This Thursday is Project X, at Great Lakes Brewery. This month, we’ll have the pleasure of drinking a new offering, Augusta IPA, a collaboration between Brock Shepherd, owner of the Burger Bar in Kensington Market, and Great Lakes. Brock’s crew is also putting on a Burger Bar spread for the celebrants to enjoy with their pints. In preparation for the event, I met up with Brock at the Burger Bar for an interview, and to drink a fancy beer together. Here follows the interview:
Chris: So what’s your background, are you a restaurant/bar guy?
Brock: I’ve always worked in bars and restaurants. I started out at RPM (now the Guvernment) working as a busboy at 17. Worked in clubs and bars for a bit, then got into restaurants. I worked as a server for 13 years before I opened my first restaurant.
C: What was your first restaurant?
B: Azul, at Bathurst and Queen. And that’s where I started cooking. We opened up a cafe, unlicensed, and I created the menu. Then we opened for nights and got licensed, and we had a chef. When he left I took over. It took me a long time before I would allow myself to be called a “chef”. But after a few years, it was like, I create the menus, I create the food, so I was able to allow that for myself, mentally.
For me it all about the creative process. Creating food and cocktails and spaces. I don’t want to run a business, I just want to create. I want to be here creating, though having a child changes that somewhat.
C: Right, you’re a family man too, you’ve got a two year old as well?
B: Yeah, Finn is two. I live about five minutes away, I can be back and forth. My cook is like “I guess you don’t want to be here seven days a week”. Of course I don’t, I generally do come by every day, but I try to keep my working hours to five days a week. I might pop in and see how things are; it’s what I do.
C: About the bar: how long have you been here?
B: As burger bar, just over a year. But I had the restaurant that was here previously, called Rice Bar.
C: And why did you make that change.
B: Well, mostly profitability. Rice Bar did great 9 months of the year, but that didn’t make up for the three slow ones. So I was thinking about opening a little burger shop, but then decided to use this space instead. I would still like to reopen Rice Bar as a little take out place, but rent around here has gone through the roof. So people keep asking me if Rice Bar is coming back. The easy answer is yes, but it’s dependant on finding the right space for the right price.
C: So obviously you do a lot of burgers, you seem to favour the, I don’t know how to put it, hipster? umm……
B: Better?
C: Yeah, exactly, better quality ingredients.
B: I’ve been doing this stuff for years, I don’t really think I’m riding that new wave, I just have always thought we should bring stuff back to the way it used to be, you know. You didn’t have to worry about food, about where it came from. If I’m going to do burgers and beer, they’re going to be made out of the best quality stuff I can find. We do everything in house, except bake the buns and make ketchup. Actually, we do make one of the ketchups. We even grind our beef in house. At first I was getting it done by the butcher, but I started to see some inconsistencies in it, so I decided we would do it ourselves. So I went out and bought a meat grinder. And the quality went up, probably, another 30%.
C: Absolutely, even just down to controlling fat content, etc.
B: Exactly. I have a hamburger a week, just to keep track, and it is one of the best hamburgers in the city. I won’t say “the best”, but I would put it up against any burger in the city.
C: You also seem to have a lot of focus on gluten free items, is that something close to you or the family?
B: That kind of came through with Rice Bar. It was a really healthy food place, and we couldn’t do a full 180. I mean, it wasn’t a vegetarian place, we had meats that were all organically raised. It was about quality. And because of what we served, we had a lot of customers with specialised dietary needs, and that really opened my eyes to it. These people, a lot of them, it’s not even a lifestyle choice, they cannot have gluten. For other people, they are just aware that we eat a lot of “white” [refined] stuff, and they’re looking for something better. And so I carried that through to Burger Bar. You know, we always have a gluten free beer available.
C: What do you have, New Grist?
B: We have New Grist and we had La Messengere for a while, and we have the Nicklebrook now, which is great because it’s local. It’s a bit tough, because they’re trying to replicate beer, but it’s a good product. For people who can’t have a beer, it’s a really nice option; if you try to compare it to a beer, well it’s a tough comparison. But for a brewery to commit to producing and packaging it, it is certainly not something you see anywhere else around here. Because you have people who were really restricted before, who can’t have gluten, and they know they can still come out and get a burger and a beer, and not have to worry about it. They know they can take a night out, and not always have to make their own food at home.
C: Cool.
So being in Kensington Market, do you guys tap into a lot of the locally available ingredients?
B: I do some shopping in the market, but generally, if I go to the organic shop, I can be getting my produce from the same place he is getting it from. Not always, not everything, for some stuff he deals with the famer exclusively, but a lot of it.
C: Cut out the middle man?
B: Yeah totally. We do use the market for some stuff, though.
C: Are you guys primarily a neighbourhood crowd, or are you more of a destination bar?
B: It varies by seasons, this time of year [winter] it generally slows down and is mostly local, though we’ve stayed pretty busy this year. But we get a pretty wide mix.
C: So coming into Burger Bar, and looking at the menu, something that immediately jumps out, is tequila. Obviously you or somebody around you has a real passion for tequila. Where does that come from?
B: I’ve always liked good tequila, and when we were planning, I really wanted something to stand-out, not just be a burger bar. So we do craft beer, and tequilas. Ones that were made for drinking, not shooting. I mean, we have sauza and stuff, but people’s palates are really opening up. Things like food magazines and food network have really encouraged people to open up a bit, and try new things. So I really wanted to do nice tequilas. Basically, everything I do, is because it’s something I like
C: At least then you know when you’ve got it right
I realize I write mainly about beer, but for the sake of those interested in spirits as well, what is the best tequila you’ve ever had?
B: Probably Clase Azul, in the big ceramic bottle. It is a beautiful reposado, a sipping tequila. It’s smooth. A lot of the anjeo’s, they’re oaked and they become like a bourbon or whiskey. This one is a bit sweet, with a bit of the harshness from the alcohol. They have one, the Extra Anjeo, they make 100 bottles a year, it’s $2000 per bottle. I met the guy who owns the place at an event and was hoping to get a taste, but I guess I left too early or something. But it’s not something we could bring in, you know? $170 per shot… If we developed a crowd like that, that wanted that level, sure, we would do it, but not now.
C: How are you getting them into the province?
B: That one comes in through a wine agency, they just happen to represent that tequila. It’s like one of our beers, the Bruton Brewery, is represented by a wine agent, because they do a Italian family-run winery, and the son is a craft-brewer. So sometimes, I’ve sought out a product, and other times, the reps bring new ones to my attention.
C: So what’s the best bang for your buck tequila at the LCBO?
B: The Don Julio is pretty good, so is El Jimador; at a very reasonable price. It’s now 100% agave. It’s good for sipping, but you can still mix it. The LCBO is tough for that, though. The selection can be spread across a bunch of stores, and you have to keep going in to see if they’ve brought anything new into Vintages.
C: Okay, this is how it went down: Toronto Beer Week, I’m super excited, I got my passport and started planning out my days, and I kept seeing: Burger Bar, Burger Bar, Burger Bar. I’m like, “I’ve never heard of this place! Where did you guys come from, did you just pop up?” And of course, you say, you sort of did recently show up. How did you get on-board with TBW?
B: Yeah, when we started we only had six taps, and they were all big craft, Mill St had two, Amsterdam had two, we had Steamwhistle, and something tweaked at the start of the summer, we added two more taps, we started adding more bottles, and my passion for craft brewing really started to grow. And it’s funny, because twenty years ago, I worked at the Rotterdam, and back then I got interested in craft beer, and if I’d wanted to, I could have learned so much, about brewing and marketing. In fact, John Graham and I were working there at roughly the same time, apparently. He was in the brewery, and I was in the bar. Obviously we each went our ways from there. But way back then, I got an appreciation for better beer.
C: And certainly, at that time, places that were doing good craft beer in Toronto were pretty limited.
B: There was two, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, there were a few more, maybe, but they were the main ones.
C: So your beer interest and passion goes back to Rotterdam?
B: Yeah, that’s were my appreciation for better beer came from. As a kid, Labatt Blue would have been the beer around the house. But once I got into the industry, I started to expand my tastes. I got some of my beer chops drinking at Allen’s. Getting into other flavours, sour and bitter and stuff.
But getting back to TBW, John Bowden just showed up and offered, I liked the sound of it, I gave him a cheque, and within a week there was printed material, press, etc, it was great.
C: Yeah they are a passionate group of people who really got things done.
B: Unlike OCB Week, which seemed to be much more hands-off.
C: Sort of “feel free to do an event, use our name….”
B: We did a beer dinner with Beau’s but it was basically just Beau’s friends that turned up. It was fine, we love Beau’s, but with TBW you have a group of passionate people who want to help you promote the events.
C: Certainly I’ve had a variety of conversations with people, and the consensus seems to be that Burger Bar stepped up, and likely benefited the most out of any bar. To me, it was like Burger Bar’s coming out.
B: In terms of the craft beer scene, absolutely. We did events nearly every night, and some were great and some weren’t as good, but every night, no matter how many people turned up, they got to meet a brewer in person, and sample some great beers. The night Nicklebrook was in, Peter only had a few people show up, but two of them were these guys who were also attempting brewing a gluten-free beer. These guys were malting the grains themselves! And they got to sit down with Peter and talk about some of the challenges of what they were both attempting.
C: I believe I know them, that would be Kevin and Hirsch, from Snowman Brewing.
So here’s a question for you: Randall the Enamel Animal, what is that?
B: It’s made by Dogfish Head, it’s basically a hop-infuser that attaches to the tap. We use it for events, we did one with Muskoka where we hopped up their harvest ale. We can’t really use it regularly, as the beer warms up a bit in it, but it’s great for one offs. It’s like dry-hopping a keg as you use it. We’ve had people suggest that it would only really appeal to the big hop-heads, but it actually works out really well, and in the case of a well-balanced beer, it just brings out a bit more hops. I’m not a huge hop head; I find, for instance, Garrison Imperial Pale Ale to be just too much. That being said, I really like Ten Bitter Years, because it’s so well balanced. The same for Amsterdam’s new Boneshaker. A beer like that really takes on a different profile when you hop it as you serve it. Lots of people, hop-heads and others, really take well to the results.
C: So you’ve been brewing with Mike at Great Lakes, tell me a bit about how that came around
B: We brewed Augusta IPA, I’ve got a cask in my fridge here for the next CASK Social. It was really more me brewing WITH them; we used their recipe and I just took part. It was my only second time, my first was with Ron Keefe at the Granite for a brew day. I knew the theory, but I wanted to actually see it done. I approach things from more of a kitchen stand-point, not a scientific one; I really prefer to learn things hands-on. So when I went to Great Lakes I wanted to do it with them. They offered to let me bring my own recipe, but for this one we just used one of theirs. Next time, I want to do an Imperial IPA. If I ever get brewing myself, I want to do an ale called Augusta Ale, and the tap handle will have a big AA on top of it. I don’t know, if it ever went into production, how the LCBO would feel about that…..
C: Yeah, you might as well put a picture of a topless women holding a baseball bat, it’s not going to happen.
B: Maybe if I did that they would say, “Well, if you loose the girl, you can keep the name”…. I mean, in a way, it’s really a discouragement to drink!
C: So at Project X what can we expect?
B: Well, we’ve got the other cask of the Augusta IPA.
C: And are you doing food at all?
B: Yeah, we’re bringing in sliders. Little meat and veggie burgers.
C: As a vegetarian, I’m thankful for the veggie ones…
B: Well, actually I wasn’t going to bring them, I hadn’t thought of it, but somebody emailed me and asked, so we’re going to do it.
We’ve really developed a great relationship with Great Lakes. I’d always had a bit of a bias towards them, I think it was their packing; the fonts or something. But they’ve been really helpful; they helped get our hand-pump installed. And we buy a lot of their beer. I’m still not sold on a lot of the packaging, some of it needs to be updated. But the beers are all great. For instance, I kept seeing the Devil’s Pale Ale. The big black can, I thought by the look of it, they were going after the Maximum Ice crowd. That was my bias for a long time. But getting to know them and their beers one day I grabbed one at the LCBO, and I was like “that’s a great beer”. It’s got some dark chocolate notes, which I generally don’t go for, but it’s so well balanced with the hops, I really like it. It’s a standard go-to at the LCBO. I get a can of that and a can of Steamwhistle. Ever since Steamwhistle started after Upper Canada, it’s been my beer.
C: That’s funny, I come from the same camp. I’ve done tours at the Brewery since the early 00’s. It’s always been my go-to.
B: Yeah, after months of trying all sorts of different craft beers, I had another Steamwhistle, and was like “this is why I love this beer” I just keep coming back to it. We did a tasting during TBW, tap, can and bottle, and it was fascinating. The bottle is a bit of a different animal from the can and tap. I prefer the can/tap myself, but for a pilsner, it’s a beer with great character.
C: Yeah, it’s not exactly a beer you’ll write an essay about, but it’s just so rock-steady. I’ve never had a bad drink of Steamwhistle. You can set your watch to it.
[At this point, Brock went and got a bottle out of the ice I brought, Charlevoix Dominus Vobiscum Hibernus, their massive spiced winter ale]
C: This is exciting, I’ve not had this yet.
B: Cheers
C: Cheers.
B: Mmmmmmm, spicy.
C: Totally spice and booze. Nice molasses.
B: The spice is in balance, though. That’s something I found with this year’s Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale; it was too heavy on the spice.
C: I’ve found that with a lot of pumpkin beers, but I also don’t really like cloves, so that doesn’t help.
B: That’s going to be a big focus of mine, if I ever start brewing, is everything in good balance. It will mean tweaking recipes, but I’ll know that they always are going to taste how I want them to.
That balance is one of the reasons why I like this year’s Boneshaker in the bottle. I preferred it to the tap. At 7.2% it still stayed balanced with the hops, which can be dangerous, but is nice. What’s this [the Charlevoix], 10%?
C: Ummm, actually I don’t know, let me check. Yeah, exactly 10%. But you wouldn’t guess it was that high. It’s great.
B: Yeah, when you offered those beers [I had a few different bottles in my cellar, and let Brock choose what we would drink], I just searched the names on Ratebeer, and this one was the highest ranked. Do you mind if I keep the bottle for the wall?
C: Not at all.
So where were we? You obviously deal mainly local with beer, mostly Ontario, lots of GTA.
B: Lots yeah, though with bottles we are in on Cass’ Picaroons order, HMH just sent around information on Phillip’s The Hammer Imperial Stout today. Plus we’ve got the Bruton’s from Italy.
C: So what have you been drinking a lot of recently, locally?
B: Barley Days Harvest Gold. I liked it on tap, but I am really liking it in the bottle.
C: Sort of the opposite of most people’s preferences.
B: Yeah, but it’s the case. With Beau’s, I got one of the four packs, and didn’t really like it. Okay, no, I thought it was fine, but just not as good as on tap. But it’s the reverse with Barley Days, I like it either way, but prefer it in the bottle. There’s no doubt, the different serving type changes the beer a bit, and then it’s just a matter of preference. Also I’ve been drinking 10 Bitter years. Just one a week, that’s enough, but I really like that. My palate is a bit more tuned to sharp/sour tastes. My partner prefers creamy/buttery, so I like Sauvignon Blanc, and she likes Chardonnay. Because of that, I’m a bit more of a pilsner/lager guy, though I am getting into more of the hoppy ales.
C: So what one local brewery right now is impressing you the most. Not necessarily your “favourite”, but is doing things really well: product, production, participation?
B: Durham. Bruce is a bit of a character, and is totally doing his own thing, and really doing well at it. I have drank his beers a bunch of times, and I really like his style and what he’s doing.
C: So now, across the board, what is the strangest/weirdest beer you’ve ever tried?
B: Gotta look at the bottles on the wall, one second. Well recently, I had the Cameron’s Ginger Beer, it was their lager done with ginger. It was a really nice beer, with a clear ginger taste. If you take one of those ginger candies, take away the heat and the sweetness, and you just have that really clean ginger spice to it. If I were them, or my advice to them, would be, if they wanted to compete with the Light Limes and Lemon Tea Ales out there, this is the beer that would do it. It’s really refreshing. Certainly, if I start brewing, and they don’t make it regularly, I would. I was really impressed with it. It was very different, but I really liked it. I also really like Ginger.
Oh, and I’ve had that German smoked beer
C: Aecht from Bamburg. The “bacon beer” as some people call it.
B: Yeah, we had some friends over in the summer, and I poured that with some nice cheese and crackers, and it really worked well, because it made the cheese taste like they were smoked cheeses. But on it’s own, it’s just too much. You know, now lots of people are playing with the style, with rauchbeirs, but I won’t put them on tap.
C: Yeah they probably wouldn’t move well.
B: And they mess up your lines……
C: Haha, I joked with Iain at Amsterdam that they have a great scam, if you put Framboise on tap at you bar, you have to keep buying it forever, because the line tastes like raspberries no matter what you do to it.
B: exactly.
[A lovely basket of Onion rings arrive]
C: So you’ve really jumped into the social media scene, you’re on Facebook, Twitter, Untappd. Obviously you feel it’s important, but do you think it’s working for you?
B: Well, it took me a while to get my head around it. I don’t use it personally. So it took a while to get used to how to utilize it for business. But I think it’s integral. I talked to a friend of mine who is a professor at U of T, and he told me, he will be lecturing and the students will be on their phones, texting or on Facebook, while taking notes. If you can’t take part in this, you’re missing out. We’re actually looking into something I learned from Muskoka Breweries. They’re using ScreenScapes to have their twitter feed on a flat-screen. So we’re looking into setting it up, so we’ll have the CP24 style screen, with our twitter feed, and specials flashing up there, and still have a window showing old Johnny Cash or whatever. I think those type things are really key to getting people to follow us on twitter, etc. Social media is way more effective then an email list.
C: So what about going forward? You’re a busy guy, are you looking to expand, start another bar? What’s up?
B: I’m looking to keep everything here. The plan is hopefully a roof-tip patio for the summer. There’s some hoops to jump through, but we’re working on it. It’s a possibility. It’s a hope. I’m starting to think about brewing. There’s a lot of possibilities. Kitchen style, or brewing off site, or getting a brewer to do custom brewing for us.
C: So we’re not getting burger bar east of the river?
B: Not unless I find some money or an investor. Actually, I think the Danforth/Greektown could do with a great beer bar. But then I would need to live out that way. I like to be close to work. That’s why I want to keep everything here. I want to do as much as I can with this space. I’m just constantly trying out new stuff. I need the creative outlet.
Rapid Fire:
Best place for a a beer: Volo
Dream beer to try: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or Estate Ale
Person (dead or alive) to have a beer with: Marilyn Monroe
Flip-cup or Kings: Neither. I once watched a bartender do the century club, I haven’t been interested in drinking games since.
If you could only drink one style for the rest of your life: Pilsner
Hops or Malt: Hops
If you had to host one at Burger Bar, what would it be, Karaoke or Birthing Classes: Birthing Classes (no hesitation)
Would you rather drink 3 Bud Light Limes or 5 Bud Lights: 5 Bud Lights.
C: Thanks for your time.
B: No problem.
So come on out to Great Lakes this Thursday, at 6:30pm. If it’s your first time, it’s $20, and you’re going to get food and beer for that. Check out http://www.GreatLakesBeer.com for more info.
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