Luke Pestl: On site at Bellwoods Brewery

Four years ago, Luke Pestl sat down with Beer Idiots in Belgium to tell us how a couple of brewers with a shared obsession for Brettanomyces and big, hoppy beers turned a former art gallery on Ossington Avenue into Bellwoods Brewery — one of the breweries that woke up Ontario’s craft beer scene. This time, we went to him. We sat down with Luke on site at Bellwoods’ Hafis Rd. facility — the production brewery, taproom and bottleshop to take the pressure off the original Ossington brewpub, and that’s since become home to Bellwoods’ main beer production and distribution site, and the beating heart of Jelly King. And Jelly King has had a year. The dry-hopped sour that Bellwoods first released in April 2016 just turned 10 — with 91 different versions released along the way — and in May 2026 it spun off into its own line of Jelly King hard seltzers (tropical, pink lemonade, tangerine grapefruit, raspberry lemon). In this follow-up conversation, Luke walks us through what’s changed since 2022: how Bellwoods has grown from one cramped brewpub into a brewery running two sites around Toronto. 📍 Bellwoods Brewery — 124 Ossington Ave. & Hafis Rd., Toronto, Ontario 🔗 bellwoodsbrewery.com A Beer Idiots production. 🍺 idiots.beer #BellwoodsBrewery #JellyKing #CraftBeer #TorontoBeer #SourBeer #BeerIdiots #OntarioBeer