Ides 22: The Henderson Cup
Remember the incredible 1942 bowling rivalry between Toronto’s own Tommy Sutcliffe and Jimmy Morris from Hamilton? The one finally settled by a 20-game showdown? Yeah, we thought not; but this town loves a friendly contest, in whatever pastime, so we thought it would be fun to host our own.
Homebrewing is in our DNA, so we decided to launch the Henderson Cup, as a way of celebrating Toronto’s homebrewing community. Participation in the 2nd Annual Henderson Cup was open to anyone living in the GTA, and we received hundreds of entries which were pared down to just ten finalists.
The winner of the finals was then invited to do a collaboration brew, inspired by their winning beer, with the Henderson brewing team. This year’s champion was 2017 GTA Brews Brew Slam Toronto Brewer of the Year, Mike Vandervoort. Mike’s been learning about, experimenting with, and enjoying homebrewing for four years now and he’s clearly gotten the hang of it. Together, we brewed a New England IPA, bursting with Citra, Mosaic, and Amarillo hop flavour & aroma, including notes of orange, grapefruit and tropical fruit, with plenty of oats for a creamy, pillowy body.
An extremely hop forward American IPA focused on hop flavour and aroma over bitterness, with a big, pillow-y body and hazy appearance.