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Welcome to our Brewery
THE BEER FROM WINE COUNTRY
Located in the Town of Lincoln, Bench Brewing Company is an independent craft brewery that sits on 8 acres of farmland. Situated in the heart of the Niagara Benchlands rural but sophisticated wine region, Bench is surrounded by some of Ontario’s finest agricultural land.
Our location provides the ideal setting for growing our own hops and apples used in crafting great, approachable beers and ciders that reflect our local terroir.
Our brewery is a place for our guests to relax, learn, and experience the craft of brewing beer. Our facilities are located across eight beautiful acres and features a 50hL brewing system, a tap and tasting room, a beer garden, a barrel aging facility, and our very own hops field. Come and visit us today.
Sustainability
At Bench, we are proud of where we are from. We are surrounded by some of the most amazing orchards, vineyards and farms in the country. Many of these neighbouring farmers and families have been sustainably growing fruit for over 200 years, and as part of this community, we must be just as focused on being stewards of the land. Sustainability is engrained in our brewing culture at Bench, and we quickly established our mantra of Conserve, Recycle, and Reuse.
Barrel & Foeder Program
The barrel room in our funkhouse is home to our foeders and where we age our beer in wine barrels sourced exclusively from our Twenty Valley winery neighbours. Formerly used to make world class pinot noirs, chardonnays, and gamays – just to name a few – these barrels help us create beers with a true sense of time and place unique to the terroir of our surrounding region.
Each barrel will impart a unique flavour depending on a variety of factors like they type of oak they are made from, what types of wine they held before, as well as the size of the oak vessel and how much of the surface area of the beer is actually in contact with the wood.
Coolship Program
A coolship is the anglicized word for koelschip, a traditional Belgian brewing tool. It is a wide shallow pan used for cooling hot, unfermented wort and kicking off the spontaneous fermentation process. Unlike most beers that use cultivated yeast to convert wort into beer, spontaneously fermentation relies on naturally occurring yeasts that exist in the environment. That is why these types of beers are often called “wild beers”.
At Bench Brewing, we will use the night’s wind to cool the wort in in our coolship from boiling temperature to fermentation temperature (around 23c) and inoculate our beer with the naturally occurring wild yeasts and microflora that blow in from our neighbouring orchards, vineyards and farms in the Twenty Valley. The unique terroir here will result in a distinctive house style that cannot be reproduced anywhere else in the world.
The wort that is cooled and inoculated in our coolship will then be transferred into our French-oak foeders where it will slowly ferment for up to three years.
Estate Grown Hops
Hops are the flowers of the hop plant Humulus Lupulus. The hop flower makes many positive contributions to beer such as citrusy, woodsy, spicy and fruity aromas, as well as bitterness to help balance residual sweetness.
At Bench Brewing, we have a 3-acre hop field on the site of the brewery. The hops varietals that we grow are Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Willamette.
Enjoy Our Brewery
Taproom & Kitchen
Our tap and tasting room is located in the historic Maple Grove Public School in Beamsville, Ontario. The renovated space is a place for our guests to relax, learn, and experience the craft of brewing beer. It also houses our bottle shop where you can take home your favourite Bench beers, and our swag shop where you can purchase glassware, wearables and accessories.
Beer Garden
Our beer garden is the perfect outdoor space for you to enjoy our beer while overlooking the neighbouring Twenty Valley vineyards and orchards. With full seating and large umbrellas, you can grab a glass of your favourite beer, sample a flight of our latest offerings, and share some food from the Kitchen at Bench with your family and friends.
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