Three Craft Breweries On Winnipeg Ale Trail: Little Brown Jug, Torque Brewing, One Great City
Featuring three craft breweries in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada: Little Brown Jug, Torque Brewing, and One Great City
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada has a thriving craft beer scene. In 2017, when the industry was still relatively new but with already several microbreweries and brewpubs, I took the Ale Trail tour by the Winnipeg Trolley Company. Although that tour is no longer available, the three breweries featured on it are still vibrant members of Winnipeg’s craft brewery community.
Little Brown Jug
Located at the edge of Winnipeg’s historic Exchange District, the building Little Brown Jug occupies was once the livery stables for City Hall. Since then, the site was home to the Red River Motor Coach Lines in the 1920s, a wallpaper shop, and a print shop. Renovations were done with the intention to leave original structures in place or re-use when possible. The roof was insulated from the top to allow timber beams in the ceiling to remain visible. The counter and benches were made from 100-year-old Douglas Fir boards found hanging between steel trusses. The tasting area and brewery are both part of one large, open space. Tasters can watch the brewing process.
At the time I took the ale tour, Little Brown Jug made only one beer, although they sometimes offered small batches of special one-time beers on Fridays. 1919, a Belgian pale made using traditional German double-fermentation techniques, remains their flagstaff product. It is made with Brewers Gold, an heirloom hop that gives it a unique flavour. On their website, they say it is “inspired by the bold movement of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.”
While at Little Brown Jug, our tour guide gave us a lesson in beer tasting, which involved examining the colour in the glass, swirling the glass to pull out the aromas, taking a first quick sniff and then two sniffs with the glass near the nose, and finally sipping. Little Brown Jug describes its 1919 beer as having a spicy and herbal aroma, but many of us detected a hint of citrus. The beer has a low bitterness level.
Today, they have several other beers in their line-up, including a Danish lager, a stout, a hazy IPA, a golden ale, a black lager, and others.
Food available in their taproom includes grilled sandwiches, shareables such as nachos, baked brie, and charcuterie, and snacks of pepperoni stix or chips. The Little Brown Jug is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon to 9 pm (11 pm on Fridays and Saturdays). A good-size patio area opens up in summer. Keep your eye open for special events hosted at the taproom, such as Opera by the Pint.
Torque Brewing Co.
Torque Brewing Co. is located in the St. James industrial area. The brewery is in a separate room and is not visible from the taproom, however the Ale Trail tour included a tour of the brewery. The tour went through the brewing process from creating the wort to the canning process.
This was not the first brewery tour I’d been on, but still I learned new things. I was particularly interested in the timing of the hops, perhaps because it related to the tasting lesson we’d just had. Hops for bittering are added in the last hour of the wort boil. Flavouring hops are added in the last 15 to 30 minutes. Hops responsible for the aroma are added in the last five minutes. It is the specific combination of hops that gives the beer its distinctive flavour.
In addition to filling kegs to serve beer on tap, Torque cans beer for wider distribution. They use plain black cans for all beers and attach labels to identify the specific beer.
There are currently seven brews in Tourque’s list of core pours. Two of these were among the beers I sampled on the 2017 tour. The Witty Belgian is a wheat beer. Red Line is an American style red IPA and a 2017 Canadian Brewing Awards Bronze Medal winner. Other beers in their core list are a blonde ale, a hazy pale ale, a New England IPA, a West Coast style IPA, and a Mexican lager. They also brew seasonal beers.
Their taproom doesn’t serve food, just popcorn and snacks like bags of potato chips. Sometimes you’ll find food trucks and pop-ups. They occasionally hold events such as trivia or open mic nights. Torque Brewing taproom is open Wednesday through Friday from 2 pm to 9 pm and Tuesday and Saturday from 2 pm to 6 pm.
One Great City Brewing Company
One Great City Brewing Company is located in Madison Square near Polo Park. It is a restaurant and a brewery that takes its name from a former Winnipeg city motto. The restaurant and brewery are separated with over three hundred feet of glass so customers can see inside the brewery from every table.
On their website, they described their beers as “adventurous and accessible” saying “some beers will be familiar to all beer drinkers while others will be pleasant surprises.” Their offerings include lager, light lager, pale ale, IPA, and blonde. They also make an English-style bitter, something I haven’t found often at North American craft breweries, as well as seasonal brews. My sampler flight on the ale tour included an American blonde ale, a Belgian wheat beer, an IPA, and a milk stout. The IPA was my personal favourite.
They describe their food as “high-end dining with traditional comfort food.” There is variety on the menu. You’ll find appetizers that include nachos and wings among other things, salads, burgers, and sandwiches including grilled cheese, Rueben, and pulled pork. On the Mains menu, you’ll see things such as fish and chips, fish tacos, ribs, pork schnitzel, risotto, butter chicken, and mac and cheese. On my sampling tour I had the beer cheese soup, which was delicious and creamy with a hint of mustard.
The choice of food and beers along with the atmosphere make this a great place for an outing with friends.
One Great City Brewing Company is open Sundays through Thursdays from 11:30 am to 10 pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 11:30 am to midnight.
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I’m not a beer fan, but I’m glad Winnipeg is finally getting in on the craft brewery scene. That beer soup sounds yummy!
Deb, the soup was yummy. I’m surprised at how quickly the craft brewery scene is growing here.
I’ve never been one to swill and sniff my beer before I drink it. But that aside, I’d be happy to hop onto this tour.
Ken, I’ve never swirled and sniffed my beer before either. It was certainly a fun tour.
I tend to like red wine all year around, scotch in the winter and a good wheat beer in the summer. This tour would appeal to me–a trolley, a tasting, oh yep!
Rose Mary, I like red wine too. I’ve never developed a taste for scotch I prefer malted barley beers to wheat beers, but it is always fun to taste and try different brews.
Fun post, Donna! I love craft beer and have tried many of the ones you mention. But I have not yet taken the Winnipeg Beer Tour. Maybe I’ll have to change that!
Doreen, given that the craft beer scene is relatively new to Winnipeg, I suspect the beer tours are also a fairly recent offering. They are a great way to visit a few breweries, learn a bit of the beer and breweries, sample, and not worry about transportation between the breweries.
Oh, does that beer cheese soup sound great! The world of craft beers has literally exploded in the last few years which opens up a whole new world for beer aficionados. I’d love to go on a brewery tour as there’s so much about the beer brewing business that I know nothing about and the beer tasting would be fun too!
Anita, I found the information about the brewing itself fascinating.
Visiting breweries can be a lot of fun, even though beer isn’t my favorite.
Jeri, my husband doesn’t drink beer either (unless we are in the U.K.). He came along on this tour on the “dry run” option for people who aren’t sampling and enjoyed it.
I’d love to visit The Little Brown Jug – especially if I can ride in that fun trolley.
The company does a couple of other tours with that trolley in the summer. One is a 90 minute city tour.
I can barley contain myself