Summer has started to Fall

Well it's been a few weeks since my last post here on the blogospere, it's crazy how fast the time goes! The Summer is over, the cold weather of Fall has moved in and it seems like just yesterday that we were enjoying the sun at the Muskoka Beer Festival but time marches on as they say.

It's been a busy time not only for myself but also for Sawdust City Brewing Co.  Personally I've started teaching a course up at the Niagara Teaching College and began a stint as the brewery tech in their brewery, helping out wherever I can.  Like I said, it's been busy, but It's great to see the enthusiasm of the students, so eager to learn and get out there to make some beer. It's an exciting time in the craft beer world, with so many wonderful products already getting made and a new batch of students ready to take the ball and run with it, the future looks bright!

The future of Sawdust City is looking quite bright too.  We've been meeting with the architect (FormWorks in Barrie) and the brewery equipment suppliers (Specific Mechanical in BC) and the plans for the building and the brew house look fantastic!  Hopefully I will be able to share the plans with you all soon, so you can see what's we have in store for the Muskoka Wharf, but until then you'll just have to take my word for it.  When the building is finally up and our brand new brew house is up and running, I think everyone will be impressed.
We've also been brewing some more of our test batches at the College while we wait for construction to begin and just this week Criveller (another equipment supplier) picked up an old fermenter for us which they will be refurbishing so that we can use it as our own fermenting space at the College.  This means we may have some more Sawdust City beer available at upcoming events and maybe even at a certain local Bracebridge bar in the very near future, so keep you eyes peeled for that.  We're really excited about sharing our beer with you so when we do have some kegs heading up North to Gravenhurst and Bracebridge we will be sure to let everyone know!

As for right now, all we can offer you is our gratitude and sincerest thanks for coming out to sample our beer at the few events we've been at, for reading our blog, for creeping on our Facebook page and for sharing your anticipation with us.  And for those of you with a Facebook account, please head over to the page and check out a the videos we've posted.  We've made a few videos documenting our first test batch and our first public exhibition at the CNE.  There done really well and we hope you like them.

Like I said, we will have some more information soon about the availability of our beer so check back soon and hopefully you will be able to join Sawdust City for a pint of our beer.

Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  So until next time, keep the beer in your mug and the sawdust beneath your feet.

Breaking Up With the Ex

Well the CNE is finally over for another year and I'm not going to lie to you, my feet aren't sad to see it go.  Standing on your feet slingin' pints for 8-12 hours a day for 18 days really gets the dogs a barkin'.  That being said, my heart is sad to see it go.  The 2011 CNE was the first foray into the public forum for the Sawdust City Brewing Co and it will always hold a special place in our hearts.  I know I said in the last post that the Muskoka Beer Fest was our first festival, but the CNE was our first public "exhibition".  And from all accounts I think it was a most successful one. We got to meet and talk to a lot of great people about what we are going to be doing up at Sawdust City and so many of them were not only enthusiastic but also supportive of our plans. It was very uplifting and reassuring to see such a response from people who were basically complete strangers.  But outside of just getting to talk to consumers and good beer fans about our products, I think it was a wonderful event for craft beer in general.  By the end of the 18 days, there were 30 different beers available from 13 different breweries to try and with each passing day, more and more people came by the Wine and Beer Garden to do some sampling.   With many of them coming back more than once!
You have to remember that this was the first time anything like this has been attempted at the CNE and no one was sure how it was going to go over.  But Jed (from The Griffin Gastropub) and Bryn did a fantastic job of putting together the event and running a pretty tight ship over those 18 long and sometimes endless days.  Sawdust City owes them a big thank you for letting us come in and showcase the Great Weiss North at their event.   Along with Jed and Bryn we also want to thank Jaime (The Sassy Lamb), Marta, Rachel, Amelia
and Katlyn (sorry if I spelled your names wrong) for all their help pulling pints and collecting empties during the CNE.  Without you guys we wouldn't have gotten our beer into the waiting hands of the public.
And to all the other craft brewers that showed up on their "feature" days to help introduce people to their great beers (Beau's, Spearhead, Great Lakes, Nickle Brook, Creemore, Lake of Bays, Mill St and Wellington) it was great getting to know you and work with you.  Hopefully we'll get to work together again in the future.
Lastly I would like to thank the Niagara College and their Teaching Brewery for helping brew the Great Weiss North.  It was a wonderful experiment with wonderful results.
Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  Until next time, keep the beer in your mugs and the sawdust beneath your feet.

Druids Aren't the Only Ones Who can Celebrate the Sun

Well it's September 1st, another Summer is coming to an end, let the mourning begin!  The annual mad scramble has begun as we grasp at the last few remaining days of the Summer of 2011, trying desperately to squeeze every last ounce of sun out of the ever shortening days before the snow and wind blow in.  Each moment of warm weather a blissful escape from the creeping hand of Ol' Man Winter lurking just beyond the corner of the next few calendar pages.  But before the skies darken and the sun takes a vacation there are still a few festivals to be celebrated and none more exciting than the 3rd Annual Muskoka Beer Fest.  A day to celebrate not only the best of Summer but also the best of Canadian Craft Beer and Sawdust City was there too help out the best it could. 

We still didn't have any signage made up so I had to stop at the local Staples on the way to the Fest and throw together some last minute DIY signage.  Not bad...not great, but not bad.  Baby steps people, we're still growing, you gotta cut us a little slack!



Along with no signage we also don't have our manufacturers license from the AGCO yet, so we just brought our bottles and labels for show.  We poured the Great Weiss North, which I think I've explained enough and Curt's iPAM an IPA he brewed with his Mom, Pam's, home made honey, which Curt had brewed up at the Niagara College earlier this Summer.  Check out a close up of our booth.  These were unfortunately the only two pictures I managed to take the entire day. Minute one and minute two. The remaining 478 minutes remain undocumented.



A lot of people asked questions about the bottles and were excited to try our brands, but like I said, we don't have our manufacturers license yet.  But have no fear people the process has begun!  As of Friday, August 26th, the papers have been filed.  I personally went down to the AGCO office in Toronto and handed in our application forms.  Now it's in the hands of the government.  So in the requisite 8-1200 weeks I should hear something back.  The rusty wheels of bureaucracy have started turning people!

But enough of that.  Let's focus on the good stuff.  This years Muskoka Beer Fest was the most successful to date with around 1800 people coming to sample some fine crafted beers.  And fine they were, it was just great to be invited to a festival (our first one too!) with so many great breweries .  Along with that, each year the public seems to get a little more educated and a little more daring when it comes to craft beer and it's really exciting to see people coming out and asking more and more knowledgeable questions.  I'm glad to see so many people learning about and getting out there to try the beers made by craft brewers. It's very uplifting, especially as a prospective new brewer coming into the market.

The guys from the Griffin also added a little extra to this years Festival as well, throwing an after party at the Griffin once the Festival wrapped up around 8p.  Because the one thing you need after a day of drinking is more beer.  Really it's for the best. 

All and all it was a fantastic day and as far as first beer festivals go, it was really successful for us at the Sawdust City Brewing Co.  A big thanks to Jed and Curt at the Griffin and also to all those that came out to support craft beer.

Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  So until next time, keep the beer in your mugs and the sawdust beneath your feet.

A Full Frontal Exhibition

Friday, August 19th was the first day of the 2011 Canadian National Exhibition and for the first time ever, in the 132 year history of the event, there was a full battery of Ontario Craft Breweries on hand to help kick off the massive 18 day festival.  In total there were 25 craft beers available from 11 different Ontario Craft Breweries, not a bad sampling menu if I don't mind saying so myself!  And along for the ride was the Great Weiss North, the first collaboration between Sawdust City Brewing Co. and the Niagara College Teaching Brewery.  In one beer we were exhibiting all of Canada at the Canadian National Exhibition.  Check out the bottom right corner of this here sign out side the Craft Beer and Wine Garden (hosted by Jed and Curt of The Griffin Gastropub), yep that's our logo...pretty sweet.

Now this next picture is pretty much craft beer personified.  Being that we are relatively new and this was our first collaborative release, we didn't have tap handles that we could use, so instead we used good ol' fashioned McGyver-ing to come up with a make-shift, D.I.Y tap handle.  The lads from Spearhead (a fine lot if there ever was one) kindly donated one of their extra handles and I cobbled together, with the help of some tape, a Wellington beermat and a hand cut version of our poster this lovely rendition of a tap handle...pretty sweet.  

 The tap handle may have been a little suspect, but the beer pouring out of said tap was just fine in my humble opinion.  Check out this shot of one of the first pints ever poured of the Great Weiss North....pretty sweet.



But I don't want to hog the spotlight here (even though this is my blog and I guess I have free reign to hog, but that's not what were about here in Sawdust City) there were a lot of other great breweries on hand to help celebrate craft beers first foray into the CNE.  It certainly made it hard to just hand out beer and not sample it, but I'm a professional people and I kept it on the straight and narrow.  Well for the most part, we still had the occasional break and with some fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches from the Leslieville Cheese Market, I made the most of it taking a seat in the beer garden and did a little quality control....pretty sweet.

And along with a great number of breweries, were a great number of visitors and willing samplers.  Some came for the wine, some came the fantastic music but just as many came for the beer.  It was great to hear people say that they may not of heard of the breweries but were willing to give it a try.  And with such a great stable of breweries, we certainly did make some converts.  Many of which tried the Great Weiss North and for the most part it was a positive response.  Over the first three days I only had one person not finish the glass...pretty sweet.



All and all the first weekend at the Ex was a success, not only for Sawdust City and the Great Weiss North, but for Ontario Craft Beer in general.  There were a lot of smiling faces in the beer garden and it was great to have so many new converts jump on the craft beer bandwagon.  And with 15 days left I think the bandwagon may get a little overloaded...pretty sweet.

Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  Until next time, keep the beer in your mugs and the sawdust under your feet.

Less Han Solo, More Jack Ryan

So it's been a few days since my last post and it's not for lack of memorable goings on in the world of the Sawdust City Brewing Co., it's just that the goings on, are not the typical things written about it blog posts. It's been a week of "behind-the scenes" action, the stuff most of us don't really hear about, or really care about, when it comes to starting up a brewery.  But guess what, I'm going to tell you about it anyways!

I did brew version 2.0 of our Lone Pine IPA last Thursday, I guess that's kind of exciting and blog worthy.  The first version wasn't bad, it just wasn't what I wanted.   It was a little too malty and a little too sweet (at least in my opinion).  It didn't ferment out as much as I wanted it to, which was partially due to the high percentage of specialty malts and partially due to the yeast we used.  So I cut the specialty malt in half and swapped out the yeast for a strain closer to the one we will be using when the Sawdust City doors finally do open.  But that's what test batches are for, right?  To test things.  And worst case scenario, we ended up with two batches of beer instead of one.  Win, win.

Anywhich, outside of that, everything else has been all computer tapping, phone pad punching, note paper taking boring stuff.  Very anti-climactic when compared to our first few weeks out of the gate.  It's like that scene in "Clear and Present Danger", when Harrison Ford and Henry Czerny get in a computer fight.  Sure "Patriot Games", Ford's first film as CIA agent/"everyman-hero" Jack Ryan, was an action packed thrill ride that kept you on the edge of your seat.  But I beg you to be interested in the cinematic crap-fest that is Clear and Present Danger, when during one of the films most crucial climaxes, all we get is the camera quickly panning back and forth between two combatants as they frantically duel back and forth, typing increasingly stronger on their respective key boards.   Brows furrowed, lips snarled and fingers cocked and in the ready position.  Probably one of, if not THE greatest "fight" scenes in recent movie history.  But I digress, as that really had nothing to do with beer.  Where was I?  Right, boring behind the scenes brewery stuff...it may not be overly interesting, but this stuff needs to get done.  It's not all glitz and glamour in the brewing world, let me tell you what.  

It was a week of phoning the architect and the equipment supplier and discussing brew house layout.  Positioning and re-positioning tanks over and over again.  A week of filling out governmental paper work and cutting through red tape.  Printing and re-printing form after form.  A week of proof reading our business plan.  Reading and re-reading for the 647th time.  Not fun stuff, but like I said, stuff that needs to get done.
Sure, the day to day life at the brewery may sound like it's going to be a roller coaster ride of fun and merriment, filled with hours of beer making and beer tasting.  Going from event to event making sure that all our loyal customers' mugs are kept topped up and full of our beer.  But in reality it's a lot more boring and a lot less exciting than that.  It's a lot more Clear and Present Danger and a lot less Patriot Games.  A lot less Han Solo and a lot more Jack Ryan.

But it's that hope of finally getting to do the beer making and the beer tasting, the hope of going to real life beer events and the hope of actually having "loyal customers" that keeps us going.
So it maybe boring and it may not be blog worthy, but goshdarnit we'll do it as long as it means that someday we'll get to open our own brewery.

Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  Until next time, keep the beer in your mugs and the sawdust beneath your feet.

So When is Canada a Melting Pot and Not a Mosaic?

So here is the poster for the Great Weiss North, our first collaboration with The Niagara College Teaching Brewery.  Shannon Seppa, our Design Guru, just finished putting it together.  Pretty sharp ,eh?
As for the beer itself, both batches are in the fermenter and from last I heard, it's coming along nicely.  Gordon Vale, one of the students at the College and one of the brewers on hand to help with the collaboration brew, tried a sample from the fermenter and described it as "a plate of pancakes with syrup on it".  You can't get much more Canadian than that, now can you?
The beer should be finished primary fermentation by now and has probably been cooled and is aging as we speak.  I'm not there to confirm this and I won't be returning to the College until Thursday, I'm just guessing here, but Jon Downing, professor and brewmaster at Niagara said everything was coming along well.
If all continues on this path and everything goes according to plan the beer should be ready for release on the first day of the CNE, Friday, August 19th.  Remember though, this is a special brew and it will only be available for the duration of the CNE which comes to an end Monday, September 5th.
So to answer the question posed in the title, "When is Canada a Melting Pot and Not a Mosaic?"  It's when you put all of Canada into one beer!  Now we all know that Canada is a mosaic and we celebrate all cultures of the world within our borders.  One of the things that makes Canada great is that we allow everyone to bring a little piece of themselves into our little corner of the planet here in the Great White North.  But in this case, as our beer ages in the fermenter, we're hoping that all those various ingredients and distinct flavours from across the country come together and create a cohesive flavoured beer, melting into one unique ale that screams Canada with every sip!
So stay tuned and be sure to check back again soon as we are sure to have more information on this truly Canadian beer in the coming weeks.
Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  Until next time, keep the beer in your mugs and the sawdust beneath your feet.  

A Sign of Things to Come...

The August long weekend marked two more significant milestones for the Sawdust City Brewing Co.  First, on Friday afternoon, we got our website up and running, you can find us hangin' out on our little pocket of cyberspace at www.sawdustcitybrewing.com .  So next time you're out surfing the ol' world wide web, stop on by and say hello.  There isn't much there yet, the site is still under construction, it's basically a glorified sign post on the side of the information super highway.  But it's nice to look at and it will link you to our Facebook page and to this here blog.  So check back every so often, we're hoping to have all the bells and whistles up in the near future.
Next, we got an actual sign up on our actual site down at the Muskoka Wharf in Gravenhurst.  Saturday morning, armed with our sign, a drill, a sledge hammer, some lumber, a couple cinder blocks and a few screws, Rob, Karla and myself headed down to the Wharf with the hopes of easily popping up the sign.  It was going to be a breeze, we'd be done in no time.  Here it is quietly sitting beside the TAPS trailer, looking so sweet and gentle

 And here it is nicely propped up on our makeshift sign posts.  Don't it look purdy? What isn't shown is Dave, Rob and Karla's kind friend. If he hadn't shown up to help us out and given us a few much needed pointers, we'd probably still be there trying to hammer in those danged stakes right now.  It could have been a catastrophic waste of a beautiful long weekend in Muskoka, if not for him.  Thank you Dave.  Thank you.

 It proved to be a larger task than we first thought, but it in the end with a little help from our friends, it did get up and what better way to celebrate than with one of our own beers!  Rob and I christened the new sign with a toast of our Golden Beach Pale Wheat.

 Then for good measure, we opened another bottle and toasted again out on the dock. It's always better to toast more than once.  I'm not sure what Emily Post would have to say about that, but frankly I couldn't care less.  More beer is always better than less beer.  Always.

So there you have it, our digital sign post and our actual sign post are up and shinning for all to see.  So stop by our site, either on the interwebs or down at the Muskoka Wharf and see what's new with the Sawdust City Brewing Co.
Anyhoo, that's about it for now.  Until next time, keep the beer in your mug and the sawdust beneath your feet.