Craft-Brew-Story and Historic Brewery

Craft-Brew-Story

In recent decades there has been a resurgence of interest in craft brewed beer. Micro-breweries or craft breweries are modern breweries that produce a limited amount of hand crafted beer. Today, a number of these small breweries are established across Ontario. In many ways they mirror the early brewing industry of the 19th century. This new generation of small breweries is focused mainly on producing traditional cask ales. Interesting beers of high quality and diversity are created for more discerning customers desiring t expand their palate beyond the rather uniform commercial beers of today.

In North America, the product of these modern small breweries is generally known as “craft beer”. Brewed in small batches, each of these craft beers receive an individual approach to their composition and method of brewing. The resulting brews are distinctive and varied, their character reflecting the stronger ales created by the traditional recipes of the past.

Favours are often adventurous, and specialty brews frequently reflect the availability of seasonal and local ingredients. Interestingly, in Japan the micro-brew beers are known as Ji Biru or local beer.

Black Creek Pionner Village. Black Creek canteen… Photo: Megan (Elena)

Today`s brew pubs are organized in the image of the brew houses of earlier centuries. In the past, the innkeeper brewed his own beer for his regular local customers and today, many micro-breweries are similar being directly attached to pubs providing a community hub, serving local clientele.

The Black Creek Historic Brewery, a working brewery located in Half Way House Inn, depicts a typical 19th century Ontario brew house. Creating traditional hand crafted beers with an emphasis on local and historical ingredients, along with a touch of 21st century character, this brewery offers a singularly unique and cozy brew pub experience.

The Black Creek Pioneer Village brew beer the old-fashioned way. The Black Creek Historic Brewery recreates the equipment, techniques, and recipes used by brewers in 1860s Ontario.

Tastings and Tours: Quench your thirst with a Beer Sampler or take a trip back in time in the Historic Brewery Tour. Taste the difference: Pick up a 2L growler of beer at the historic brewery and try local ales infused with old-fashioned flavours and made the traditional way. It`s unlike any commercial beer you would buy today.

Be a Brewer for Day: Spend the day working alongside the Brewer to brew ales the traditional way. Take home a growler of beer to remember your day as a heritage brewer.

Evening Events in the Brewery: Treat yourself to a rich journey into the delicious world of beer and cheese. Sample local cheeses, each paired with a selected craft beer.

Historic Brewery

The 19th century brewing produced an extensive list of different beers and brews. The difference in the beverages were created essentially by variations in the production process, the ingredients and the recipes used.

There were strong beers, table beers and small beers which generally referred to the strength of the wort that made the brew. There were ales and lagers which resulted from the application of different types of yeast. There were also herbal and medicinal brews.

Some brews had traditional origins whilst others developed styles reflecting the new land and life of 19th century Canada.

Ales: Beers brewed with a top-fermenting yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The aromatic yeasts imparted flowery and fruity aromas giving the brew character. Ales were light amber to dark brown, sweet to bitter, much depending on the darkness of the malt used.

Strong beers: These beers were rich, dark ales having high alcohol levels with strong aromas and flavours due to the generous use of both malts and hops, and long brewing, fermentation and maturation stages.

The Old Beer. Photo by Elena

Porter: A dark brown, sweet, well hopped that was originally a blend of brown ale, pale ale and stale of well matured ale. It acquired the name Porter as a result of its popularity among London`s street porters.

Stout: Generally the “stoutest” = strongest, largest beer. Almost black and creamy, stout was a well hopped beer produced using the darkest, roasted malts and the longest processing.

IPA: India Pale Ale was a high strength pale ale produced for export. Today, the term is commonly used for light, bitter ales.

Lager: Lager, a light, clear beer made with a bottom fermenting yeast, Saccharmoyces uvarum, using different malt and hops than used in most ales. Lagers undergo a long secondary fermentation at a low temperature. Lager originated in Bavaria and became immensely popular in the regions settled by Germanic immigrants.

Small beer: Often referred to as light beer, this brew was made from second and third mashes. The wort had a low sugar content and gave a low, “small” alcohol level. Table Beer, a watery low alcohol brew, was either made from a blend of first, second and third worts, or by adding water to a mature ale.

Domestic, herbal & medicinal beer: Early Ontario home brewers produced fermented domestic, herbal and medicinal beers. The beers were bittered with flowers, leaves, berries and species when hops were not available. Herbs, roots, seeds and other materials were added for their medicinal properties. Most recipes call for a degree of fermentation.

Substitutes for malt carried less sugar and hence many of the beers produced, though still fermented, measured a very low alcohol content. Some commercial breweries turned to producing these low alcohol “near” beers, particularly ginger beer, with the onset of prohibition.

Ginger was widely used in herbal beers to prevent and relieve inflammation, and to address digestive and heart problems. Spruce beer, made from the green spring roots of spruce trees, provided Vitamin C and was recommend to help ward off scurvy. Other beers were expected to aid digestion, cleanse the blood, cure urinary tract infections and to generally promote good health.

Spiced Beer: Beer was made more interesting by adding unusual flavouring. Spices, spruce shoots, maple syrup, treacle, raspberries were amongst many ingredients used to spice up the beer. Today such beers are known as “Specialty Beers”.

The prohibition era of the early 20th century forced many Ontario breweries to close, and others to consolidate. The result was a small number of commercial breweries who manufactured on a large scale, producing beers that became fairly uniform in style, essentially lagers, with little variety in strength and flavour.

Some beer drinkers, desiring greater variety and more substantial ales, were left wanting. By the 1980s, a trend for home brewing using traditional and adventurous recipes had begun. These hand crafted beers have become extremely popular and hundreds of small breweries have been established across Ontario to serve the interest of today`s discerning beer drinkers.