1860’ Beer Brewing - Part 2

There is a new brewery in town… Nestled inside the 1860’s era Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto. Here they will brew the way the pioneers did.

Brewing at Black Creek Pioneer Village Part 2 Glen: So what styles are here? Ed: There’s four styles that we’re brewing right now, an India Pale Ale, A Brown Ale, a Porter and a stove. Glen: A stove. Ed: Yes. Glen: And those are types of beer that would have been served in 1860’s Ed: Absolutely there yes. Glen: So I’ve heard in your match time. This would have in the 1860’s probably come from the field just to out the door or down the street or within a very short distance from the brewery because that’s something which you’re hoping to do here as well. Ed: That is the plan, we have a long term plan and we want to eventually make what’s called a one mile beer where the hops and barney will be growing here right on the property with any lock anyhow. Glen: You can’t get lower Caribbean foot print than one mile. Ed: That’s right. Glen: So tell me about the beer. How does this beer differ from say a craft brewed that’s available today or a mass market brew. Ed: Okay well the first thing you notice here is this beer has a very strong okay taste to it and the reason is because we are actually fermenting and serving at the oak barrels here and there is hue brew we always do that and the second thing you will notice is the beer would be what we consider flat because we don’t use any type of artificial carbonization but back then it would actually be considered carbonated. There is a little main difference. Glen: So any carbonation that’s in that cask is residual from still leaving in – Ed: We eventually want who try and experiment and try to prime one of the cask and see if it will actually hold the carbonization but that’s something we’ll try down the road. Glen: So you’re still under an experimental stage. Ed: While the brewery is only been open now for three weeks so we’re still working on a few different things there and making some progress and definitely. Glen: So you’ll be brewing here three times a week during the tourist season and during interpretation for gas as well. So I’m trying to educate people about what life is like an 1860’s and what would have been happening in a free house like this. Ed: Absolutely. This is a half way house and I’m going to through where without you so recently located half way between Kingston and Toronto so people probably would have been stopping here for the night and having a beer with you and historically we can’t prove it yet but we think that there may have been and actual brewery in this building. Glen: In this building in the 1860’s. Ed: Yes, that’s right. Glen: Just the outside of the road. Ed: Yes. Glen: The alcohol content of this beer in the 1860s that would have been quite low. Ed: Not necessarily no. Glen: No. Ed: They would have had the standard beer that we make here and then what they would have done is because if you want to take a look at the mash on there once we rinse the greens of and try to get as much sugar of the greens, they’re still quite a bit of residual sugar out there and what they would have done is they would have done is they would add it more water on there and they would have just purge it and they would have called me to something called a table beer which would have been 2 or 3% alcohol. Glen: Okay. Ed: And that would have been served by just about everybody and including children would have been drinking at as well it would have been like 1 or 2 % alcohol. Glen: 1 or 2 % alcohol. Ed: Yes. Glen: But much safer than the drinking water. Ed: Absolutely. Glen: Thank you.