I’ve eaten a lot of great burritos during my road-food rambles.

The best? Undoubtedly, the family-run La Azteca Tortilleria, in east Los Angeles, with its sublime insertion of a meringue-battered, roasted poblano chile.

There’s a multitude of fine burrito shops in San Francisco’s Mission district, including La Taqueria and Taqueria El Farolito. And I had to track down the so-called California burrito, stuffed with French fries, at San Diego’s La Playa Taco Shop.

But I wasn’t expecting a Calgary spot to be pushing the burrito boundaries. Yet, that’s exactly what they’re doing at Oddball Burrito, in the city’s southwest Marda Loop neighbourhood.

Other than a few sides, Oddball’s menu is strictly devoted to burritos. There are 10 offerings, each an experiment in what you can toss inside a rolled tortilla. A cheeseburger? Why not? Perogies, poutine, mac and cheese? Join the party. Breakfast is even covered with the Loco Moco: fried eggs, grilled spam, ground beef and kimchi mayo… oh, and a side of gravy.

I opt for the Low Country Burrito, boasting the rather unusual combination of jumbo shrimp, Andouille sausage, potatoes, sweet corn, Cajun butter and something called comeback sauce. It’s a holy, two-napkin mess.

The large size is $17 but weighs in at a hefty 1.6 pounds. Half is plenty for a good feed.

It’s going to take me a few trips to work through the menu. Next up is probably the Alabama Picnic Burrito, featuring house-roasted chicken and crinkle fries.

Oddball Burrito is the creation of Tara Barker and Shaun Taylor, who opened last summer after coming to Calgary by way of Kamloops and PEI, where they ran a food truck. It’s another great addition to Marda Loop.

Oddball Burrito
2006 34 Avenue SW, Calgary
noon to 8 pm Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, noon to 9 pm Friday. Closed Monday and Tuesday
2006 34 Avenue SW, Calgary
403-685-1444

Back when I could freely do road trips from Alberta into the western U.S., I would often stop at Trader Joe’s, a so-called “national chain of neighbourhood grocery stores.” Among other things, I would pick up a couple of bottles of Two-Buck Chuck ($2 red wine) and a few packages of freeze-dried raspberries, for my backcountry oatmeal.

But I was most enamoured by Trader Joe’s policy of letting customers mix and match craft beers. I could fill a little cardboard six-pack carrier with individual bottles or cans. That allowed me, while travelling through a new city, to sample a diversity of local brews with a single purchase. Thus was born my joy of drinking “solo”.

While most beer vendors sell some individual cans (usually 16 ounces) and bottles (usually 22-ounce bombers), it’s rare that one can curate a selection without buying a lot of brews. And there’s nothing worse than buying a six pack and discovering, on the first sip, you don’t like it.

So I was delighted, when I started ordering pandemic grocery deliveries from SPUD, that I could a) include liquor and b) choose from a lot of individual beer cans. Indeed, most of the 80-some, primarily local beers that SPUD offers are available only in individual, 473-millilitre/16.5-ounce cans. Sure, they cost a little more individually—ranging from about $4 to $5 plus—but that’s still a lot cheaper than ye old crapshoot of a four- or six-packer. And the selection is pretty darn good, including top local brewers like Annex, Cold Garden, Blindman, Dandy, Cabin and Banded Peak.

While I’ve tasted a lot of Calgary-area craft beers, there are simply too many available to keep up with. So it’s nice that through SPUD, I can fill in some gaps without filling my fridge.

The only downside to ordering online beer is I have to stick around home for up to 12 hours on my delivery day, just so I can show proof that I’m 18 years or older. In my case, much older. But at least I can cry in a variety of beers.

Strong is not a word I associate with Calgary these days. Take your pick of metrics: the economy, oilpatch, unemployment rate, downtown office vacancies, real-estate prices. None are strong. And let’s not forget the ravages of the pandemic.

Yet there’s one Calgary sector where “strong” is not a misplaced adjective. That’s the local craft beer scene.

Even before Covid, I wondered how many of the tsunami of new local breweries would survive. Certainly, the pandemic—with its shifting closures, lockdowns and regulations—didn’t help these fledging businesses. Yet here we are, a year-plus later, and the resilient local beer business is still chugging along.

But today, I want to focus on a different aspect of strong: local brews labeled as “strong beer.” While somewhat subjective, strong beer is generally considered to have an alcohol content (or ABV) of at least 6%.

Such beers are often more intense and complex, which is why I like them, much like I prefer strong coffee or undiluted whiskey. Given the punch strong beers pack, they are perhaps best sipped at home, which is where most of us are doing our drinking these days anyways. As a bonus, many of these local breweries are currently offering doorstop deliveries.

Fortunately, local brewers—perhaps in mad-scientist mode while locked in their laboratories—are doing a fine job of feeding innovative strong beers to the market. Some of these are seasonal or even one-time offerings, so get them while you can.

Here are some of the strong local beers I’ve been sampling lately.

Annex Ale Project is one of the most innovative breweries in Calgary. Retracted Resolution is a 7.7% Belgian dubbel—a dark beer with double the amount of raw materials—with notes of dark berries, toffee and cloves; a surprisingly smooth drink. It’s already gone from the brewery website but I managed to snag a four-pack at my nearby Co-op Wines and Spirits store.

Outcast Brewing is another favourite Calgary brewery. They hit it out of the park again with The Forgetful Brewer, a double-dry-hopped double IPA (8%) with plentiful citra, mosaic and simcoe hops. Twice a Canadian Brewing Awards winner.

The Dandy Brewing Company is another bold explorer, surprising my taste buds with its Tumbling Tide, an 8.5% Belgian tripel, a high fermentation brew traditionally marked with three crosses on the barrel.

Blindman Brewing is an outstanding small-town brewery—located in central Alberta’s Lacombe—that delivers to my Calgary doorstep. Its Wet & Dry Hop Double IPA (8.8%) fabulously captures the flavours of just-picked hops.

Cabin Brewing’s flagship Super Saturation is hopped up here to produce Super Duper Saturation, a lovely 8% Imperial New England pale ale. A seasonal beer, here’s hoping it makes a return soon.

Bonus coverage: Blindman’s Perepllut (see image at top) is an extra strong barley wine ale that, weighing in at 10.35%, frankly knocked me on my ass. Fortunately, it only comes in 355-ml/12-ounce cans. And, believe me, one is enough.