Craft beers earn medals
It’s been a good year for local craft beer.
Silversmith Brewing Co. co-founder Chris Pontsioen says for him, it’s “been a good couple of months.”
The Stone Road brewery in a century-old church on Niagara Stone Road in Niagara-on-the-Lake makes a black lager that he knows is popular — it’s its bestseller “by a landslide” — and has helped to put Silversmith on the map.
But recently it’s also won two awards — a silver at the top national competition, the Canadian Brewing Awards, recognizing Canadian brewing excellence, and another silver at the recent U.S. Open Beer Championship, with more than 6,000 beers, 100 categories and brewers entering from around the world.
“The awards are different — it’s nice to be recognized here at home, but it’s also nice to be recognized in a field with 6,000-odd beers,” says Pontsioen.
Silversmith’s Black Lager has been its bestselling beer from the beginning, despite people saying it would be crazy to launch a brewery with a black beer.
“It hasn’t turned out like that,” Pontsioen says. “This is such a unique beer. Other breweries have started to make it, but there were very few when we came out with it. It was always considered a seasonal beer. We were the first to offer it year round.”
The style itself is not new, it’s been around for about 600 years, says Pontsioen. It’s a style some beer drinkers aren’t too sure about and may be hesitant to try, but when they do, they discover it’s not what they expected.
”There are not many eureka moments left in beer, but we have one. People generally expect beer to be light and fluffy and easy to drink. They think a dark beer will be heavy and creamy, like a stout. But this is completely different. It’s not heavy at all.”
He describes it as having two stages: first, a multi-character taste, with chocolate and coffee notes, and a hint of smokiness; but then true to lagers, it has a crisp, clean finish with a nice after-taste.
“It’s that juxtaposition that makes it so unique,” he says.
The Black Lager’s next challenge is coming up in August as it faces off in the world competition, in the category of Schwarzbier, the international term for black or dark beer, says Pontsioen.
Silversmith is not the only local craft brewery to bring home awards in recent competitions.
The Exchange Brewery on Queen Street won two golds at the U.S. open — one for its stout, which won gold earlier this year at the New York International Beer Competition, and another for its newest release, the gluten-free Saison, which had been in the development phase for more than a year.
Niagara College’s teaching brewery also came home with some hardware from the U.S., with two bronze medals, one for its Beer 101 Bitter and another for its Beer 101 Strong .
“The fact that brews win in multiple years shows that the students are learning how to brew consistent high-quality beers,” says college brewmaster and professor Jon Downing. “Different groups of students or classes have brewed every single one of our entries.”
Downing, who serves as director of judging for the U.S. Open Beer Championships — but is not involved with judging Niagara College entries — travelled to Oxford, Miss., for the competition with 15 students who had the opportunity to help facilitate judging and serve samples.
“Having the students participate in the judging is a great real-world experience for them,” said Downing. “Apart from the exposure to many different beers, breweries and the sensory training that enhances, they also have the opportunity to judge with educators, owners, brewers, writers and many other great beer folk.”