Get Well to launch on-site nano-brewery

And the craft beer just keeps coming. Dundas West's Get Well is set to join Toronto's craft beer ranks with the launch of an on-site nano-brewery this week. Headed up by Brad Clifford, who was recently honoured with the title of "Homebrewer of the Year" by the Canadian Amateur Brewers Association, the brewery will turn out two to three small batch offerings at any given time.

To start, the bar will roll out three beers: Get Well Porter, Pinball Wizard American Pale Ale, the Let it Be Bitter Engish Ale. Cute names, I suppose — if cute is your thing. But, who cares? It all sounds rather promising, and I'd like to see more local watering holes take their beer as seriously as Get Well does.

Asked about the on-site facilities, Clifford gave us a quick rundown of the operation. "Basically we're running a 1-1/2 barrel system and producing approx 1.8 hecs (180L) per batch. That's 3 full size kegs," he explained by email earlier today. "Our brew kettles were sourced from a Nano-Brewery manufacturer in Portland, OR and our fermentors were imported from Germany. At 240 Litres they are the perfect size for a small operation such as ours."

For all the true beer geeks out there, you'll also be happy to know that Get Well will be "using a Blichmann RIMS (recirculating infusion mash system) for controlling our mash tempertures and clarifying wort pre-boil." According the Clifford, that brings the nano-brewery inline with "any high end pilot system you would find in a commercial brewery."

Given the small batches in play, you can expect lots of variety of the next few months. The current plan is to turn over a new beer every few weeks. You can try out the first batch starting this Thursday, November 8th at the official launch party, which gets underway at 5 p.m.