Kicking craft cider and beer up a notch: Pelham Ciderworks and Shawn & Ed Brewing debuted this weekend

For lovers of great Ontario craft cider and beer, it was quite a weekend. First the Shawn & Ed Brewing Company welcomed its first visitors to a restored historic curling club in Dundas over a three-day grand opening, then the first cask from a new Niagara craft cider venture was tapped at a little pub and restaurant in Fonthill on Saturday night.

It was tough to be everywhere, but I did manage to make my way to Iggy’s Pub and Grub for a taste of Pelham Ciderworks’ debut cider.

It was named Rural Route 1 (with future ciders to be called RR 2, RR 3 etc.), but minutes after the cask was tapped, a phone call informed partner Brian Yeo that he could not use that name because it was already taken and copyrighted by another company.

No big deal, the name was scratched from the draught chalkboard and a new (temporary) emerged. It didn’t change the fact that the cider created by the Niagara partners was a delicious, fresh and lively blend of Ontario grown McIntosh, Cortland, red delicious and gala apples with just a touch of sweetness on the back end.

“We wanted to nail a nice, clean and fruity cider with our first one, Yeo told me. His team achieved that in spades and already favourable reviews are starting to turn up on Untapped.

Pelham Ciderworks is a small, craft operation in the truest sense. Yeo, whose day job is in sales at Niagara College Teaching Brewery and Teaching Winery (and, full disclosure here, a former beer writer for Wines In Niagara), and his partners intend to do small batch, self-sustaining ciders with a rotating collection of brews to appear at taps from Toronto and Guelph to Niagara (for starters).

The next plan for 1,800 litres of juice is to make one-third each of a “clean and fresh” cider, a traditional “English-style” cider and the last, “something a little different,” says Yeo, in photo above.

“We have to play the niche angle. It’s the only way we’ll survive.”

To that end, Yeo and his partners, who all have other careers, plan to make each batch of cider, gauge reaction and start over. “We want to play with small experimental stuff.”

One of the constants in the portfolio, as is becoming common with ciders made in wine country, is the use of old oak barrels for fermentation and aging. The connection to Niagara College Teaching Winery provides a steady supply of these oak barrels that add texture, complexity and body to apple ciders.

The debut cider was fermented in 25% used barrels and the rest in stainless steel.

Next up will be experimentation with different yeasts and primary ferments in different oak barrels.

“We’re playing off the craft beer craze,” says Yeo. In that genre, anything goes.

It will be fun to see where Pelham Ciderworks takes their portfolio from here.

One small thing: Educating the serving staff at pubs and bars where your cider is on tap is probably a good idea. At the packed Iggy’s Saturday night the cider arrived in a beer glass (no problem) topped up with a generous helping of ice (problem). Cider should never be served with ice. Only serve it with ice if someone asks for it. Make your default no ice.

Other than that one little glitch, it was a fantastic debut for Ciderworks and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Shawn & Ed Brewing Company

Another beginning for a local craft beverage took place on the weekend with the grand opening of the Shawn & Ed Brewing Company in Dundas.

This craft beer enterprise, founded by Ed Madronich (also president of Flat Rock Cellars in Niagara) and his friend Shawn Till, opened its doors on the weekend after it was first dreamed about over 25 years ago.

As the story goes, Madronich and Till first concocted a plan to open up a brewery a quarter century ago. The dream began to come to life three years ago at Till’s cottage. The two pals were sitting by the lake, beers in hand, and looked at each other and asked “Is it time?” They knew it was.

They wanted to do it right and the first job was to find the perfect location. When the old Dundas Curling and Skating Rink went up for sale a couple of years ago, they knew they had found it.

The building had a tremendous amount of character and history and their mission was to restore as much of it as possible. They wanted the Shawn & Ed Brewing Company to bring the building’s rich history back to life.

A Kickstarter campaign was launched in June 2015 to help raise money to restore key historical elements of the building. They rebuilt the wall that was destroyed when a dump truck crashed into it after having lost its brakes on Sydenham Hill. They brought back the signs that once hung there when the building was home to the Highway King Bus Line.

And once all the physical restoration work was done they embarked on the most important part of the adventure — making great tasting craft beer using only natural ingredients.

The Brews

All the brews use four natural ingredients: water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. The aim is to create sessionable and flavourful lagers; and unique Pinot Noir barrel aged ales.

LAGERSHED

LagerShed beers are brewed with the kind of craftsmanship that went into beer making before it became a high volume business. Brewmaster Rob Creighton prepares LagerShed beers for everyday enjoyment using natural, simple ingredients carefully crafted to deliver the great taste adventure only possible when you brew for quality not quantity.

BARRELSHED

BarrelShed brews are craft brewed then aged gently in wine barrels to produce unique, flavour-filled taste adventures. Available in smaller batches, BarrelShed is for those “who like to take the road less travelled, to seek adventure that few dare to try because they know new adventures deliver the best rewards.”

The program will use a variety of beer styles to match to the woody, lightly acidic red wine characteristics. The balanced flavour profiles will utilize a variety of malts and hops to provide distinctive oak-affected beers that benefit from slow oxidation to generate lengthy, burnt flavours with a light to moderate bitter finish.