(Hortonville, Nova Scotia) - Horton Ridge Malt and Grain Company announced they are planning to open a small brewery at their malt house on Ridge Road.
Owner Alan Stewart says there are two main reasons behind opening a brewery. He says "We have a gorgeous building located in a prime location, hence we will attract a lot of visitors. Most folks are not familiar with malt, so a retail experience centered on malt alone will require a lot of explanation as to what malt is. Folks know beer, so a retail experience with beer is more interesting, and will make the malt explanation that much easier. Our main goal is to educate visitors on the important role that malt plays in beer production, and on the potential of the agricultural aspect of malt production."
Mr. Stewart says the other reason is "We should be the first to know how our malt behaves in the mash tun, to provide useful info to our brewery customers. We also want to build beers around our malts with malt-forward offerings".
The plans are to only sell their beer from their facility not selling kegs offsite and competing with their malt customers. In addition to their own beer on tap they will showcase guest beer made from their malt. Mr. Stewart is no stranger to the farmers market and may use it as a wintertime venue for them to sell growlers. Their brewer is a local home brewer who has been working with their malts from the very beginning of their malting days.
At the moment they have plans to install a 1 BBL system, hoping that this will be large enough given that they will be only selling their beers onsite and to be in operation by July 1st 2017.
