Hard Cider

I visited the LFP Certified apple farm yesterday, and made arrangements for our first shippment of fresh pressed cider. This year looks to be a winner- very aromatic juice, lots of flavor, and enough sugar for an almost 7% cider. Start salivating!

Christmas giving, and hosting

In our last newsletter, we told people about the liqueurs that we are now making available, and the response has been great! My family this year is getting an assortment of peach schnapps, orange brandy liqueur, and cacao, with custom labels celebrating pour turn to host 17 people at our house for 4 days over Christmas. Yes, I know, lock up my wine cellar...and make an extra batch of Beatrix from our Belgian Beer Festival!

Christmas liqueurs, anyone?

We just added liqueurs to our product portfolio- absolutely delicious Peach Schnapps, Orange Brandy and Cacao. Not only are they great tasting, but they are also wonderful Christmas gifts. To help you out at Christmas, when you order a 4 liter batch of liqueurs for $79.00, you will get a free set of bottles, custom labels, shrinks and resealable corks for your bottles. Offer expires December 1, and you will have your liqueurs in time for Christmas.

sustainable wine and cider press conference

On Thursday, October 25, a press conferenced will be held at Fermentations to promote the link between Fermentations, and sustainable agriculture in Ontario. The conference being organized by Local Flavor Plus, and the complete text of the press release can be found here http://www.localflavourplus.ca/docs/Fermentationsforpublic.pdf

Christmas wines, anybody?

Our Christmas wines promo is back, and with just under 2 weeks to go to ensure getting your wines in for Christmas, time is of the essence. Anybody bottling wine in December for Christmas will receive a Christmas gift from us. And if you book 2 batches, you will get an additional $25.00 off your order. Call us at 416 778 9000 or email us at charles@fermentations.ca

Niagara grape harvest

Well, the other day the Globe and Mail reported what I have been telling all of our clients- the Niagara harvest is going to be exceptional. We have little bits of vidal, chardonnay, gewurztraminer, baco noir and our cab/cab franc blend, so get your reservations in fast!

It msut be grape harvest season because...

My alarm clock rang at 5 am, I jumped out of bed, got in my van and drove off to Niagara to get our organic Baco Noir. All this with out a coffee. The grapes look, and taste great- we will have a ton of happy baco noir winemakers soon.....

Back to (beer) school

As I prepare to leave for a Sunday country cycle, it really hit me that school starts when I get back. So kid off to class, and parents as well, if they go to beer school. We are giving eveyone a $10.00 grant to try a beer school beer that they brew by the end of September. So polish your drinking glasses!

While in the Okanagan Valley on holiday, I had probably the worst beer of my life from, a local microbrewery- I think that I will send them a grant as well.

harvest festival decisions

It is quite neat - today I was filtering carmenere from the Chilean harvest, and people were bottling the Chilean Cab/Shiraz, and Pinot Noir..And then everyone asked- whats next. I finally finished making the harvest list for Fall 2007, and will be sending it out in a day or so- if you don't get it, just drop me an email, and I will send it out to you.

a drinking tour out west

I just got back from a tour in B.C. Visited a few brewpubs and breweries (Granville Island is still one of my favorites), and had a whole lot of great beers. I had a superb cream ale, and am now working on our version of the recipe- watch for a new recipe to hit the books as soon as I get it right. I also had what may be the worst beer I ever had- a blonde lager brewed by a microbrewery and sold under the name of the pub I was in. Awful, awful, awful- no names though, I don't want to get sued! Lots of small wineries are dotting the Okanagen Valley, I am sure that we turn out more wine than many of them. They are blessed with a great growing season, and I am going to try and source some of their grapes for us. Cheers from a recovering road warrior!

We just got word today that at the recent Canadian Homebrew competition, a barley wine brewed at Fermentations won gold in it's category, and came in second for best of show. It is great to see the creativity and great beers that we can help people achieve using our services. Cheers to the winners!

Cloud 9

I just got a call from a friend who was at the provincial wine competition- I was awarded 3 bronze, 2 silver and one gold medal- but I don't know for which entries!

At the competition, they finally presented medals from last years national competition where our Beer School Czech Pils won a silver medal as Ontario's representative. Hopefully it will not take them till next year to let me know which entries won medals today!

Charles

And why am I doing this?

I have been asked many times about what special things are coming up at Fermentations, how to get the "inside scoop" on what Grapemasters will be doing, what my favorite beers are, and other inside things that we are up to at Fermentations. I thought that this would be a good way of giving all of you the inside look at what Scott, Greg, and I are thinking about, or working on. We will post randomly , whenever we think we have something important to say, so check back often- you never know when we may have something of earth shattering importance, or at least something thirst quenching to say!

It must be bar-b-que season because...

We are seeing the usual migration to blonder, more refreshing beers. ESB brewers are choosing more pale ales, and we are seeing more requests for European lagers. so here is my inside hint- just brew a batch of our continental pils- gold colored, with a beautiful hop nose, and just enough bitterness to make you say "I'm refreshed!"