Local beer aged at bottom of Lake Erie makes splash

A batch of unique craft beer that was pulled from the bottom of Lake Erie is nearly sold out, less than two weeks after first going on sale.

Staff at The Grove Brewing Company in Kingsville said they were pleasantly surprised by the popularity of their limited edition Pelee Passage Lake Aged Imperial Stout, suggesting it’s a regular occurrence whenever they create a new “hyperlocal” craft beer.

“It's just amazing the response,” said head brewer Donavan McFadden. “And the popularity of some of these, it's just no predicting it.”

“We were worried that we weren't going to sell it out before Christmas was the initial concern.”

McFadden said the idea of making a lake aged stout came in 2019, but was delayed by the pandemic and the brewery relocating.

Last winter, the company plunged 500 bottles of the beer to the bottom of Lake Erie inside a large steel cage to age for 15 weeks, a process also known lagering, suggesting the setting under the ice provided ideal conditions.

Lake Aged beer at The Grove Brewing Company in Kingsville, Ont. on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)

“It sat in the lake all through the winter of 2022 and then we pulled it out in spring and stored it and got it ready for packaging for today and that's what you see on the shelves now,” McFadden said.

McFadden said each bottle was individually dipped in wax to make sure the seals did not break under water, noting the bottles still have some sand on them to maintain the charm of the process.

“I know a lot of breweries, a lot of companies rely on the gimmick and a lot of people will call stuff like this a gimmick, but the product actually stands for itself,” he said. “All of these one offs all these hyperlocal ones we do, they actually taste like I say they're gonna taste. They taste good. It’s a good product, it's not just the hype and so we've consistently delivered on that, and I think that's kind of set us apart from a lot of the other gimmicky ones.”

The only thing, according to McFadden, is the remaining lake aged bottles aren’t expected to be available much longer, suggesting they should be sold out by the end of the day Tuesday.

“It's all about coming up with new and innovative products, and not just sticking with the same base beers and just being creative. It's all about creativity in this business,” he said.

“I hope that customers understand that even though you might not get it this year, there's going to be something else really cool coming down the pipeline.”

Head brewer Donavan McFadden at The Grove Brewing Company in Kingsville, Ont. on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)

McFadden told CTV News that collaborations with local businesses have proven successful in the past, pointing to previous limited edition craft beer success with the Colasanti’s Donut Beer and Cottom Dairy Freeze inspired Boston Cooler both selling out within minutes.

“We've done everything from Lee and Maria's, Anna’s Flowers. We did one with the eye clinic… we did Ernie’s furniture store, we did a potato beer called Couch Spud,” McFadden said.

“We've done a whole bunch of local businesses and just bringing awareness that they're there and that they make a good product. A lot of these are going to return. I'm not necessarily saying that this Lake Aged one is coming back right away. We weren't planning to have this kind of success with it. We had no idea what the response was going to be.”

Meanwhile, the brewery is also in the early stages of a cross-country collaboration that will see the southern Ontario brewery partner with three other breweries from each coast of Canada, calling it the four corners of the compass, that will encompass local ingredients like the native paw paw plant.

“That's the goal is to try and also bring awareness to the fact that paw paw is a native plant, and so few people have ever even heard of it, let alone tried it,” McFadden said. “So we want to try and incorporate that into a beer, and really let everyone experience that and make that part of that project.”

The Grove Brewing Company in Kingsville, Ont. on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)