Book ~ "The Ontario Craft Beer Guide" (2016) Robin LeBlanc and Jordan St. John

From Goodreads ~ Forget wine tours! This is the comprehensive guide to Ontario’s craft-beer revival and the brewers behind it. 

The renaissance of craft beer that has swept North America over the past thirty years has transformed the Ontario landscape, leaving over two hundred breweries, both great and humble, dotting the province. The diversity of craft beers we now enjoy is unprecedented in history and dazzling to behold. For the growing number of people who find their interest piqued, the sheer selection of brews can be intimidating. 

"The Ontario Craft Beer Guide" gives readers, whether bright-eyed beginners or aficionados of the highest calibre, a dependable field guide to the beers of Ontario. Noted experts Jordan St. John and Robin LeBlanc tell the stories of some of Ontario’s most notable breweries and provide expert ratings for nearly a thousand beers.

Gord and I like craft beer (though he is more adventurous than I am) and we go to a lot of beer festivals every year.  So it shouldn't be a big surprise that this book caught my eye.

The book starts with a brief history of Ontario's craft beer past, followed by how and where we can buy craft beer in Ontario.

There is an extensive list of Ontario craft breweries, including when they opened, their owners, their histories and their beer.  I travel quite a bit because of my job.  When I'm going outside of Toronto, I ask Gord if there is a craft brewery that he wants me stop in so I can pick him up some beer.  I was surprised to see that I've visited many of the breweries that were listed.

There is also a list of recommended Ontario craft beer pubs and we've visited many of them.

There is a glossary of various terms.  To make it handy for you to explore the various breweries, there is a list of them by region.

If you want to experience more of Ontario's craft beer, this book should be your bible.

Book ~ "Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay" (2014) Alan McLeod and Jordan St. John

From Goodreads ~ Ontario boasts a potent mix of brewing traditions. Where Europeans explored, battled and settled, beer was not far behind, bringing the simple magic of brewing to Ontario in the 1670s. Early Hudson's Bay Company traders brewed in Canada's Arctic as Loyalist refugees brought the craft north in the 1780s. Early 1900s temperance activists drove the industry largely underground but couldn't dry up the quest to quench Ontarians' thirst. The heavy regulation that then replaced prohibition centralized surviving breweries. 

Today, independent breweries are booming and writing their own chapters in the Ontario beer story. Beer historians and writers Alan McLeod and Jordan St. John have tapped the cask of Ontario brewing to bring the complete story to light, from foam to dregs. 

I like beer and I like reading books about the history of Toronto and Ontario ... and this book combines the two.

The book covers seven time periods:

1. Exploration and Empires:  1600s - 1775
2. Brewing and the Two Loyalist Wars:  1775 - 1815
3. Upper Canada Becomes Canada West and Expands:  1815 - 1860
4. Victorian Expansion and Industrial Brewing:  1860 - 1900
5. Temperance, Prohibition and Regulation:  1900 - 1927
6. Control, Consolidation and the Rise of National Brewing:  1927 - 1980
7. The Brewery Next Door:  1984 - 2014

Each chapter provides a high level overview about what was going on in the different eras.  It was interesting to read about the changes in beer production (flavours and styles) over the years and how tastes have changed but have remained the same.  I found the last chapter especially interesting as it talked about what is happening today.

Here are some interesting bits of information ...

After prohibition in the late 1920s, public drinking places reopened.  Concessions had to be made to prevent the harassment of the modern women who wished "to seek out new entertainments outside of the home" and separate beverage rooms for women were created.  Female servers were subjected to official inquiries about whether they were sources of immorality (male servers weren't).  The beer-drinking women who chose to stay at home when drinking faced public disapproval when purchasing alcohol and risked being subject to commentary in the press.  Imagine!

Until 1955, Ontarians had to sign for their beer purchases when buying at the Beer Stores (then the Brewers Retail stores).  You could buy up to 10 cases a day and no ID was required.  In 1955, a resident in Brantford was visited by the police after the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) reported on a review of his recent liquor purchase history.  When the police checked it out, they discovered it was for a family gathering.

In 1867, Ontario had about 150 breweries.  That number was greatly reduced over the years due to prohibition and breweries consolidating leaving a handful of major players.  Happily the little guys are back and the craft brewing industry in Ontario is thriving ... Gord and I have a couple craft brewers within walking distance of home.

Book ~ "Lost Breweries of Toronto" (2014) Jordan St. John

From Goodreads ~ Explore the once-prominent breweries of nineteenth-century Toronto. Brewers including William Helliwell, John Doel, Eugene O'Keefe, Lothar Reinhardt, Enoch Turner, and Joseph Bloore influenced the history of the city and the development of a dominant twentieth-century brewing industry in Ontario. Step inside the lost landmarks that first brought intoxicating brews to the masses in Toronto. 

Jordan St. John delves into the lost buildings, people and history behind Toronto's early breweries, with detailed historic images, stories both personal and industrial, and even reconstructed nineteenth-century brewing recipes. 

I like beer.  I like learning about the history of Toronto.  So I thought this would be an interesting book.  Gord had read it in January and enjoyed it.

There are 17 chapters covering breweries here in Toronto from 1800 to the 1960s that are no longer around ... like the Spadina Brewery (hard to believe it failed because Kensington Market was so far out of the downtown core!), O'Keefe Brewery and Joseph Bloore's Brewery.

There is a chapter about John Farr's Brewery (1820 - 88), which used to be on Queen Street W (in our 'hood).  Gord and I had gone on an interesting Heritage Toronto walk in June 2012 called Between the Bridge and the Brewery:  Trinity Bellwoods Neighbourhood and we learned a bit about Farr's brewery (his house, which was built in 1847, still stands ... the brewery next door had burnt down and there's a condo on the space now).

The majority of the earliest brewers in the city were typically from England, middle class and literate.  Many of the breweries in those days needed to be rebuilt because of fire.

It was an interesting book.  Along with the information, there were also some pictures and drawings of the breweries and pictures of the labels that were on the bottles.  It would have been nice, though, to have included a map of Toronto today with the locations of where the breweries once were.  Family trees would have been helpful too since there were fathers and sons in the businesses, plus intermarriage among the different brewery families along with new owners from other breweries.

Wouldn't it be fun to be able to travel back in time and visit these breweries?