Perfecting the craft

Gabriel Ramirez pours tasters of the four beers available at County Roads craft brewery during their grand opening event at Hinterlude on Sunday.

New craft brewery opens in the County

The owners of County Road Beer Company would like nothing more than to see more breweries opening in Prince Edward County. The can see the County being a destination for beer.

“We wouldn’t be a wine destination if there was only one winery,” says Effie Dinadis, one of four partners in the new venture. “So the more the merrier. Up until maybe 50.”

For the Hinterland Wine Company offshoot, beer was a natural evolution. Hinterland’s specialty is sparkling wine, mainly due to the kind of grape that grows best on their estate. Adding another bubbly brew to their lineup was the perfect direction to take a business in the middle of wine country.

“Wine simply isn’t for everyone,” says Vicki Samaras, another of County Road’s partners and part-owner of Hinterland. For those who would prefer a unique craft beer over wine tastings, it’s been a welcome shift. That’s what they’d been hearing in the years since they opened Hinterland, and was confirmed with the soft opening of County Road three months ago.

“Beer, to me, is a nice balance,” says Samaras. “When people come here, there’s always one person that’s like, ‘oh, if you had craft beer.’”

More breweries wouldn’t take away business. Quite the opposite, a few more opening up would bring attention to Prince Edward County as a destination for craft beer, along with wine and food.

This is already beginning to happen, with breweries in the works around the County, and places like the County Canteen and Lake on the Mountain’s Resort already offering craft brews made onsite. Still, right now, County Road Beer is among the first taprooms to open.

Ottawa-based chef Kyrn Stein presents his charcuterie platter at County Road Beer Co.’s grand opening. Stein, who has previously worked with Hillier-based chef Jamie Kennedy, hopes to eventually relocate to Prince Edward County full time.

The soft opening presented two beers to the world: County Road 1, a blonde ale; and County Road 33, a farmhouse saison. Last weekend, during their third annual Hinterlude, County Road officially presented their new taproom, along with two more beers: County Road 12, a pale ale; and County Road 49, an American stout.

County Road 33 will be County Road’s signature beer. Bubbles form naturally in the bottle as a part of its fermentation process. Normally, beer gets its bubbles from a forced carbonation process, but Samaras says since bubbles are Hinterland’s signature, 33’s natural bubbles are a good complement to the sister business.

Although the beers don’t use all-local grains and hops, Samaras’ husband, Jonas Newman, says he has purchased as much local hops as he can, with a new batch coming out made entirely from Pleasant Valley Hops, an estate in Hillier. They have looked into commissioning local farmers to grow beer barley, but so far, they are still developing a local supply chain.

“The end goal is to have beer grown all from this farm,” says Newman. “It’s idealistic and we’d love to do it, but in the meantime we are limited to using local hops.”

Visit the brewery and you’re likely to meet Dinadis, the taproom’s front of house manager, and her husband Chris, the brewer. The couple moved to the County in July and have been hard at work preparing the brewery.

And beginning this week, County Road has recruited chef Neil Dowson. He will be serving lunch Friday through Monday. The next project will be to construct a patio restaurant called the Beer Garden.

Samaras, whose duties include the permits and paperwork that made both the winery and the brewery happen, says craft brewery legislation is much less rigid than an organization like the VQA, which has very strict regulations on wines.

This doesn’t mean she hasn’t learned a lot about starting a brewery in the process. And she would be happy to share that knowledge, just as breweries like Beaus had done for them.

“There’s a fun [atmosphere] around beer. It’s very relaxing, too. It’s a much more gregarious, social attraction,” says Samaras. “It’s a little more creative…it’s totally different.”