Canton's Own Blue Hills Brewery

So, do you like beer?

Welcome to Canton's at 1020 Turnpike St.

You might have seen their distinctive bottles with the original labels in many of the convenience and package stores around town and even out of town.

There are five co-founders, Andris Veidis, brewmaster and CEO; Peter Augis, president of sales; Martin Grots, Mikelis Veidis and Talis Veidis.

Veidis had been a professional commercial brewer, since 1994, starting at Harpoon.

In 1997 he went to brew school at the University of California at Davis. After he graduated, was unable to find a brewing job so he took a contract installing brewing systems on the East Coast.

Veidis was hired by Boston Beer Works and installed their brewing system at the Canal Street location and brewed at the other locations. When his contract expired, he married, bought a house and put a business plan together to start his own brewery. Afterall, he knew he had to put to use his original college degree in business from Northeastern University.  

Augis, Andis and Martin had been friends for many years. And they all loved beer! Through their own social networks they were able to secure investors and find this location on Turnpike Street. Augis has been in sales his whole life and now he's selling what he loves best, beer.  

Recently they expanded their small brewery by taking over the now vacant space next door and will soon be brewing more beer. To date they have 12 different types of beer; four that are available year-round: Blue Hill IPA, Black Hops, Comet Tail Pale Ale and the Imperial Red Pale Ale.

The following are seasonal: Wompatuck Wheat, Watermelon Wheat, Dunkelweizen Wheat, Three Peaks Milk Stout, Anti Matter - one in a series of single malt and single hop. They change up the malt and the hop, Red Barron Ale, Okto-brau and Pumpkin Lager.  

Blue Hills Brewery has the capacity of brewing 20 barrels at a time which is equivalent to 620 gallons per batch. The beer spends seven to nine days in a primary fermenting vessel and is then transferred to a secondary fermenter. There it's chilled to 40 degrees for another seven to 10 days. It is then ready to be filtered, carbonated and kegged.  

They have free beer tastings a few times a week: Wednesday from 6pm to 8pm, Friday from 3:30pm to 6:30pm and Saturday from 2pm to 6pm.

Beer is available for sale all week long.