On Wednesday November 19th, VEMU Estonian Museum Canada was the destination for autumn warmth, opening doors at Tartu College for a culinary event with chef Toivo Heyduck and brewer Kalev Nisbet. Nisbet, well-known among readers, and who has for the last little while been working at Godspeed Brewery in Toronto’s Little India neighbourhood, came in with a selection of four contrasting beers he brews. Heyduck’s mission was to design a five-dish and four-course menu that utilized all of those beers in the cooking process and paired sympathetically with those same beers. It was a mission accepted with gusto—unsurprising for a chef whose résumé is equal parts James Bond and James Beard. Heyduck, who now works in Prince Edward County, has cooked from the roundhouse atop Whistler Mountain to Canada’s premier grizzly bear viewing lodge (Knight Inlet Lodge) and a fishing trawler off the west coast of B.C.
Before appetizers came out, participants were all served one of Godspeed Brewery’s most popular beers, the Světlý Ležák 12° pale lager. Nisbet took this as an opportunity to share the backstory of Godspeed; namely, how the founder is originally from Québec, embarked on a trade mission to Czechia (the country which drinks the most beer in the world per capita), married a woman from Japan, and now lives and directs operations from afar there. All of which influences Godspeed’s Czech, Japanese, and German-style beers. For instance, the same mash process as is traditionally used in Czechia and the use of citrusy yuzu juice in the second beer we drank.
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