Lakes of Muskoka on the Dock

I headed up to the cottage this weekend to celebrate a birthday and decided to make a pit stop in Bracebridge. It has become a new cottage tradition to pay a visit to the best pub north of Toronto, The Griffin Gastropub, for some lunch and a pint and this weekend was no different.

We caught up with owner, Jed Corbeil, who mentioned that the cozy, craft brewery friendly pub has been doing great and the monthly brew master dinners have been a real success. He also mentioned that the Muskoka Craft Beer Festival that he is organizing is all starting to come together and ticket sales have been really good.

Jed talked while we sat at the bar eating our Smoked Trout and Peameal sandwichs and noshed on the Quebec Boar and Lamb cured sausages and three varieties of cheese, drowning it all with a delicious pint of Black Oak's Summer Saision. Simply devine. Black Oak just happens to be the brewery of the month and is being featured at the pub with their Saison and Nut Brown on draught and their Pale Ale and Double Chocolate Cherry Stout in bottles.

After saying goodbye to Jed we headed back down the road to the Lakes of Muskoka Brewery to catch up with founder/brewer, Gary McMullen. And to grab a flat of his Muskoka Hefe-Weissbier to take to the cottage (see pic below), which has completely won me over. (Look out for the LOM Hefe-Weissbier in the TAPS summer issue tasting panel)

McMullen greeted us at the recently re-modeled front entrance and led us on a tour of the brewery. The brewery is housed in an old grainry right off Bracebridge's main strip and is much larger than it appears from the outside.

We walked through the cold storage room and made our way through the pallets of cans. Lakes of Muskoka has recently announced that they will only be selling their product in can format; both in singles and six packs at select LCBO's. "So far the response has been great," stated McMullen as we walked by an employee emptying spent kegs. "We are receiving a lot of feedback about our Hefe-Weissbier right now, people want to see it stay on full year, not just a seasonal, so we're looking at that right now."

One thing that was noticed during our walk through of the brewery was how tight things are in the brewhouse. McMullen confirms that since opening the brewery years ago they have pretty much run out of room to grow, so he is looking at other properties to move the brewery. "We will be staying in Bracebridge for sure, you can count on that, but we will be needing more room eventually."

We left the brewery with a flat of cans and headed off to the cottage for some peace and quiet...and to drink of course.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the brewery, so I couldn't obtain any pictures. So a full write-up on LOM will have to wait for another time.