Leo Deringer worked in the ‘ beer tunnel’ uncovered Wednesday
Arnprior man, 91, worked in area uncovered by Albert St. construction
Ottawa’s fabled beer tunnel, uncovered Wednesday by construction on Albert Street, was well-trodden by Leo Deringer when he worked for Carling O’Keefe-owned Brading’s Capital Brewing in the ’50s and ’60s.
Deringer, 91, who lives in Arnprior, said he was surprised to learn part of the beer tunnel still existed.
“I thought they had blocked up that tunnel from one end to the other,” he said.
The photos taken Wednesday show water pooling in the concrete entrance to the tunnel. “I imagine there’s still a lot of water. I’d imagine it’s like a regular swimming pool,” said Deringer.
Or at least it was. The city said Friday that the tunnel has now been filled in.
The tunnel connected a beer production plant on the south side of Wellington Street, now Albert Street, to a warehouse on the north side. “You could walk from one end to the other under the street,” he said.
The tunnel was made out of concrete. It sloped steeply up and down.
There were two large conveyor belts inside, said Deringer: One to bring full beer bottles across to the warehouse, from which they would be shipped, and another to bring empty cases and bottles back across to the production side.
Sometimes, the conveyor belts would jam up and the bottles would break, said Deringer. It was hard to clean up.
“They’d send (full bottles) too close together and they’d jam on the conveyor, then, pop, pop, and there goes some beer,” he said, adding the company expected to lose a certain amount of beer every month from the underground journey.
Deringer spoke highly of the brewery: “Oh my god, let me tell you. It was the best job you could have,” he said. “The company treated you good.”
He described monthly parties held for employees. They’d be held in a hall, with an orchestra playing. You’d have some beer, dance and maybe eat a little something, he said. Deringer left the company when it moved to Toronto in 1969 so his family could stay in Ottawa.
Deringer’s son, Michael, remembers his father talking about the tunnel many years ago.
“Dad had said to me, ‘there’s an un-
You could walk from one end to the other under the street ... Oh my god, let me tell you. It was the best job you could have. The company treated you good.
der- ground tunnel.’ I remember, he told me about it as a kid,” he said. “The thought of an underground tunnel had a mysterious, ominous relevance to me as a child.”
Meanwhile, a big mystery yet to be uncovered is whether an east-west rail tunnel, which would’ve connected CP rail lines to the Marine Signal Building, exists underground just to the north of Albert Street.
Sean Tudor at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology said once they sign a partnership agreement the museum and the NCC plan to use a technique called ground-penetrating radar to look for the tunnel, which is believed to exist on NCC property.
Ground-penetrating radar technology uses radio waves to create underground maps without digging. Pulses of radio waves, usually in the 1 to 1,000 megahertz frequency range, can be emitted into non-metallic ground, for example soil, wood, rock or concrete. Echoes from these pulses are recorded, then used to create an image.
Tudor says other options are also being discussed, but an emphasis has been placed on non-invasive techniques. If a tunnel is indeed found and they decide it should be investigated further, the next step would be to figure out who will provide funding for the dig.