A northwestern Ontario brewery continues to seek out more farmers in the Rainy River district to grow hops.
Lake of the Woods Brewing Company in Kenora is currently working with one area farmer.
Owner Taras Manzie says they’re now getting about 500 kilograms of hop from that farm each day.
“Based on the amount of beer we currently produce it’s a very small portion but we’re very happy to work with local producers to be able to stimulate local economies, provide more local jobs and supply routes for ourselves,” says Manzie.
The brewery is also getting some local grains from the district.
“That’s very exciting for us as we look to building a new plant here in Kenora to expand our production facilities. Our demand for the local product and local raw ingredients is only going to go up.”
Manzie says with increase production also comes an increase in ‘spent grain,’ a by-product of the brewing process.
Manzie says that is being donated back to farmers.
“With the new brewery and 5 times, six times production that we do here locally there’s gonna be a lot more of that spent grain, we’re going to be working with more local farmers to turn that into a few feed products.”
