arts & culture
John Tiffen, owner and brewmaster at the Merchant Ale House in downtown St. Catharines, admits he was naïve when he and his par tners opened one of the Niagara Region’s first craft brew pubs in 1999. “ There were times in the beginning when a full table of people would walk out because we didn’t ser ve Coors Light in bottles. They just said, ‘We’re not eating here.’” says Tiffen, noting that he always stood his ground. “It was a challenge to bring a craft product to our customers, but I just understood that those people who wanted mass-market beer were not my customers, yet.”
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“Beer is ver y accessible,” says the Alliance’s Agatha Podgorski. “Beer is usually sold at a lower price point than wine, and tasting beer is a really fun experience: It’s not pretentious. It’s casual. It’s fun.”
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iagara is a simile to wine, waterfalls, waterparks, and wonderful seasonal produce. If you look closely, a burgeoning craft beer industry also calls Niagara home. Hiding in plain sight, amongst the numerous wine routes and cycling paths, you’ll find more than a dozen unique and local breweries that offer something for every beer drinker out there. Reveal magazine plots the regional landscape and invites you to take a trip on the vast NIagara Ale Trail. . . as this could be Niagara’s next big thing.
Destination craft breweries are one of the fastest-growing segments of Ontario’s food tourism industr y, according to the Ontario Culinar y Tourism Alliance. Niagara’s wine industr y is more mature, but it’s not ever yone’s cup of tea. Beer, on the other hand, is made for the masses.
revealmags.com
Today, customers at Tiffen’s historic proper ty are joined by legions of others who follow the Niagara Ale Trail not for the region’s famous wine, but for the beer. From early adopters, such as Taps on Queen and Syndicate Restaurant and Brewer y, both in Niagara Falls, to newcomers like Bench Brewing Company, there are about 14 breweries from Por t Colborne to Beamsville, with at least two more slated to open in St. Catharines in the near future.
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