Charlotteville Brewing for beer & biodiversity
The small local beermakers that we classify as craft breweries can be discovered in a wide range of settings and locations. Their brewhouses and taprooms might be tucked away in industrial malls and mundane commercial plazas, Chinatown neighbourhoods, a 1930s Art Deco municipal incinerator building or wedged into a refurbished CN rail complex branded a “junction district.” I’ve even visited a nano-brewery built into the 200-square-foot garage of the principal owner’s family residence in a city’s urban residential core.
Recently, I sipped a few pints in a secluded rural setting near a UNESCO-designated area in one of Canada’s southern-most parcels of land. The regional municipality of Norfolk County and Charlotteville Township – Simcoe is the largest nearby community – are located on the north shore of Lake Erie. As I learned, if you drive too quickly on West Quarter Line between the 6th and 9th concessions, you could miss the two ancient barns that mark the spot: Charlotteville Brewing Company (CBC) has used the agriculture richness of the area as the foundation and guiding principle for its business.
Once the tobacco belt of Ontario, the area grows a wondrous smorgasbord of crops and livestock: the long-horn cattle of innovative YU Ranch, lavender, hazelnuts and goji berries; both sweet potatoes and peanuts grow in the area. If you see fluffy green plants with bright red berries growing beneath black shade canopies, that’s ginseng, a popular crop in the area that likes Norfolk’s sandy soil but doesn’t like too much sun, so it’s partially shaded.
For more about CBC, visit Vine Routes magazine.
