There appears to be a craft brewing explosion taking place in Toronto. Joining the recently launched Kensington Brewing Company and the yet-to-be-released Parkdale Brewery is Junction Craft Brewing. Details about the new brewery aren't plentiful, but that's understandable insofar as founder Tom Paterson (of the Paddock) told us in an email that the release date is still a few months away.

When the brewery does launch, it's signature beer will be "Local Option," a North American style lager, which will come in at 4.8% alcohol and be "Saaz hopped to add bitterness in flavour and aroma." Interestingly, there's quite the story behind the beer's name and lower alcohol content. According to the company's website, the "beer pays homage to the crusaders of the temperance movement who single-handedly closed down all the bars, taverns, hotels and breweries of the Junction. There was a desperate attempt by brewers at the time to lower the alcohol content to 4.3 or 4.8% but it was only a temporary solution."

Lest we forget, the Junction enforced the "local option" to go dry between 1904 and 2000, and was the last community in Toronto to forbid the sale of alcohol. So, needless, to say, the "homage" is tongue-in-cheek. But I love it. So often the relationship between craft beers and the neighbourhoods after which they're named strikes me as arbitrary, but here there's an interesting bit of history.

We'll share more details when we have them.