Collective Arts Brewery in Hamilton, Ontario is one of my most familiar breweries. As of posting today, I have had 31 different beers from the brewery. I have made multiple trips to this location and will continue to make more in the future. I would dare to say that, in Ontario, there are 2 big craft brewers who have set the standard and this company is one of them. To add to this, the building that Collective Arts occupies has a very long history in the beer industry, so I’m starting today’s post with a history lesson. I hope you enjoy! Collective Arts is located in Hamilton, Ontario in a building that was built in 1947 for a brewer called Peller Brewing Company. At this time in Hamilton history, lots of the land that houses the steel industry and what is the current home of Collective Arts was not even there. All this land was being reclaimed and the building was one of the first built on this land. While it looked very different from its current look (as pictured) part of the brewery was covered by metal siding which became the building’s signature look. In the 1955 Peller sold the brewery to Brading Breweries and moved into the wine business. It was during the Brading Brewery era that beer was not allowed to be sold anywhere else other than the Beer Store in Ontario. This was because you needed to sign a document in order to get your beer. As a way around this, Brading Brewery opened an ice store that also sold beer. Eventually Carling bought Brading Breweries and in 1960, they moved production to Toronto. This lead to the first time the building did not have a brewer to call the building home. In fact, the Hamilton Port Authority used the building as a storage warehouse for 12 years. In 1972 Henninger Brewery of Germany brought beer production back to the facility. Then, in 1981 Henninger sold to Amstel Brewery from Holland. The beer was marketed as “The Canadian Lager with the Dutch touch”. The height of the Amstel Era was in March of 1985. At that time a lockout had paralyzed Ontario’s Big Three – Molson, Labatt and Carling O’Keefe (which together sold 98 per cent of the province’s beer) and Amstel became the busiest beer store in Canada. Legend says at times there were 500 people in line at the store and the company was selling 10,000 cases of beer a day. 1992 saw the Lakeport Brewing Company take over the building. During this period of time the Beer Stores in Ontario were closed on Sunday but the Lakeport store was able to be open (Similar to how a lot of breweries are open on holidays now when the Beer Store is not) and Sundays were the day Lakeport made most of their money, legend says lines were up to 2 hours long. At this time Lakeport was a brewer of premium beer (as well as contracting out to others like President’s Choice). That changed in 2002 when Lakeport, who had been through bankruptcy protection started selling “a buck a beer” which was, and now is again, the lowest legal price in Ontario. Within 4 years Lakeport went from having a 2% market share to having 2 top 10 selling brands in Ontario. Labatt Brewery (owned by InBev) came calling in 2007 and purchased Lakeport for 201 million dollars and, by 2010 moved all brewing of Lakeport to their already established London, Ontario facility. Once again the brewery on Burlington Street had no brewer occupying their space. In fact, Labatt had gone so far as to completely strip the inside of the building so that it no longer even resembled a brewery on the inside. In 2014 2 gentlemen who worked at the plant prior to Lakeport's move to London: Bob Sorell and Allan Linkletter (who had a combined 30 years’ experience working at the brewery) decided they wanted to bring beer production back to Hamilton. They formed a partnership with Burlington, Ontario’s Nickle Brook Brewing and, after removing about 63,000 square feet of the building (for parking and a beer garden) and installing about 60 loads of equipment (trucked in from a decommissioned Sleeman plant in Nova Scotia) Science and Arts was born. Both breweries continued to brew in the building until 2017 when a mutual agreement between Nickle Brook and Collective Arts was agreed to so both companies could continue to grow as the space is not large enough for both companies. Collective Arts is very involved with the arts and has a history of allowing artists to apply for their artwork to be featured on their cans. The company also hosts many events like dinners, cruises, launch parties, tasting parties, concerts, after parties and, the list goes on. In fact, in June of 2018 they held their own festival of art, music and, beer including international breweries. Speaking of other breweries, Collective Arts has a history of making a fair number of collaboration beers with other breweries and even once a did collaboration with Donut Monster bakery (also from Hamilton). Collective Arts has a very unique space because they have a bottle shop/tap room and a beer garden. These are on different sides of the building so it’s almost as if they are 2 completely different spaces. The bottle shop/tap room is the old store from the previous breweries. There is a room with walls of old bottle art and the main room. In the main room you can find posters, glassware, clothing, growler fills, canned beer, grab a pint or, a flight. Pretty much every Sunday they have a live band in the taproom as well. Each week Collective Arts has a “yard of ale” promotion in which they select one beer on tap and sell the growler refills for $10. Recently, Collective Arts has added an outdoor patio in the parking lot. The Beer Garden has beers on tap, yard games and, plenty of space to sit both inside and outside. This area has hosted many events like yoga, mini markets, food trucks and, has hosted musical guests as well. At the time of me posting this article it seems that the area is undergoing some changes and the space doesn’t seem to be in use as often. As I mentioned earlier in the post, I’ve had over 30 different types of beer brewed by Collective Arts so I won’t be mentioning them all by name but I have included pictures of my Untappd check ins below. This bring me to something else I want to do with this blog. As I mentioned in my post on Grain and Grit: I’m not looking to rate breweries so much as I am here to provide insight and awareness. What I would like to do though is make a “Jer’s pick” from each brewery to give you a beer or 2 to try (I’m going to be loose with this rule, if I really like 2 or 3 then that’s what you get. If I only like 1 then that will be my single pick). Jer’s Picks for Collective Arts will be: Raspberry Milkshake IPA With Habanero Peppers: This is the collaboration between Collective Arts and Donut Monster. It was also Collective Art’s first Milkshake IPA. I love Raspberries and that flavour dominates but the lactose and vanilla give it a sweetness and a nice mouthfeel. I don’t remember there being much of a kick from the peppers, more like a little hint of peppers to finish it off. Unfortunately, this beer is no longer in production. I guess that kind of makes it a crappy “pick” but it introduced me to the world of Milkshake IPAs which have quickly become my one of favorite styles of beer. Life in the Clouds IPA: New England Style IPAs are always a safe bet in my book. This one is nice and hazy, with the hoppy flavour kind of cutting the sweetness from the juicy flavour you get. It’s a really nice balance of both tastes. Liquid Arts Fest Milkshake IPA: This is actually one of my all-time favorite beers period. It’s brewed with mango, lactose, vanilla, 2 hops and, fruit puree. What you’ve got here is actually a really refreshing beer that drinks like orange juice. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. The only drawback is that this beer is not cheap ($4.95 a tall can at the LCBO) but for this quality, it’s well worth it in my opinion.
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