TWB Cooperative Brewing
300 Mill Street, Unit #1 Kitchener, ON
(519) 954-4433
For a long time, Brick Brewing and Lion Brewing in the Huether Hotel in Waterloo were the only beer players in town, but things have since changed. Tucked away in a small community within Kitchener-Waterloo in a unique, inclusive space, lives Together We’re Bitter Co-operative Brewery. One of the several now in the K-W area, they started planning back in 2012 and opened their doors in 2016. With 6 worker-owners in the brewery, they are demonstrating an alternative way to structure a business; a co-op. After all craft beer is about community and TWB is set in a community it both supports and is supported by.
The brewery itself is truly a unique space, they host regular events in amongst all the equipment. The unique feel continues through the rest of the brewery from the horizontal serving tanks with bladders (advantages include being able to simply use compressed air to drive beer to the bar; not having to worry about increasing CO2 levels in the beer as you might with a CO2 topped tank), to the self proclaimed, “most unique brewing system in Ontario, as Culum, co-owner told me, “We call it Sputnik and it is an all in one brewhouse.” When they first started to use it it wasn’t able to produce large quantities of beer in a short enough period of time, so it’s main role now is the kettle and the mash tun that they added later on. It is really cool sight to see so ask them to have a look when you're there.
The names of the beers are a cavalcade of in-jokes and cultural references; Wobbly Wheel is named after the first workers union, Pullman Porter after the American Black Union, and Maggie’s Farm is a reference to a Bob Dylan song about protesting working for the man.
The owners are all so welcoming and humorous, always cracking jokes and carrying on, all while brewing some amazing beer. They strive to carry a minimum of 6 beers on their gamut and I decided to start with the fruit wit, Wit the Hell Happened To The Peach? Appropriately named as, despite the 40lb of peach puree added to it, the peach flavour is very subtle. I could still pull out gentle hints of peach on the finish as it was slightly dry ,the sorachi ace hops along with the addition of coriander, bringing out a nice citrus spice, a perfect compliment for a wit beer.
103