The Urbanite – Jon Liedtke – Jan. 15, 2014
There’s a trend brewing in Windsor.
In a discreet storefront on Wyandotte Street in the heart of Walkerville a full microbrewery, complete with custom built fermentation vats, a laboratory and a steam engine, is gearing up to produce unique local brews.
Midian Brewing is the latest craft brewery to have its sights set on Windsor. After roughly six years of both market research and product development, the brewery is expecting to open its retail operation in March, pending AGCO licensing.
M. Lopez, of Northern Wolf Fermentation Technologies, designed the brewing system with his brother. Both men have degrees in engineering and the system was designed based on the past 10 years of fermentation science research found in peer reviewed journals. The process will “produce the best possible beer that science can provide,” according to Lopez.
Midian Brewing uses reverse osmosis water, and pays close attention to all aspects of their brewing process to ensure perfect salt concentrations, ionic balances and ratios, bitterness, the appropriate PH balance, and does this to guarantee what Lopez referred to as “perfect quality control.”
Using a reverse osmosis water filtration system, Midian Brewing aims to brew different geographical styles of beer by emulating specific water from various regions of the world.
“[Beer] evolved differently in different parts of the world because of the water chemistry,” said Lopez. “With modern science, it’s possible to make absolutely ultra pure water that has very low ionic concentrations and basically what ends up happening is you grab that ultra pure water and you can mimic all the salt and ionic concentrations of all the different waters of the world.”
Midian Brewing will be offering a strong lager ale, a dark ale and the occasional limited edition barrel-aged beers when they come to market.
Lopez explained that Windsor was the ideal location to open a new microbrewery.
“Windsor is central, it is within a good percentage of the whole population of North America… if we were to expand, or to send beer to other locals, [Windsor] is perfectly located,” said Lopez.
“When you factor in property prices, we have a university here [and] a highly educated population… we decided this was the perfect place to be operating.”
Making clear that Midian Brewing was aiming to produce beer for seasoned craft beer drinkers, Lopez said that “if the beer isn’t good, you’re never going to fool a beer drinker.”
“Our beer is meant for the shepherd, not for the sheep.”
JON LIEDTKE – JAN 15, 2014
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Jonathon Liedtke is the managing editor of The Urbanite, Windsor’s alternative newspaper. He is also a member of Windsor’s “Punk with Horns” band The Nefidovs, and as such, is committed to enhancing and sustaining the arts community.
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