Beers for Breakfast (and then there were just two edition)

Some loyal readers were left with unanswered questions from my January 11 Beers for Breakfast blog.

Okay, it was just my friend Carol, but enquiring minds want to know, you know?

Namely, was Steve able to save Ron and his downstairs neighbour? And would Scott ever drink anything but Stouts?

The answer to both questions was yes. In the two weeks since the blog Steve has rallied the tenants of his building as the fight against their slumlord landlord reached soap opera dramatics. Eviction notices have been stayed (for now), while the issue looks to be headed to small claims court.

Steve was so busy with his struggles, in fact, that he had to beg off from Wednesday's second installment of Beers for Breakfast, leaving a tall boy of Muskoka Brewery's Winter Weisse to  sit forlornly in my fridge, awaiting someone to love.

But I was there and Scott was there and we were both thirsty so the show must go on and did, leaving Carol to wonder no longer as to the identity of the beer I chose for Scott to drink at nine in the morning on this cold but snow-free (damn!) day. I can tell you it wasn't a Stout. Not technically, anyway.

I got Scott a Stranger Than Fiction from Collective Arts Brewery of Hamilton. Which isn't a Stout because it's a Porter, which sort of makes it like a Stout as all Stouts are Porters but not all Porters are Stouts. I'm already confused.

And so was Scott. His assessment of this excellent beer was that it tasted stronger than the Imperial Bout (Great Lakes) Imperial Stout he enjoyed two weeks before. Which is quite a trick, as the Imperial Bout is 11.9 per cent alcohol and Stranger Than Fiction clocks in at a more sessionable 5.5 per cent.

Philistine.

"This doesn't taste as sweet as (the Imperial Bout) but it's so good," he added, picking out licorice as one of the flavours he identified. "I think it's better. If Guinness is a nine and the last one was an eight, this beer is an 8.5."

I  tried to tell him that if a beer rated at nearly 12 per cent alcohol doesn't taste strong then it is a testament to the skill and craftsmanship of the brewer. But Scott is a newbie when it comes to beer so I'll give him a pass on this one.

Besides, he had the best compliment to give Collective Arts: "This is the perfect beer to drink after a shitty day at work."

Amen, brother.

The comparison to Great Lake's brew is unfair anyway. Stranger Than Fiction is an excellent beer and is already in the running for Porter of the year. "A ton of roasted coffee on the nose. More roast coffee, some dark chocolate and a touch of molasses. Very smooth. Excellent porter" is what I said on Rate Beer.

For my Beers for Breakfast choice I wasn't too adventurous. My go-to beer lately has been Lake Effect IPA from Great Lakes, so I figured I might as well go that route for breakfast.

Big blast of grapefruit on the nose - intoxicating aroma, really - then more grapefruit and lemon with some pine at the end. Really good. This beer never disappoints.

We whiled away an hour or so, nursing our beers and talking about our employer, my part-time job (perhaps I can see Scott delivering chicken and Chinese food in the future?), my comic art collection, steroids in sport, and football, with the Super Bowl fast approaching.

And then he was off to the gym and I was off to bed for a morning nap.

Next time I will try to change it up and give everyone something out of their comfort zone. Including Steve, who has to show up so we can find out if he still has a roof over his head.

At least he will have a beer in his hands.

A little love for The Beer Store

The Beer Store has been getting a lot of flak over the past year or so, mainly because of principal owners InBev and MolsonCoors - the world's largest and seventh largest breweries, respectively - and their aggressive expansion plans, especially when it comes to acquiring craft breweries around North America.

The Beer Store was already on the shit list for craft beer fans for the simple reason that they have never appreciated craft brewery's rise in popularity and subsequent increase in market share.

But it's still The Beer Store and I am usually less concerned with the politics of beer than I am about where I'm going to get my beer, which is usually the LCBO.

The LCBO is no promised land for beer either - too often I wander the aisles, hoping for naught there will be something different on the shelves - and the grocery store scheme the Provincial Government launched recently has zero to minimal impact on my beer buying options.

There are a few excellent beers on their way to LCBO shelves this spring - Fat Tug from Driftwood Brewery in Victoria, B.C. (uber delicious) and Lagunitas IPA from Petaluma, California - but I'll believe it when I buy it, so when Beer Bro Don said there was a new beer in his beer store - Smuttynose IPA from New Hampshire - I was on my way to 5 Points Mall in Oshawa's north end quicker than the babysitter's boyfriend when my car pulls into the driveway.

And what do I find? Not only Smuttynose, which was one of my favourite beers from my trip to Rochester in the fall of 2014, but Ransack the Universe, the new IPA from Collective Arts that I tried once before (and loved) at a recent trip to Donny's Bar & Grill in Burlington.

Citrus and tropical fruit flavours fairly burst out of this juicy brew and there is some soft pine and sticky resin combining at the finish for a satisfying bitterness. This beer was so good it was one of my finalists for IPA of the year.

You're up, LCBO.

Twitter Heaven

I don't tweet too often, preferring Facebook as my social media outlet. But I tweet brewers and such after each blog and have slowly accumulated a few handfuls of followers in the process.

As of a couple of weeks ago, 99, to be exact.

So I started checking every day to see when I would reach the century mark. And every day brought no change. Which in itself is surprising, as I usually lose a follower or two over the course of a fortnight.


Nothing.

And then on the morning of January 18 the Unstoppable Hamage Empire (Twitter handle: Hamage 1019 Records), a Toronto-based reggae, rap and R&B label, followed me. It could be that he saw my tweets lamenting the loss of David Bowie, one of my music idols, or just a random thing, as is so often the case with Twitter.

In any event, thanks Hamage.

I'm up to 102 as of this writing, so I'm on my  way to celebrity status!

UPDATE: I checked again just before  posting this. I'm at 101 now as somebody cruelly and mercilessly left me. I do know it wasn't my new  friend Hamage 1019 Records so it's all good.

Cheers!