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Lost Series
Lost Breweries of Toronto
Explore the once-prominent breweries of nineteenth-century Toronto. Brewers including William Helliwell, John Doel, Eugene O'Keefe, Lothar Reinhardt, Enoch Turner, and Joseph Bloore influenced the history of the city and the development of a dominant twentieth-century brewing industry in Ontario. Step inside the lost landmarks that first brought intoxicating brews to the masses in Toronto. Jordan St. John delves into the lost buildings, people and history behind Toronto's early breweries, with detailed historic images, stories both personal and industrial, and even reconstructed nineteenth-century brewing recipes.
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 6, 2019
Lots of insightful bits about Toronto’s brewery history. It is a bit dry though, very factual.
Because of how much Toronto has changed in nearly 200 years, old maps would have been good to include (which do exist). Sometimes difficult to keep track of the various generations. Some sort of ownership/family trees would have also been helpful.
Because of how much Toronto has changed in nearly 200 years, old maps would have been good to include (which do exist). Sometimes difficult to keep track of the various generations. Some sort of ownership/family trees would have also been helpful.
January 11, 2015
Ever since I passed the Old Dominion Brewery Building on Queen Street E, discovered that Todmorden Mills was once also a brewery, and that there was once a brewery on Queen Street across from Trinity Bellwoods Park, I have wondered what the brewing industry in Toronto was like back in the 1800s. Jordan St John, who is Canada's only national beer columnist and hosts a blog called St. Johns Wort, Beery Musings And Amusing Beers, writes about just that in Lost Breweries of Toronto.
This is a very interesting book. It's not just the story of many of the breweries that existed back in the nineteenth century but is also the story of Toronto itself and many of the small villages on the outskirts of the city that one day would come to form the core of the city. It's hard to envision that a brewery built in the Kensington Market area in 1837 was too far from north the city of Toronto to succeed.
Fire plays a very prominent role in the book, as it it seems that during the 1800s it was almost a fact of life that if a person ran a brewery, it would one day burn down. Most of the breweries in the book caught fire at one time or another. It's telling in the chapter the Servern Breweries that By the 1850s, taking into account the destruction of several of the local breweries by fire, it would have been the largest in the environs of Toronto.
The book is filled with sketches of the old breweries and many of the old beer labels. I was surprised at the size of many of the breweries of the period.
I enjoyed this book so much that I plan to read the first one he wrote Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to the Hudson Bay.
This is a very interesting book. It's not just the story of many of the breweries that existed back in the nineteenth century but is also the story of Toronto itself and many of the small villages on the outskirts of the city that one day would come to form the core of the city. It's hard to envision that a brewery built in the Kensington Market area in 1837 was too far from north the city of Toronto to succeed.
Fire plays a very prominent role in the book, as it it seems that during the 1800s it was almost a fact of life that if a person ran a brewery, it would one day burn down. Most of the breweries in the book caught fire at one time or another. It's telling in the chapter the Servern Breweries that By the 1850s, taking into account the destruction of several of the local breweries by fire, it would have been the largest in the environs of Toronto.
The book is filled with sketches of the old breweries and many of the old beer labels. I was surprised at the size of many of the breweries of the period.
I enjoyed this book so much that I plan to read the first one he wrote Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to the Hudson Bay.
March 11, 2015
I like beer. I like learning about the history of Toronto. So I thought this would be an interesting book. Gord had read it in January and enjoyed it.
There are 17 chapters covering breweries here in Toronto from 1800 to the 1960s that are no longer around ... like the Spadina Brewery (hard to believe it failed because Kensington Market was so far out of the downtown core!), O'Keefe Brewery and Joseph Bloore's Brewery.
There is a chapter about John Farr's Brewery (1820 - 88), which used to be on Queen Street (in our 'hood). Gord and I had gone on an interesting Heritage Toronto walk in June 2012 called "Between the Bridge and the Brewery: Trinity Bellwoods Neighbourhood" and we learned a bit about Farr's brewery (his house, which was built in 1847, still stands ... the brewery next door had burnt down and there's a condo on the space now).
The majority of the earliest brewers in the city were typically from England, middle class and literate. Many of the breweries in those days needed to be rebuilt because of fire.
It was an interesting book. Along with the information, there were also some pictures and drawings of the breweries and pictures of the labels that were on the bottles. It would have been nice, though, to have included a map of Toronto today with the locations of where the breweries once were.
Wouldn't it be fun to be able to travel back in time and visit these breweries?
Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2015/03...
There are 17 chapters covering breweries here in Toronto from 1800 to the 1960s that are no longer around ... like the Spadina Brewery (hard to believe it failed because Kensington Market was so far out of the downtown core!), O'Keefe Brewery and Joseph Bloore's Brewery.
There is a chapter about John Farr's Brewery (1820 - 88), which used to be on Queen Street (in our 'hood). Gord and I had gone on an interesting Heritage Toronto walk in June 2012 called "Between the Bridge and the Brewery: Trinity Bellwoods Neighbourhood" and we learned a bit about Farr's brewery (his house, which was built in 1847, still stands ... the brewery next door had burnt down and there's a condo on the space now).
The majority of the earliest brewers in the city were typically from England, middle class and literate. Many of the breweries in those days needed to be rebuilt because of fire.
It was an interesting book. Along with the information, there were also some pictures and drawings of the breweries and pictures of the labels that were on the bottles. It would have been nice, though, to have included a map of Toronto today with the locations of where the breweries once were.
Wouldn't it be fun to be able to travel back in time and visit these breweries?
Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2015/03...
July 24, 2015
Great insight into not only the history of beer in the city but the city as well!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews