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New brewery on Clifton Hill
The Niagara Brewing Company, a new craft brewery, will soon be opening on Clifton Hill.
The target date is the Victoria Day weekend in May.
Construction workers have been busy knocking down walls and making use of an old building that will soon be home to a new three-level brewery.
"Breweries in the past used to be on different levels so they could make use of gravity rather than pumping and we will be using that same idea here," said brewmaster Gord Slater, a veteran of the brewing industry, who has been developing breweries and brewpubs for the past 30 years.
They will have four main brands that they will be bringing to market, and four other brands will be rotated in and out. The beers will have different alcohol content.
"We will have all the ones that you hear about in the craft beer industry and we will even be able to do some very exotic beers that are way out there," said Slater. The new facility will also have a restaurant and two patios. Customers will be able to sample some of the different beers and also purchase some to take home.
The new brewery will sit on the former site of the Foxhead Inn, one of the first luxury hotels to be built in Niagara Falls. It's next door to the Rainforest Cafe in a space that was once occupied by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) retail store.
The Foxhead Inn was built and operated by Howard Fox. It opened in 1925 as a subsidiary of the Clifton House, a hotel that was lost following a dramatic fire on New Year's Eve in 1932.
At the front of the new brewery, where the pile driver is currently being dismantled, there will be a patio and on top there will be a 40-foot tank.
"Craft beers really got rolling in Ontario around 1984. The problem back then was that it was a supply driven sale so that people really had to get out and hustle," said Slater, who once worked at Molson's before getting into the craft brewing industry.
He was also involved in the legalizing of brewpubs in 1984 when the provincial government moved forward with legislation.
Slater said that while brewing is a science, it's not an exact science because you are working with biological organisms (yeast) and agricultural products (malt). He admits that experience and luck also play a great role in the process.
"With the trend to buy local, and being aware of what you are drinking, along with all the different flavours and food pairings, now it is demand driven so people are asking for it so that makes it much easier for the craft breweries."
Currently, Slater said craft breweries make up about 6% of the Ontario market, but that's growing. The provincial government, he adds, is getting two applications a week for craft beer licences.
The advantage of making smaller batches is that if a customer liked a certain kind of beer, and if they were holding a special event such as a wedding, the brewery would be able to make that beer for them. It would take two or three weeks depending on the order.
"This is the new trend that we are seeing and it will definitely help us when we are marketing to couples or conferences," said Sarah Ventresca-Vazquez, vice-president, business development/marketing for Canadian Niagara Hotels.
"We will be able to specialize the beers to almost any event. On Oct. 2, we are having an Octoberfest event so he is going to make pumpkin brews, then on Feb. 5 we are having our Beer on Ice event so he will be doing an icewine beer and for dessert he is going to do a chocolate beer."
Vazquez said Niagara Falls is iconic, there are so many stories to tell, and each of their beers will have a story connected with them.
Slater said it's quite rewarding to work on a project such as this because you are involved in basically every step of the process from the building of the brewery to making the final product.
"It's important and it's something that I like doing. I've been fortunate to have worked on a number of nice projects in recent years," said Slater, who has won numerous awards for recipe developments, including winning the Best in Show for an event in Germany.
By Tony Ricciuto, Niagara Falls Review
Last edited by realcity; Apr 16, 2015 at 10:51 PM.
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