Jordan Mills used to work at Mill Street, now he is the anti-Mill Street. “I don’t want to have a flagship beer and say, ‘here, this is our IPA,’” he said. “There are so many different flavours to try. Malts, yeasts and hops.”

The best India pale ale (IPA) in York Region might not be in your local LCBO or the local pubs, but instead at Rouge River Brewing Company in Markham. It is a secret too good to keep quiet.

In the old brew-your-own tucked in beside Kicks Dance Studio on Bullock Drive, the 27-year-old brewmaster and co-owner is releasing new beers by the week.

Spring pale ale, peach sour, winter IPA, Straight Up IPA, Beneath The Planet APA and raspberry sour are just the latest offerings from the brewery that opened up in November.

“I brew the kind of beer that I want to drink,” Mills said. The Markham native started off as a homebrewer. He would get the turkey fryer pot from in his backyard and just experiment. When his friends and family started tasting his product, they were impressed. “They liked drinking my beer,” he said.

In the meantime, Mills was working in promotions for Mill Street Brewery before eventually joining their brewing department. After brewing thousands of batches of Mill Street Organic, he was a little tired of the whole thing. “There was no creative freedom,” he said.

Mills quit and invested everything he had to start Rouge River Brewing, partnering with his friend Stephen Barato and his girlfriend’s dad Aldo Scopazzi.

Mills said the good thing about being owner is you get to brew what you want. For him, making beer is more of a creative exercise.

Rouge River will have an IPA and a pale ale for each season, but Mills said the recipes for those beers won’t necessarily be the same year-to-year. “I want to try different stuff,” he said.

The brewery seems less of a business and more a passion project. When asked if he was interested in getting Rouge River in the LCBO, Mills said no.