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Steam Whistle Brewery

Top ways to experience Steam Whistle Brewery and nearby attractions

• Union • 8 min walk
• St. Andrew • 9 min walk

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Steam Whistle Brewery - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

• (0.14 mi) Delta Hotels by Marriott Toronto
• (0.17 mi) Radisson Blu Toronto Downtown
• (0.22 mi) InterContinental Toronto Centre, an IHG Hotel
• (0.24 mi) Le Germain Hotel Toronto Maple Leaf Square
• (0.23 mi) Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel
• (0.00 mi) Get Your Own Taters
• (0.03 mi) Cineplex Rec Room Roundhouse
• (0.03 mi) Steam Whistle Biergarten
• (0.08 mi) Evviva Restaurant
• (0.09 mi) 360 The Restaurant at the CN Tower
• (0.03 mi) Roundhouse Park
• (0.03 mi) Beer Lovers' Tour Company
• (0.10 mi) Ripley's Aquarium of Canada
• (0.09 mi) Edge Walk at the CN Tower
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Steam Whistle Brewery Tour Review

In the historic Railhouse Park and in the shadow of the CN Tower you will find the home of Toronto’s favourite premium Pilsner – Steam Whistle Brewing. Recognized from coast-to-coast for its green bottle and whistleblowing logo, Steam Whistle is a refreshing beer that I have come to enjoy and was eager to try it straight from the source. On my last visit to Toronto, I was lucky enough to do just that. Here is my Steam Whistle Brewery tour review .

Table of Contents

Steam Whistle Brewery Tour

Tours of the Steam Whistle Brewery run every half hour between 11:30 AM and 5:00 PM, seven days a week. Tours cost just $10 and are  best booked online and in advance. I found this out the hard way when I showed up to find all tours were booked up on the day of my visit. This is the one and only time I name dropped and pulled my business card. I’m not proud of it but am thankful it worked.

Tours begin with introductions in the grand Roundhouse Hall. There, tour guides hand out headsets and an ice cold Steam Whistle. The latter was a great touch. There’s nothing more refreshing than drinking a beer while learning about its origins and seeing where it is brewed.

Beer in hand and headset on, you are led through Steam Whistle’s brewing process. This takes you past the brewery floor, through the surprisingly small bottling area, and past the small head office. For such a seemingly large brand, Steam Whistle’s operation is this impressively small. This is because Steam Whistle Brewing only makes one beer. With a motto of “do one thing, really, really, well” I should have clued into this.

A Canadian Brand, A Canadian Story

Like many success stories, Steam Whistle’s vision of making one really great Pilsner was born out of defeat. The three founders worked together at a popular brewery that was bought out by a big beer company and subsequently shut down. During a canoe trip in Ontario, the “three fired guys” hatched a plan to run a brewery of their very own.

How Canadian is that?

Since the spring of 2000 Steam Whistle has been doing just that – proudly becoming Canada’s premium Pilsner brand in the process.

What’s in a Name?

Given the businesses fitting location in the historic John Street Roundhouse you would assume it’s name was derived from that. Not so. During the tour, our guide advised us that the name Steam Whistle came before the location. In reality, it pays homage to a simpler time where hard-working folks ended their hard day at the sound of a steam whistle blowing. The reward? Canada’s finest beer.

If that isn’t a story of most fitting location for a brand, I don’t know what is.

Although the location is fitting and incredibly convenient for tourists and for foot traffic, their hours are not. On my day visiting Steam Whistle I was going to a Blue Jays game at the SkyDome which is conveniently located next door. This makes it the perfect place for pregame beers right? No, or at least not on at an evening game. Steam Whistle closes its doors at 6:00 pm, which contradicts its end-of-the-day homage of a name.

Is this due to an outdated law or a sign that stranglehold the big beer companies have in Ontario? Maybe. A shame? Absolutely.

A T.O To-Do

Touring Steam Whistle ends at its bar with a sampling of unfiltered and unpasteurized beer straight from the tap. This is a great touch and shadows what you will find at the famous Pilsner Urquell brewery in the Czech Republic ( check out my review of that brewery here! ), home to the very first Pilsner. The similarity may not be a coincidence as Steam Whistle brewmaster just happens to be a Pilsner Urquell former employee.

This is just another example of how Steam Whistle is committed to doing it’s one thing, really, really well.

Whether you are pre-gaming (an afternoon) Jays game or strolling the waterfront, touring Steam Whistle’s historic building and its brewery is a must do for beer lovers alike.

What say you? Thoughts on this  Steam Whistle Brewery Tour Review  in Toronto? Let’s hear it!

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When visiting the city of Toronto there is one attraction that no beer lover should miss, the Steam Whistle Brewery. It’s unexpectedly located right in the center of downtown Toronto, in a squat unassuming historical brick building called The Roundhouse. Steam Whistle is a little brewery with a lofty goal; becoming the best (and number one) pilsner in Canada. We had the opportunity to take a tour of the Steam Whistle Brewery and we enjoyed it so much we decided to share it with the world.

As with many great things, the Steam Whistle Brewery came about in a most unexpected way with rather humble beginnings. The original three founders of Steam Whistle were actually fired from their prior job at the Upper Canada Brewing Company when it was taken over by a larger company. Being fed up and frustrated with macro breweries, they  decided to start their own craft beer brewery. Still sore from being laid off the founders came up with a name for their company to remind themselves of their humble beginnings, Three Fired Guys. Once they had a name figured out, they needed a location. They found their new home by accident one day while visiting the historical Roundhouse in downtown Toronto.

The building had been used for almost a century to repair and maintain steam locomotives, and was sitting empty and unused. Interestingly though, it still had functioning steam, and even housed an operational steam whistle. The founders fell in love with the idea of the steam whistle and how it signified the end of the workday. From there, the pieces fell together and the Steam Whistle Brewery was born.

Now that they had a location, and a much more marketable name, the Three Fired Guys needed the one other major component of their plan, a great pilsner. To make that happen they went on a worldwide search for a brew master and found him in the Czech Republic, the birthplace of pilsners. He agreed to come to Toronto and brew beer for the TFG under two conditions. First, he would require a bedroom in the brewery. His reasoning on this was simple, if the beer never sleeps he shouldn’t either. Secondly, he would only use four ingredients. Even though a beer can use over 100 different ingredients and still be classified as a pilsner, he only wanted to use the original four: spring water, hops, malted barley and yeast.

You can take a tour of the Steam Whistle Brewery every day of the week at multiple intervals, or you can just walk in at any time and simply have a sample!

If you take the tour, they bring you upstairs and treat you to a fresh full bottle of Steam Whistle on the house (in my opinion it’s how EVERY tour should begin :-) ). Then they take you through the brewery and fill you full of fun facts and information. All the while you get to see all the components of the beer production line.

But if you’re a beer lover like me, you’re not here to see hoppers and tanks; you’re here to try the beer! So how was it? I found Steam Whistle to be crisp, have a refreshing mouth feel, combine mild yet complex flavors, and overall be an easily drinkable pilsner. I’m typically not a pilsner drinker at all, and I found Steam Whistle to be very satisfying. This is the kind of beer you can drink all day at a summer BBQ or sip on at the end of a hard day’s work.

It’s everything the founders intended when they set out to make one great beer. It’s no surprise that Steam Whistle is quickly growing out of their original space and distribution is quickly spreading across Canada. If you find yourself in or near the Toronto area, order up a bottle of Steam Whistle and take a sip. You’ll be glad you did. Then take a look at the bottle and you’ll find something interesting. Stamped into the glass in small print you’ll find TFG, a constant reminder of the founder’s humble beginnings.

For more information on Steam Whistle Brewery or for tour information (including costs) take a look at their official website .

If you enjoyed this post about Toronto’s Steam Whistle Brewery Tour You may also enjoy these related posts.

Steam works brew house vancouver, a toronto graffiti tour, please take a moment to subscribe by email or follow us on facebook , twitter , +kenin , bloglovin , tumblr , pinterest , stumbleupon , and youtube , share this:, 8 thoughts on “ touring toronto’s steam whistle brewery ”.

Good times and great beer! Wish I would have had the chance to check this brewery out as well…

Derek, definitely good times! We’ll have to run into each other again soon.

I did the tour after TBEX with my boyfriend (a non-beer drinker) and loved it! I took almost all the same photos as you (I assure you I didn’t sneak up behind you while you were taking them lol) but I found the value to be totally worth it – at $10 per person, to have a fresh bottle straight from the bottling line, was awesome!

It was a great little tour and the beer was surprisingly good.

I am sure it is a wonderful tour for everybody that loves beer. Part of the fun when you travel is to taste new beers from all over the world. :)

I love visiting breweries but having been in Asia for the longest time it’s something I so rarely get to do anymore, maybe now we’re back in Europe for a short while we can visit a few more over the next few weeks.

Fingers crossed

What part of Europe are you in? I can think of a few countries that would have plenty of breweries :-)

Ahhh dear lord the nomminess of good beer :) Those shots are killing me!!!! Delicious for sure.

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Steam Whistle Brewing

The Good Beer Folks would like to welcome you and your friends to come by the brewery for a tour and taste. Learn how Canada’s Premium Pilsner is made, meet our friendly staff and enjoy a sample of our beer. You’ll learn why Steam Whistle Brewery was designated one of Toronto’s ‘green buildings’ and about our railway history. Our tours will educate and entertain! Cheers!

Steam Whistle’s Founding Story

The Steam Whistle story begins in the spring of 1998 when three friends were on a canoe trip in the Ontario heartland. Greg Taylor, Cam Heaps and Greg Cromwell had all been colleagues at one of Canada’s premier microbreweries producing quality beer in the late 1980’s and 90’s – before it was bought out by a national brewer and closed down. As they sat around the campfire, the self-named “Three Fired Guys” dreamed of running their own brewery one day.

They wanted to make a Pilsner that would compete with the best in the world. They wrote a plan and quickly attracted investors with their vision and passion.

Steam Whistle – An Icon of the 50’s Era

Our Brewery is named Steam Whistle, drawing from the inspirational sounds of steam rushing from factory whistles, signalling the end of a fulfilling workday and a time for personal reward. Steam-powered whistles were icons of the 1950’s, a golden era of progress and prosperity, when things were built to last and people enjoyed the simple things in life. It was a time when the marketing of goods relied on a relationship of trust between manufacturers who produced quality goods and consumers who eagerly rewarded genuine results. Steam Whistle Brewery was founded on these forgotten principles.

Steam Whistle is one of the only remaining beers in the world that still adheres to the strict standards of the Bavarian Purity Act of 1516. We brew using only pure spring water, malted barley, hops and yeast. No corn syrup, no foam enhancers, no artificial preservatives.

To you, we offer the fruits of our labour. Let Steam Whistle be the reward at the end of your day!

The Roundhouse - 255 Bremner Blvd Toronto, Canada, M5V 3M9

• 416-362-2337
• https://steamwhistle.ca

( Steam Whistle Brewing )

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Toronto: Steam Whistle Biergärten Brewery

Discover Steam Whistle Biergärten, a brewery that offers good food, beers and guided tours, near the CN Tower, in Toronto, Canada's largest city.

STEAM WHISTLE BREWING

Founded in 2000, Steam Whistle Brewing is an independent brewery born in Toronto, Canada, created by three former employees of Upper Canada Brewing Company after the company was purchased. It is located in the John Street Roundhouse building in Roundhouse Park, just a few meters from Toronto's main attraction, the CN Tower . This building was constructed in 1929 and, until 1988, housed a Canadian Pacific Railway steam locomotive repair area.

Whistle Brewing only produces one style of beer, a Premium Pilsner and also produces New Belgium Brewing Company brands for the Canadian market. The brewery has won several awards, including Canada's Best Managed Companies and in 2004. Additionally, Steam Whistle Pilsner was named the best beer in the Greater Toronto Area at the Golden Tap Awards. Other major awards include a silver medal for Steam Whistle Pilsner at the 2016 Ontario Brewing Awards, and a gold medal at the 2012 Canadian Brewing Awards.

>> STEAM WHISTLE BIERGÄRTEN

O Steam Whistle Biergärten is a restaurant that offers contemporary Canadian cuisine led by chef Calvin Lee. The menu includes starters, salads, hot dishes (burgers, fish & chips, salmon, chicken, among others) and desserts. O menu also includes vegan options which are clearly indicated! There are 4 types of starters (pickles, fries, cauliflower and mashed potatoes), 1 salad and 3 main dishes (burger, pea rigatoni with mint, and an eggplant dish with zucchini, quinoa, onion and tahini). For those who are only interested in drinking, you can take advantage of the Taproom, which serves award-winning Pilsner in filtered and unfiltered format, served fresh in the brewery.

>> STEAM WHISTLE TOURS

In addition to Biergärten, they also offer guided tours where you can learn about the founding history of Canada's largest single-brand independent brewery and the John Street Roundhouse, a Canadian National Historic Site first built for train maintenance on the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1929 and home to Steam Whistle Brewing since 2001. Tours cost from CAD$ 22.60 and can be booked on the official website.

OUR EXPERIENCE AT STEAM WHISTLE BIERGÄRTEN

We booked a lunch time through the website. OpenTable to secure a good spot. The day was very hot and we preferred to sit in the indoor room instead of the outdoor area.

It was interesting because next door is an open kitchen where the dishes are prepared fresh. Paulo ordered a house beer to start and, to start, we ordered the Shawarma Chopped Salad , a vegetable salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, hummus, garlic sauce, crispy chickpeas, pita bread, as well as Shawarma, a sliced meat made with seitan (gluten meat) in the vegan version.

As main dishes, I ordered Peas and Mint Rigatoni , a pasta with mint sauce and peas and Paulo ordered a Eggplant Ghanoush , a halved eggplant with zucchini, red onion, tahini, vegan sour cream and quinoa.

The dishes were a good size and left us satisfied. We really appreciate the initiative of vegan dishes on the menu to be able to include all customers who visit the place. Considering that it is a not exclusively vegan restaurant, we believe that it still has room to evolve a lot in cooking free from animal ingredients, but it is on the right path.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Steam whistle biergärten.

• Address: Roundhouse Park, 255 Bremner Blvd Bay 6, Toronto, ON M5V 3M9, Canada
• Schedules:  daily from 11 am to 10 pm

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Steam Whistle Brewing

https://steamwhistle.ca/

416-362-2337

255 Bremner Blvd. Toronto, ON M5V 3M9

Our focus is on making one beer, a Premium Pilsner that Canadians can be proud of. We believe that world-class results require focus and dedication, so we developed a distinctive recipe for our single brand based on Europe’s renowned brewing standards yet is brewed fresh locally at our independent, Canadian Brewery. We use traditional brewing techniques and only four natural ingredients including spring water, malted barley, hops and yeast—all GMO-free. There is a fifth ingredient in every refreshing bottle, and that is the passion of our dedicated Brewmaster and staff.

The Good Beer Folks would like to welcome you and your friends to come by the brewery for a tour and taste. Located in the heart of Toronto at the John St Roundhouse, you will learn how Canada’s Premium Pilsner is made, meet our friendly staff and enjoy a sample of our beer. You’ll learn why Steam Whistle was designated one of Toronto’s “green buildings” and about our railway history. Our tours will educate and entertain!

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Places inside Steam Whistle Brewing

Steam Whistle Biergarten

255 Bremner Blvd

"The best find ever in Toronto and it is just across the the CN-Tower! Their food can also be made vegetarian, vegan, or gluten free for those with any dietary restrictions/preferences."

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Places people like to go after Steam Whistle Brewing

Rogers Centre

1 Blue Jays Way (at Front St)

"Great stadium. Even from our seats in the nosebleeds we had an amazing view of the game"

301 Front St W (at John St)

"Amazing view. Would recommend. Try early morning or night as less busy. Lots of different levels and glass floor. Worth seeing."

Roundhouse Park

255 Bremner Blvd (at Lower Simcoe St)

"Steam whistle gives Everyone 19+ a complimentary sample of their pilsner for walking in. Also find water, bathrooms and an awesome tour!"

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Dobbernation Loves

Steam Whistle Brewery Tour

Steam Whistle Brewery is located a stones throw from two of Toronto’s architectural icons: The Rogers Centre and CN Tower. I actually experienced the Steam Whistle tour years ago for my 19th birthday and was looking forward to refreshing and rejogging my memory.

A few weeks ago I had a friend visiting Toronto for the first time and thought the brewery tour would be a great way to showcase an interesting bit of Toronto’s history. Helen had arrived from Barcelona the previous afternoon and we spent that evening together checking out spectacular views of the city from the CN Tower.

The following afternoon we met at the brewery and spent the next hour or so on a tour which showcased the history of the building, the brewery and their brew. It wasn’t until we arrived that Helen advised me that she wasn’t a fan of beer. She did however come out of the experience with a new found appreciation and knowledge of the process. Helen’s experience is actually a great example of how a brewery tour, even for those who aren’t beer enthusiasts can be a highlight for any culinary itinerary.

Fun fact: The brewery only brews one beer, their Steam Whistle Pils. Also be sure to check out their Oktoberfest celebration in the Fall. They put on a seriously fun party!

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Steam Whistle Brewery

Top ways to experience Steam Whistle Brewery and nearby attractions

• Union • 8 min walk
• St. Andrew • 9 min walk

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Also popular with travellers

STEAM WHISTLE BREWERY: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)

• (0.14 mi) Delta Hotels by Marriott Toronto
• (0.17 mi) Radisson Blu Toronto Downtown
• (0.22 mi) InterContinental Toronto Centre, an IHG Hotel
• (0.24 mi) Le Germain Hotel Toronto Maple Leaf Square
• (0.23 mi) Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel
• (0.00 mi) Get Your Own Taters
• (0.03 mi) Cineplex Rec Room Roundhouse
• (0.03 mi) Steam Whistle Biergarten
• (0.08 mi) Evviva Restaurant
• (0.09 mi) 360 The Restaurant at the CN Tower
• (0.03 mi) Roundhouse Park
• (0.03 mi) Beer Lovers' Tour Company
• (0.10 mi) Ripley's Aquarium of Canada
• (0.09 mi) Edge Walk at the CN Tower
• (0.10 mi) Niagara Day Tour

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The Fall and Rise of Steam Whistle Brewing

Doing one thing really, really well again.

S omewhere along the way, Steam Whistle Brewery lost its way.

Founded in 2000, Steam Whistle, with its distinct green bottle, has a ubiquitous presence in bars and restaurants across Canada, enjoys a prominent location in a tourist-saturated section of Toronto across the street from the country’s only Major League Baseball stadium, and, importantly, has a memorable slogan: “Do one thing really, really well.”  

They have the sort of brand recognition and status that the average craft brewery marketer, tweeting from a damp retail counter somewhere, could only dream about. Hell, even if you didn’t like their beer, you sure knew who they were.  

Around 2017, things started to get weird.  

First, Greg Taylor, one of the company’s three co-founders, left the business to pursue an opportunity in cannabis. Not long after that, Cam Heaps, the CEO and last remaining cofounder, also announced his intention to retire; ushering in an opportunity for slavering, frustrated marketers to finally have their way with a brand that had ostensibly locked in its concept from day one. After 18 years of working under the restraints of having one beer in a green bottle, growing bored touting sustainability messaging, and promoting engagement with local arts, the marketing team seemed to launch a coup of the company and, in what I picture as an orgy of slide decks, agency lunches, and art mock-ups, inexplicably announced the arrival of Von Bugle Brewing—a sort of sub-brand to Steam Whistle. The concept was ostensibly a separate brewery (but within Steam Whistle’s brewing facility and distributed by its sales team), with distinct and weird marketing I imagine was borne of a drug-fueled brainstorming session.

Marketer one: “The tap handles will be BUGLES!”  

Marketer two: “We’ll brand a gold BMW! *snorts a line of cocaine off a hunting knife* AND WE’LL PARK IT RIGHT ON THE FUCKING LAWN!”  

Von Bugle Brewing launched with a decent but not spectacular Munich-style lager which was inarguably well-made but about as interesting as small talk on the elevator with a co-worker.  

It was a curious misstep for Steam Whistle from being a national brand into seeking a new niche market—and doing it with a beer the increasingly adventurous Canadian craft beer consumer was unlikely to give a second thought.

Then the wheels really fell off.  

The company that did one thing really, really well quickly made a series of announcements that they were going to be doing a bunch of other things. In 2019 they launched a second beer under the Steam Whistle brand, a pale ale, which aped all the branding of their flagship pilsner, except the can was…blue! This was quickly followed by a session light lager, and then a lemon shandy, and then a seasonal harvest ale. There were talks of a non-alcoholic Steam Whistle offering and even a press release about a cannabis venture. Suddenly the Good Beer Folks were doing six things poorly.

Somewhere in this twisted odyssey of poor decisions, the company that had since its inception prided itself on sustainable and environmentally-friendly practices also introduced superfluous packaging: a piece of foil to cover the tops of all their cans. The “purity seal” was intended to keep the top of a beer can as clean as possible and instantly became the source of so much mockery and derision that I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from roasting them on twitter.  

As someone who has followed Steam Whistle’s growth as a company for years, I watched all of this with head-scratching bewilderment and wondered, “What the fuck are they doing to this brand?”  

I wasn’t alone: Greg Taylor returned as CEO in 2020.  

Taylor dabbled in a couple of cannabis and cannabis-infusion-related ventures after retiring from Steam Whistle, but when I spoke with him upon his return, it seemed clear to me that watching what was happening to the company he built for 20 years was something of a distraction, like trying to focus on your Zoom meeting while your son texts you that he’s on his way to get a neck tattoo.  

One of the first things Taylor did was to put the tortured Von Bugle Brewery out of its misery. there was a whiskey-soaked purge in Etobicoke—scenes of a car crusher filled with gold BMWs, purple cans, and hundreds of bugle tap handles beside a blazing bonfire of Kazbek hops—but all who were allegedly present that day swore a blood oath to never speak the name Von Bugle again.  

Taylor also publicly committed to promoting diversity within the company and pledged to elevate more women to leadership positions. In his first week back at the helm, he promoted Erica McOustra to brewmaster. He also shook up the Steam Whistle management team, promoting Tierra Gordon from within the company to the role of distribution manager and bringing Lorna Willner back to the company as the VP of Human Resources with stated goals that included having a safe and harassment-free workplace. She stopped hiring temporary workers in favour of permanent jobs—all moves that to me signified the company was again thinking long term.  

Importantly, with a wanton disregard for shipping “impure” beer, he mercifully killed off the foil purity seal, daring once again to send canned beer out into the world, lidless.  

Of course he still had the problem of all these bastardized offshoots of Steam Whistle in the marketplace, muddying the cofounders’ original vision.  

“The only real customer feedback that stuck with me when I returned,” he told me, “was when I was in my local Beer Store and, because we had rolled out the shandy recently, the employee at the Beer Store said to me, ‘You guys gave up on the pilsner, eh?’ To me that was heartbreaking. To think that the perception was we had given up on the brand we had been building essentially since 1998.”

In order to restore the brand but also meet the need to offer a diverse portfolio in an increasingly crowded craft beer market, Taylor made moves to add depth to their lineup without sacrificing what he and his partners built. In 2021 Steam Whistle and Victoria, B.C.-based Phillips Brewing and Malting announced a partnership to distribute each other’s beer. Steam Whistle would represent, promote, and distribute Phillips’ beers in Ontario and would enjoy distribution of their beer in Western Canada. This added further depth to Steam Whistle’s “partnership” strategy that saw them taking on Canadian distribution of Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing in 2019.  

Then, in February of this year, Steam Whistle completed the acquisition of Beau’s Brewery—the popular Ottawa-area brewery founded in 2006 with a reputation for experimental beers and a similar philosophy related to sustainability.  

These moves gave Taylor’s sales reps the ever-important diversity of selection they need to have regular conversations with their licensees and let them compete for more taps. “We know that sales reps have an easier time getting two of our beers on tap when they can offer Steam Whistle and something from Beau’s for example,than say Steam Whistle Pilsner and Steam Whistle Light Lager.”  

With distribution deals for a storied American brewery and a west coast Canadian brewery, plus the Beau’s portfolio which can live on as a separate brand, there was no longer a need for an expansion of the original brand. All that was left to do was to return the Steam Whistle brand to its original mission statement.

In July, Taylor did just that.  

Launched with a straightforward advertising campaign in major Canadian cities, Steam Whistle announced a return to the company’s roots with no frills images of their beer alongside the tagline, “Do one thing really, really well.” This was accompanied by a blog post explaining the decision to discontinue Steam Whistle brand extensions because it was “diluting [their] efforts.”  

Now, Taylor tells me, the plan is to re-establish Steam Whistle’s place in the market as a premium beer. It’s a gutsy move to prioritize one beer in a marketplace that favours depth of portfolio, and gutsier still to position that beer, which may have lost some of its lustre with consumers, as a premium product, but with Taylor at the helm, a portfolio of partner beers to hock, and a newly-refocused McOustra leading the brewing team, it feels like it can be a winning strategy.  

“The craft beer industry is constantly evolving and Steam Whistle’s return to Do One Thing makes our place in it very clear,” McOustra tells me via email. “If we can continue to strive for perfection in making our pilsner, that’s more valuable to us and to our customers than chasing beer trends.”

She tells me the company has doubled down on sourcing the best quality ingredients for their beers to adapt to a challenging North American barley crop and has selected a single lot of Czech Saaz hops “with beautiful aromatics” that “elevates our beer.”

She is also perhaps less pragmatic than Taylor about the move as a shrewd business decision, but her enthusiasm to “do one thing,” is clear when she calls returning the focus to their pilsner as simply, “Doing what we love, with no compromise.”

I’ll drink to that.

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson lives, works, parents, and drinks beer in London, Ontario. His writing about drinking, politics, and the places where the two intertwine has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Post City, blogTO, and Torontoist and he maintains a website called Ben’s Beer Blog that most people on Reddit hate.

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» Home » Experience » Steam Whistle Tour, an Experience

Steam Whistle Tour, an Experience

I should start by saying both myself and Shawna have been on the tour numerous times before. Sometimes together, sometimes independently. Which is why these little piles of vouchers generally end up in the hands of our friends, particularly those from out of town.

A few days ago though, I decided to give one a try and give it a proper Boozehound walk through. The tour is a major tourist hotspot and some people might want to know what to expect before making the trek.

The first major change is that they use headsets now. Everyone on the tour puts in headphones and the tour guide wears a mic so we can all hear them without issue. This was a MAJOR improvement as in past tours I remember having a hard time hearing them.

The person who did this tour was quite new and it really showed. They were unaware of what a hops plan looked like an was unable to answer many questions we had. I can’t blame her too much as she was still pretty entertaining for a new person. And the information she did have she knew very well.

The tour consists of going through the general brewery and the process of how the beer is made, bottled and recycled.

Probably the most fun part of the tour is pulling the actual steam whistle itself. It is incredibly loud and is always fun.

This post is starting to get a tad long so I will close in saying that it’s a worthy visit. Not to mention the $10 entry price generally gets you a glass or bottle opener as a souvenir which is fun.

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