New Brewery: The Napanee Beer Co.

On Saturday July 9th I went into the town of Napanee, (only 15min from home) to make my first visit to one of Ontario’s newest Craft Breweries, The Napanee Beer Company. The brewery is located in an industrial area of town, only a couple minutes from Hwy 401, at 450 Milligan Ln., in an unassuming building. The garage doors were open and 7bbl stainless steel mash tun, kettle and  fermenters glistened in the afternoon sunshine.

I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking to Geordan Saunders, owner and award winning home brewer. Clearly Geordan knows his stuff and is enthusiastic to talk all things beer. First I sampled the breweries current line up, Deadline Premium Lager, Mayday Belgian Pale Ale and Blacklist Dark Lager (Schwazbier), in the tap room. Geordan explained that he is interested in focusing on Belgian and German styles. A great idea! There seems to be a lack of those styles in Ontario at the moment and very few craft brewers seem interested in exploring them.

Next, Geordan gave me a quick tour of the brew-house and told me that they were working on a Belgian Style IPA for the upcoming Grand Opening called Extremist.

The Napanee Beer Co. will be having it’s grand opening: Sat. July 23rd @11am.

All 3 beers currently in the line-up are very good!

Bit of a side note: I don’t know about you, but I tend to get frustrated seeing craft breweries producing so called Premium Lager. At the moment the LCBO seems to fill its limited shelf space with an abundant amount of these Lager beers. Which, in my beer snob opinion, (Warning: The Following May Offend Some) ALL CRAFT LAGER TASTES THE SAME. Before you start calling for my head on a pike let me explain. I’m not suggesting they taste the same as the big breweries, watered down, corn/rice filled garbage. I also realise that my statement is overly broad and that even craft lager has subtle differences, however, I have been less than impressed in recent years with the range of variety found on LCBO shelves. I get the feeling the person in charge of beer purchasing either has absolutely no idea what they should be putting on the shelves or they simply dislike beer, (lager being the only exception). I was pleased to see that Deadline Premium Lager rises above the sameness. It was full flavoured and very refreshing, (I was unable to get a 6 pack the day I was there). I did bring home a 6 pack of Mayday Belgian Pale Ale and 6 pack of Blacklist Dark Lager. Both are excellent and I will be posting full reviews in the near future.

 

Lunch at Stone City Ales, Kingston

Stone City Ales:

Barrels with “something” aging inside.

A nice little brew pub, located on Princess St., downtown Kingston. Stone City Ales opened its doors July 2014.

In their own words:

Stone City ales is a small craft brewery located in the heart of downtown Kingston. 275 Princess boasts not only our brewhouse but a tap room and bottle shop. Come hang out with us in the tap room, if we’re brewing you’re going to be immersed in the experience along with us only you get to do it with a beer in hand! In addition to our own beers on draft in the tap room we offer Ontario guest taps, Canadian wine, cider, craft soda and wonderful bites from our kitchen.

It is important to note that we are first and foremost a brewery. We are dedicated to making the highest quality beer possible. We don’t cut corners. We don’t rush anything and no, we don’t filter our beer. We source the best ingredients from around the world and use local ones as often as we can without sacrificing quality. Inspired by the American craft beer revolution and by traditional Belgian brewing we aim to make well balanced beers that will blow your mind.

Our bottle shop allows us to sell take-out beer to you right out of our front door. Buying straight from the brewery means you’re getting the freshest, most tasty beer possible – and we’re selling beer to go until 11pm 7 days a week. We hope to see you soon.

Cheers!

The Stone City Ales Family

I finally got my butt in gear this past weekend and made it to down town Kingston to check out the brew pub and enjoy lunch with my wife. They have an interesting and varied menu, without the typical greasy pub grub. Julie had the Candied BLT, a  Ships-in-the-Night-candied local bacon, tomato, crispy iceberg lettuce and garlic aioli served on toasted Bread + Butter sourdough, (which she described as delicious). I decided to try the Banh Mi Gently sandwich, a Vietnamese style sub served on a traditional Vietnamese style baguette (made specially by Bread & Butter Bakery and Fine Pastries) topped with Char Siu pulled pork (Chinese BBQ sauce), sliced cucumbers, pickled carrots and daikon, lime aioli and liver pate all made in-house. A delicious sandwich, which I decide to pair with a glass of Sirena Spring Saison, a limited time specialty brew.

Sirena Spring Saison

I found the Sirena Spring Saison to be a unique summer offering, it opened sweet but quickly moved to a tart and rather dry finish, a nice compliment to the rather sweet Banh Mi sandwich.

Windward Belgium Wheat

My wife decided to try the one and only dessert offering, Cheese Cake Spring Rolls, house-made coffee cheesecake wrapped in phyllo pastry baked and tossed in cinnamon sugar, served with Vietnamese coffee-crème anglaise, (another satisfying menu item). I opted for a second brew instead and had the Windward Belgium Wheat. Foggy and pale golden in colour, it was surprising light in both nose and taste. It had a hint of banana on the nose and was crisp and refreshing.

If you’re in Kingston, passing through or up for a drive I recommend checking out Stone City Ales. Always nice to support local.

The standard line-up at Stone City

•Windward Belgium Wheat: 4.9%, 18 IBU

•12 Star Session Ale: 4.8%, 35 IBU

•Uncharted IPA: 7.0, 70 IBU

•Watchtower Conspiracy Imperial IPA (collaboration with Big Spruce, Cape Breton NS): 9.1%, 85 IBU

•Ships in the Night Oatmeal Stout: 5.6%, 25 IBU

 

Before I forget – make sure to take some beer home! This is what I left with. :^)