Walkerville craft brewer Craig dies at age 25
The Craig brothers have always loved their craft beer.
They had beer apps on their phone, where they could check off what beers they tried. On weekends, they would brew beer in middle-brother Josh’s garage. And if they located a rare bottle, they would bring it home and split it three ways, one for each brother (sometimes four, if they wanted their dad to sample it too).
Jeffrey Craig — the youngest brother in the Craig family who “loved passionately” and was a well-known craft brewer — died Monday after a battle with esophageal cancer. He was 25 years old.
“There’s really not enough good things to say about him,” said Melissa Craig, who is married to Jeffrey’s older brother Michael.
“Everybody who knew him loved him,” she said. “Especially his fiancée, and he gave everyone everything he had.”
When Jeffrey and his fiancée Beth Yaworsky began dating, Melissa recalled that he wouldn’t even check his phone during their dates — even if they were just watching a movie in the basement.
“He was completely out of touch with everyone else,” she said. “He gave her his undivided attention.”
The Craig family has always been close, Melissa said. “His mom always says that when they announced his birth in the paper, they said that their family was complete.”
Melissa said the three brothers had a special bond — they loved going to Tigers games together. “He was a loving Red Wing fan and long-suffering Tiger fan,” the family wrote in his obituary notice.
“He loved being involved with his friends in fantasy leagues and stuff like that,” Melissa said. “He had a great group of friends who supported him through all of this, and who he truly loved like family. And they loved him.”
Jeffrey graduated with honours from the University of Windsor with a degree in chemistry, “and he brought that knowledge into beer making,” Melissa said, adding that he “truly had a passion for it.”
As a brewer at Walkerville Brewery, Jeffrey was well-known in Windsor’s craft beer community, which Melissa called “very tightknit; everybody knows everybody.”
After Jeffrey’s diagnosis last fall, Yaworsky, a naturopathic doctor, brought up the idea of drinking dandelion tea, which has anticancer properties.
But Jeffrey, with a passion for beer, didn’t stop at tea.
Jeffrey was brainstorming what kind of beer to make for Daffodil Month when the University of Windsor published research on the benefits of dandelions and their anti-cancer properties, Melissa said.
And so the Craft Heads Brewing Company and Walkerville Brewery teamed up with Jeffrey to create a Fine N’ Dandy beer, a Belgian Saison brewed with local dandelion tea. The Fine N’ Dandy project raised $5,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society.
“He had hoped that most of the money would be staying in Windsor, and that’s how it turned out, with the money going towards Wheels of Hope to help other cancer patients get to their chemo appointments and doctors appointments and things like that,” Melissa said. “He just wanted to be able to give back in some way.”
Melissa said her brother-in-law was surprised and happy about the amount of money raised.
In a post to their Facebook page, Craft Heads Brewing Company wrote that “it was with a heavy heart” that they shared the news of Jeffrey’s death.
“His even-keeled demeanour, positive attitude and calming influence throughout his battle is something I’ll never forget,” the post read. “Jeff, we will continue to brew your beer in your honour, for everyone that we’ve lost and for those that continue to battle.”