All of us at The Second Wedge Brewing Co. are thrilled to announce that we’re back home! And back together. And we couldn’t have done it without the support of community partners like Vince’s Market.
On May 21, 2022, an EF2 tornado tore off our roof, as well as our hopes for a big comeback after two years of Covid restrictions. In our last blog post from a year ago, we anticipated our rebuild taking “many months.” In fact, it took 13 months, a lot more than we’d anticipated, but we’re really thrilled with the results, and are having a blast welcoming people back to our space.
We also moved from producing our beer with the help of a contract brewery to moving our tanks and staff right into Market Brewing Co. in Newmarket – an unprecedented arrangement that speaks to the creativity and generosity of the fine people at Market Brewing.
For nearly a year, our brewing team (head brewer Mike and assistant brewer Jamie) brewed and packaged our core beers at Market, which we stored here in Uxbridge in our rented, refrigerated tractor trailer. Several days a week, our delivery driver Luke would pull up our van to the trailer, load it up and deliver to customers all over Durham Region, York Region, Toronto, and Peterborough, including weekly deliveries to Vince’s.
Meanwhile, we had to get a roof back on our building and organize all the many details that go into (re)building a brewery. Our brewhouse actually stayed put all this time, protected by wood sheathing, while most of our tanks were fully operational offsite and a couple of others were stored in a barn at Thunder Ridge Bison Farm here in Uxbridge!
At times, the battle to reopen was all uphill. But our spirits were buoyed by the love and support of so many people, local businesses and organizations who reached out a hand, offered kind words and told us how much we were missed.
On the May long weekend this year, we commemorated our Tornadoversary in the beer garden. On June 16, we were able to partially open our tasting room and one week later we brewed our first batch of beer back home! Our Grand Reopening weekend was July 14-16, and it was a PARTY like we couldn’t have imagined. We now have a second level of seating, new trees in the beer garden, big new signs and best of all, a fully functioning brewery cranking out high-quality beer so we can keep up with demand.
To us, 3 Rocks IPA, Elgin Blonde ale, Monday Night Piper Scottish-style ale, and many other beers we’re back to brewing again, have simply never tasted so good! It must be true that there’s no place like home.
