facing locations in the Halifax region, and each serves a different occasion. The flagship experience is the Cole Harbour taproom at 899 Portland Street — brewery, restaurant, patio and beer-to-go in one building. The Timberlea location on Timberlea Village Parkway mirrors that format on the city's western edge, with kitchen service and delivery. And this Ochterloney counter is the minimalist option: no kitchen, no patio, beer to carry off, open into the evening seven days a week. The hours are built around the neighbourhood rather than the office crowd — Monday from 3 p.m., midday starts the rest of the week, with Friday and Saturday running until 9 p.m.

The ferry logic is what makes the counter work for visitors. The Halifax–Dartmouth ferry runs on the integrated transit fare, lands at Alderney Terminal, and puts you on the Dartmouth side of the harbour in minutes; the walk to Ochterloney Street takes you through the Ferry Parkland with the harbour on one side. A beer run here folds neatly into the standard Dartmouth loop — ferry over, walk the waterfront side of downtown, cans for the ride back.

What to Carry Out

The fridge follows the brewery's core and seasonal program. Expect the established ales — the saisons and sours that built the name, alongside IPAs, dark lagers and the occasional wild one-off that never makes it past the Dartmouth side of the harbour. Dartmouth Dark, the brewery's everyday dark lager, has logged more than six hundred ratings on Untappd — the kind of quiet workhorse beer a neighbourhood brewery survives on. Growler fills are part of the counter's founding brief and remain the best value per litre if you're drinking locally the same week. Cans travel well for the ferry ride home; the four-pack format dominates. If a style is sold out, the staff will usually point you at the nearest thing on tap — and if you want the full taproom-and-dinner version of North, the Portland Street room is a fifteen-minute drive east.

The Practical Details: Location, Hours & Essentials

Address & Location
62 Ochterloney St, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 1C2 — ground floor of the Battery Park Beer Bar & Eatery building, downtown Dartmouth, a short walk from the Alderney ferry terminal and Dartmouth Common.

Hours of Operation
Monday 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Kitchen hours belong to Battery Park next door.

Price Range
Craft can pricing, four-packs at Nova Scotia brewery rates; growler fills priced by volume. Cheaper than a round at the bar and considerably more portable.

Food & Seating
None at the counter itself — this is carry-out. Battery Park Beer Bar & Eatery shares the building for small plates and a full bar, and the Alderney side of downtown Dartmouth adds cafés and restaurants within a couple of blocks.

Getting There
The Halifax-Dartmouth ferry lands at Alderney Terminal, a few minutes on foot; the walk passes through the Ferry Parkland. Drivers will find street parking and small lots along Ochterloney and the surrounding blocks.

The verdict: this is the beer-run address for the Dartmouth waterfront — a small counter with a serious brewery behind it, positioned so that a ferry ride, a picnic and a four-pack of saisons can all happen in one loop. Buy what's cold, fill a growler if you're staying the week, and let Battery Park handle the dinner plans.