LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2017

BEER  SMALL-TOWN BREWS

Rich gold in colour, Walkerville’s flagship Honest Lager ( LCBO 407650, 473 mL, $2.75) is meant to pay homage to the beer that distiller Hiram Walker was said to want to produce when he opened the first Walkerville Brewery in 1890. And in its bready, floral aroma and firmly malty, drying and bitter-finish- ing body, it does just that!

When the brewery tenant in his 100-year-old former Hiram Walker warehouse finally suc- cumbed to financial pressures after over a decade in business, landlord Mike Brkovich found himself reluctant to say goodbye. So instead of seeing what had become a bit of a community institution broken up and shipped away, he arranged to buy and resuscitate the Walkerville Brewery.    “For me, the brewery is more than just somewhere we make beer,” explains Brkovich. “It’s a community space where we can sup- port and liaise with community groups.” And if that networking happens over a pint of two of the brewery’s beer, well, so much the better! WALKERVILLE BREWERY | WINDSOR

NEW LIMBURG BREWING | SIMCOE

As Ontario’s craft-brewing industry developed through the early 21st century, one area in which it lagged was that of Belgian-style beers, a fact immediately apparent to Jo Geven after he moved his family from Belgium to Simcoe in 2003, and also quite frustrating.     Moved to begin home brewing with his son Mischa so that he could drink the beers he loved, Jo developed his hobby over time into a family business housed in a disused schoolhouse, with Mischa heading the brewing side, wife Yvonne designing labels and packaging, daughter Milou in the lab, and Jo in charge of management and sales.

LOCAL CULTURE MUST-SEE Nautical enthusiasts will want to visit the nearby Port Dover Harbour Museum , a treasure trove of memo- rabilia including artifacts salvaged from Lake Erie shipwrecks and exhibits on Prohibition-era rum running. 12 Harbour St, Port Dover .

Cloudy gold with a spicy, floral, faintly herbal aroma, New Limburg’s Belgian Blond ( LCBO 480608, 500 mL, $3.90) is, like many of the brewery’s other ales, defined by its peppery yeastiness, with a fruity spice upfront and a more reserved, white peppery and herbal second half and lightly bitter finish.

For a novel art experience, visit the museum without walls that is the Windsor Sculpture Park , stretching along the Detroit River for more than 2.5 kilometres and home to 31 stun- ning, large-scale works. Between Huron Church Road and Church Street, Windsor. LOCAL CULTURE MUST-SEE

NEW LIMBURG PHOTO BY YVONNE MOONEN; DANCING BEAR BY PAUTA SAILA; PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER LAWRENCE-MENARD

118  FOOD & DRI NK SUMMER 2017