At the beginning of the Modern Era of Craft Beer in Ontario, the province’s breweries had a lot of catching up to do with their counterparts in the United States. Until 2012 there was no reliably available IPA on shelves at the LCBO, and breweries that had survived the 2000s were apprehensive about experimentation and branching out into various styles of beer.

Fast forward to 2024 and not only is the range of beer styles in Ontario as diverse as any on the planet, but some breweries have taken it upon themselves to go the ultra traditional route of growing their own ingredients. While some like Avling and Couchiching have rooftop gardens that contribute to their kitchen and brewery, others like Meuse and Mackinnon plant acres of barley to be custom malted, creating entirely bespoke beverages. For a few estate breweries across the province of Ontario, this means having a functional hop yard and varieties of hops that contribute to the flavour and aroma of the beer they produce.

We sat down with Scott Bohanna Martin from Quayle’s Brewery in Oro-Medonte and Christian Von Der Heide from The Paris Brewing Company in Paris, Ontario to get a sense of what works, what doesn’t, and how they use their painstakingly grown hops.

The Growler: Can you tell me a little bit about your brewing background?

Scott: I came to Canada from Australia and then I became a brewer. I was working at Russell for five years in B.C. Then I was at Steamworks for a couple years as well. I did a year in New Zealand in the middle of that, just to spend a year away, and then came back and went to the Renaissance yeast lab for a couple years in B.C. And then, yeah, I’ve been at Quayle’s for four years.

Christian: I consider myself a master brewer and beer sommelier, but I would say the main difference in my education is that it’s very long. I started very early. I started at the age of 15, so this year is my 39th year in brewing, fermenting, distilling, and making crazy stuff. (Ed note: the number of credentials is so prodigious that I’m summarizing for space: Augustiner, Weihenstephan, Guinness, Brunswick Bierworks, President of the European Brewing Convention, President of Siebel.)

The Growler: What was it that attracted you to the idea of working with hops that are grown for the brewery?

Scott: I’ve always been into farmhouse beers. So I think it was always like a dream to be at a farmhouse brewery, even though it was never going to be a reality to just make farmhouse beers. But there’s still something about being on the farm and, you know, the connection with the hops means that you get to make farmhouse beers.

Christian: I’m kind of overproducing for my own needs, and so our hop farm is not meant to be the highest yielding hop farm, that’s not a criteria, it’s about the quality, and also for me my philosophy, and maybe you understand it from my upbringing and my career, is to make all the key ingredients yourself.

We had about two years prior to us opening the brewery, we already had our hops planted, cultivated, and acclimatized on our five-acre hop farm in Paris.

The Growler: What varieties of hops are doing well for your brewery?

Scott: Our biggest variety is Cascade. That’s the one that’s in that Saison. We have Centennial, Triple Perle, Willamette, and also Sorachi Ace. We grew a little bit of everything and then we always try and incorporate the appropriate farm grown version of that hop into that beer.

Christian: We got seven varieties, and we picked the seven varieties not knowing necessarily how, from a climate perspective, they would develop, so it wasn’t seven because we need seven, it wasn’t seven because we knew exactly what we want, therewas kind of an experimental element to that, and I picked the varieties based on having some dual hops, meaning providing both bitterness and aroma, and having some more vintage varieties and some obvious varieties, and we only went with non-proprietary varieties. Because you have to. I have Triple Perle, Chinook, Centennial, and Cascade.

The Growler: With the hops that you’re growing yourself, is there enough to produce all your beer? Are there styles where you use hops from outside the farm?

Scott: We still use a lot of hops from outside the farm. I don’t think we’d be able to keep up with the brew system. (ed note: Quayle’s has a 30 BBL and a 10 BBL system.) German Pilsner is mostly German varieties. Our big American beers, like our West Coast and East Coast IPAs are typically 50 to 95 percent Yakima brewing hops. It’s all a bit of a game.

We’re always just trying to figure out what works best for each beer. But importantly, you can taste the hops that are grown on the farm. I mean, they’re an integral part of the beers that we’re making. Probably the most interesting beers that we have that include our hops are the ones that have roughly 50 percent farm grown hops, because they’re usually quite hop-forward beers. But then we’ll also incorporate something like Talas or like YCH hops in there to try and create an interesting balance.

Christian: We were successful from year one. We had no crop failures, all varieties did well in the end, not all varieties are relevant, and we’re using 100% and always did 100% of our beers with our own hops, and the thought process there is, our hops may not always be everything, and I hesitate to say not always the best. What I’m trying to say is we stand behind our hops, and it is what it is, so that means if I brew a beer and that hop, due to its Ontario provenance differs from the hop aroma that that same hop has in a more famous growing region, so be it, and that will be just part of the signature in our beers.

The Growler: What does it mean for the brewery and for you that you are able to instill a sense of place?

Scott: I think especially, you know, getting into summer when people can actually see the hops starting to pop up, the questions start coming, like what are those? A lot of people that come here have no idea what we’re doing. They’re always very curious, but it means that you have that instant connection to what the beer is. I know a lot of other brewers have a hard time using local hops and I think it’s just a lot easier for us to incorporate into our story of what the farm is.

We try to use a lot of hops for fresh hop beers during harvest season. Typically we do like a whole tap takeover thing where we take a lot of our core beers and we’ll do fresh hop versions of them. We’re trying to use up as much as we can fresh off the bine just because we don’t have to pay for all the processing further down the line.

Christian: It’s always been one of my dreams and visions to be complete and authentic and really create, in a certain way, your provenance, flavour DNA, and beer architecture out of that, because the world does not need another brewery, the world does not need another restaurant, so why would anybody need another brewery, why would anybody need amongst millions of craft brewers another craft brewery ultimately, if you’re not trying to find a different purpose, if you’re not trying to do something that has a deeper meaning?

It’s the experience, and experience is not marketing. Marketing is about perception and feeling, possibly the feeling of value or exclusivity, but experience is the real thing, including the marketing. So when you think about the dilemma that craft brewing is going through, is that the experience isn’t there for some, and a higher percentage.

Why? Because they’re all brewing Hazy IPA with Mosaic, Simcoe, and Amarillo, or Citra, and then they’re all making the same thing, and then add a comic label to it. There’s no raison d’etre for it. For the consumer, it doesn’t matter.

I’ve been doing this for 39 years and I feel like it’s still day one. It tells me that whatever you do in life you can do it with meaning and meaning can be very different. Barnyard Bully Double IPA is kicking ass. And it’s kicking ass winning medals without having the other varieties. Proud is maybe the wrong word, but I’m happy.