It's safe to say that the majority of beer drinkers living in Toronto have likely dipped their toes into the craft beer movement, which has taken our city by storm over the past several years and invited in several breweries that produce unique, small-batch, easy-to-love varieties. Burdock Brewery opened its doors in 2015 at Bloor and Dufferin. Since then, it has expanded its production capabilities significantly and gained a crowd of loyal followers who return again and again for their flavourful, wine-inspired beers.
We caught up with owner and brewery director Matthew Park to see what their brewing process looks like, what's in the pipeline for this upcoming year and how they've adapted to the changing industry in 2020 and beyond.
Park and his partner started dreaming up Burdock back in 2013, sparked by the idea of fusing a micro-brewery with a music venue. That's exactly what they delighted Toronto with. In April of 2015, opening up their stylish, well-designed space that serves rotating brewed-in-house beers and offers a full Music Hall for live shows. Although the Hall has obviously been closed for the past nine months of the pandemic, Park says they hope to get it up and running again once the situation changes.
"The pandemic forced us into high gear," he says. "We used to sell about 50% of our beer in kegs to bars and restaurants. Once the pandemic hit, that number went to 0% overnight and we shifted all of our production into cans and bottles." Thankfully, Burdock had already opened up their online store pre-COVID, and Park notes that they are "total logistics nerds" who had hopes of creating a delivery company as well. They managed to move many of their staff members into driving roles and actually launched a full-on sister company called Fil, delivering beverages all across Toronto. In fact, many city dwellers might be surprised to learn that they've likely encountered the company during the past year if they've ordered wine or beer from Ontario producers, as the popularity of alcohol delivery has skyrocketed and Fil has been responsible for transporting a large portion of these purchases.
Burdock's secret to making great beers, Parks says, is drinking wine. That's right -- the beer brewers here draw heavy inspiration from wine-making, imitating certain characteristics of the production and flavour of wine. "[It's made] slowly, with care, and with grapes, and wine has characteristics that are often missing in beer like acid, fruit, texture and balance," explains Parks, noting that they favour refreshing, bright varieties of beer. You know that feeling you get after a day of drinking wine and longing to switch to something easygoing and light? Burdock aims to fill that need, brewing varieties that are crushable, don't take much work to drink and help to cleanse the palate.
Park says the team typically envisions new ideas for beers while doing tastings together, painting the picture of "a bunch of people surrounded by 10ft high stainless steel tanks swirling and spitting beer onto the floor, saying things like 'the acidity on this is a little squinchy' or 'I'd really love to dry this out and crank the bitterness.'" Last year, Parks explains that most of the ideas for the 50 plus beers they produced came from "conversations like these amongst ourselves, with other brewers, winemakers, cider makers and friends." Evidently, they are well-versed in finding inspiration from a variety of different sources, which shows through in their unique products.
Burdock has a lot in the pipeline for the upcoming year. They have improved many of their production processes and are ready to release some of their beers that take 2-3 years of ageing and conditioning. They also have a beer-wine hybrid program, which Park says improves each season as they continuously learn from subsequent years experimenting with grapes. They've focused heavily on their can-conditioning process, experimenting with re-fermentation in a can for products like their Tuesday Saison, which has proven to be hugely popular. As such, Park notes that we can expect to see more can-conditioned beers along with the others they release this year. Their first Helles-style lager, Deluxe, was released last Friday, and it's characterized by a smooth, dense and creamy foam, which Parks describes as "the maltiest thing we've ever brewed (read: not malty at all -- we don't brew a lot of malt-forward beers)." Their tendency leans toward dry, pale beers that are slightly crispy and bitter, so we can expect to see even more delicious varieties like Deluxe in 2021.
In terms of the industry as a whole, he hopes that businesses and people across the city receive the support they need to make it through. He and his team share in the growing consensus that supporting restaurants and bars is more important than ever right now. "We've been encouraging everyone (if they feel they have the means) to support restaurants by ordering takeout and buying beer and wine from their bottle shops," says Parks, who surely knows first-hand how tough the industry can be right now. Despite the circumstances, Burdock is a great example of a Toronto bar and venue that was able to pivot their offering, provide a valuable service to their customers and continue producing delicious and innovative products, which is all the more reason to support them along with all of your favourite spots in the city.
