BOLD BREWERS
Some brewers are going beyond the basics in the thirst for new flavours
Giancarlo Todon, brewer at Abe Erb Brewing Co. in Waterloo, is among area brewers going beyond the basics in the thirst for new flavours.
WATERLOO REGION — When it comes to beer, there are four basic ingredients: malted barley, hops, yeast and water.
Some brewers add wheat, others add rice. There are the berries and other fruits in season as well, but some breweries are more adventurous, trying oysters and their shells, roasted pumpkin and haggis.
The haggis spices worked nicely in the scotch ale and date paste made a dark flavourful brew with notes of brown sugar and caramel.
The oyster brew was a hit. The full body stout with extra protein was salty and tasted like seaweed at the back end, said president and head brewer Steven Innocente of Innocente Brewing Company in Waterloo
“It’s the only one where I nailed it,” said Innocente, who plans to make it again.
Innocente was experimenting with yeast and brewing when he worked as a research scientist at the University of Edinburgh.
Four years ago, Innocente, who has a PhD in molecular biology, returned home and opened the brewery on Northfield Drive.
He has used coffee from Smile Tiger Coffee Roasters in his beer, added horseradish to his ale, and chili pepper to his porter.
But Innocente said he won’t be using pumpkin in his beers.
“It belongs in a pie,” he said. In downtown Guelph, Brothers Brewing Company has had great success with its pumpkin beer.
Twin brothers Colton and Asa Proveau not only put baked pumpkin into the beer, they plopped a 1,401-pound gourd at their front entrance.
“It was a huge attraction,” Colton said. “They would walk by, turn around, come in and touch it and then stay for a beer.”
The pair bought the gigantic pumpkin from a family in Georgetown who grow oversize squashes to compete in fairs.
One year, the brothers caramelized the inside of a giant pumpkin with a blow torch and mashed the grain inside the gourd and used it as a vessel.
Last year, at their new storefront location, they didn’t want a colossal mess, so they scooped out the pumpkin flesh and cooked it.
The beer was placed in a keg on ice inside the pumpkin and tapped.
After a month, the pumpkin was covered in signatures and ready for disposal.
“It took three hours to cut it up,” said Asa, who went through more than one machete. “We filled every green bin in the downtown.”
The brothers are thinking of doing it again in October.
“A year is a long time to forget how much of a pain it was,” Colton said. “You couldn’t help but smile when you looked over and saw a 1,000-pound pumpkin in the bar.”
The Proveau owners have used spices, including coriander and ginger, and baked Yukon Gold potatoes and added the spuds to their batches to be featured at Oktoberfest.
The brothers, who grew up on a hobby farm in Niagara Region and were brewing in high school, have partnered with other Guelph breweries to create interesting beer flavours.
Some of the flavoured brews include mango, peppercorn and ginger beer.
“If we collaborate and work together, there is plenty of beer to go around,” Colton said.
They have plans to try other specialty brews using kombucha, a fermented tea, and work with experts at the University of Guelph using liquid nitrogen to freeze stout.
Mixing food flavours into batches of brew is like being a chef or an artist, said Kevin Freer, head brewer at Block Three Brewing Company in St. Jacobs.
“You know what might work together and you experiment,” he said.
Sometimes the name of the beer comes first; other times, the beer is created first.
A few weeks ago, 700 pounds of peaches and nectarines from Herrle’s Country Farm Market were peeled for an upcoming batch. It doesn’t have a name yet, Freer said.
“It was me and my sister and who else I could corral to come for a full day,” he said.
Block Three has 100 wine barrels and the beer stored in the barrels pulls flavours from the wine into the beer.
They plan on using grapes in their brew and sunflower seeds from Ontario grown sunflower plants.
When the brewery opened five years ago, it created a Sugar Bush Brown ale for Elmira’s Maple Syrup Festival using local maple syrup.
It was so popular that the brewmaster releases it each year for the festival. The first year the brewery sold out of 2,400 litres in a week.
It has hints of sweetness with notes of roasted chocolate from the malt.
“It was one of our fastest sellers,” Freer said.