Brunswick Bierworks hires La Trappe brewmaster Lodewijk Swinkels

With great fanfare, Toronto’s Brunswick Bierworks announced the arrival of Lodewijk Swinkels as brewmaster and head of operations on 7 March 2018.

Mr Swinkels comes from beer royalty. Related to the Swinkels family, which owns the Dutch brewer Bavaria and ranked second in The Netherlands behind Heineken, he is a seventh generation brewer. For the past 14 years he has been the brewmaster at the Dutch De Koningshoeven Brewery (La Trappe), which is also controlled by the Swinkels. He has won numerous international brewing awards and established La Trappe's world-renowned barrel aging programme.

Brunswick Bierworks introduced a new concept to the brewing industry in Ontario with their partner brewing that is open to concept brewers (aka virtual brewers), as well as Canadian and international breweries. In other words, it is a contract brewer that is helping its partners produce high-quality beers for the Ontario market, which is Canada’s largest.

Founded by Chris Goddard and Mike Laba, both of import agency The Craft Brand, Brunswick Bierworks opened its 100,000 hl Toronto facility in 2016, hosting a 50 hl brewhouse and a 20 hl pilot system plus a canning line.

Having raised CAD twelve million (USD 9.3 million) to get off the ground, Brunswick enlisted Christian Riemerschmid von der Heide as Senior Brewing Advisor, who has previously worked for Augustiner-Bräu in Munich, Germany, and Guinness in Dublin, Ireland, and is currently COO of Newlands Systems, which constructed Brunswick’s brewhouse.

In February 2018, the brewery opened a taproom and event centre in Toronto’s neighbourhood of East York.