Beers for Breakfast

I have been bugging my work pals Scott and Steve to pop over for a beer for weeks now. There was one excuse after another before I finally got them to commit to visit after work on Wednesday.

'After work' to property maintenance people who have no snow to shovel is nine in the morning, but I'm not going to quibble over semantics.

And thus, Beers for Breakfast was born.

Now neither Scott nor Steve are serious beer drinkers. Scott, in fact, enjoyed but one beer a year - always a Guinness - until he started working with us and, well, his drinking quickly escalated after that.

I think he's up to one a week now.

Guinness is still his number one but I've got him trying other Stouts and I had just the thing saved for my friend.

All or Nothing Hopfenweisse

Steve, on the other hand, had a wobbly pop from time to time but always macro stuff like Canadian and not often. Beer just wasn't his thing. But after I took him to the Durham Craft Beer Festival in July and introduced him to wheat beers, he became a bit of a changed man.

It was a brewery from Kingston - Stone City - and their Windward Belgian Wheat that had Steve wild about wheat beers, so what to serve my pals wasn't a difficult choice.

Steve, who is something of a hero to some of the downtrodden in downtown Oshawa, had to have an All or Nothing Hopfenweisse brewed by the Dornan brothers, Shwa boys to the core and underdogs at heart.

For Scott I brought out the bottle of the Imperial Bout, an 11.9 per cent alcohol vanilla bean coffee stout I picked up when I was at Great Lakes Brewery in Toronto for the release of their glorious Life Sentence Triple IPA just before Christmas.

What's that? Nearly 12 per cent ABV beers are not a good idea at nine in the morning? Please. It's not like he's getting the whole bottle anyway because I saved this for me too.

GLB's The Imperial Bout

And by the time we had settled in, made some small talk, watched the World Junior Gold Medal Game for the sixth time, talked some trash (okay, a lot) about the wonderful company (emphasis mine) we work for and discussed which football teams we were going to bet on to get us the hell out of that company, it  was nearly 9:30.

That's close to drinking time, I'd say.

There was a further delay as the Imperial Bout was a fancy pants beer with wax covering the top and it took me ten minutes to scrape enough off so my bottle opener could get a grip to unlock the dark goodness inside.

Save for a little self esteem damage as I fought with the wax, it was worth the wait. Gorgeous dark pour with a frothy head that lingered for a good while and made the beer look like a chocolate milkshake.

Scott missed all that, however, as he took a phone call while I was fighting with the wax and by the time he got to his beer the head was all gone. Mine, however, was still going strong.

Patience, my friend. Patience.

Meanwhile Steve wasn't waiting and was enjoying his All or Nothing. "So what does it taste like, Steve? I asked. "Like the other wheat beers," he answered.

Scott - The Stout Man

So I started feeding him some suggestions: Banana? Citrus? Spices? Which got Scott, now off the phone, into the conversation. "You're just telling him what he's tasting," he accused. "Hey," I countered, "if he doesn't taste banana he's not going to lie and say he does."

I wish I had remembered to ask if he got bubblegum, too.

As it happened, Steve did get banana on the nose but not when he drank it (fair enough) and he got pepper (good call) and orange pekoe on the tongue.

Orange pekoe? You mean like tea? Because that's a new one. He still insisted yes, so I figured it was orangey citrus flavours he was picking up.

Steve - the Wheat Lover

The main thing was that he liked it. Now I had to see what Guinness-loving Scott had to say about the Imperial Bout.

I know what I liked about it. The aroma of bitter chocolate and a bit of licorice was awesome, and the roasted coffee flavours came through later, with more bitter chocolate and licorice. Very bitter but rich and velvety smooth at the same time. Excellent stuff.

Scott?

He  agreed it was rich - "a lot of calories," noted the dedicated gym rat - and picked out sweet and bitter chocolate nuances, but said the overwhelming flavour was sweetness.

So how does it stack up against your Guinness?

"I'd give Guinness a nine and this is an eight. This is good but Guinness is better. But what do I know?"

Well, you know what you like Scott. That's what is important.

We talked some more while we finished our morning beer, with Steve telling a story of his friend Ron calling him in a panic the previous day, with cops swarming the building they lived in looking for one of the downstairs tenants. Steve was at his exes at the time attempting to feed his children some dinner while also trying to calm his excitable pal down.

"I'll be over later Ron," he shouted. "I'm cooking spaghetti here!"

With the incident about to move to phase two on this day, the boys finished their beer and were on their way, with Scott headed to the gym and Steve headed home to save the day once again.

Scott told me later that day he thought drinking high alcohol beers early in the morning gave him a sense of "normalcy" (that's what he said) and I agreed. I like this Beers for Breakfast thing.

Now to get Steve on board. I think we'll do it again next week.

Scratch tickets, beer cans and hookers, oh my

I had a delivery the other night from Bill's Place, a little greasy spoon located right in the heart of The Shwa's soft underbelly.

I got to the house, just a few blocks north in Oshawa's downtown, and the lady came to the door with a credit card in her hand. "Uh", I told her, "Bill could have done that over the phone but I don't have a machine. Twelve dollars and ten cents. Cash only."

So she invites me inside - me and half a century of stale cigarette smoke together again - while she calls Bill, who tells her that she can pay him the next day as long as she can find the five buck delivery fee for me.

So she rummaged around her flat and came up with a $5 winning scratch ticket. And for a tip, a bag of beer cans worth $3.50.

Back I go to Bill's Place to collect my $12.10, where I am accosted by a persistent prostitute who gave me an exaggerated wink, followed by a wave and then the classic line that she is sure will close the deal.

"You got a smoke sweetie?"

I said no, but I wondered later what I would have got for that scratch ticket and the bag of cans.

The Goblin King

You remind me of the babe
What babe?
The babe with the power
What power?
The power of Voodoo
Who do?
You do
Do what?
Remind me of the Babe

David Bowie taught us that we can all be heroes, if just for one day. R.I.P David 1947-2016

Beer of the Year Awards (Part Two)

If you're of a certain age and drink craft beer there are just two ways you got hooked on the hops.

There's the dip your toe in the pool approach - probably the most common - where your first non-Macro beer was a craft lager or a well-made pilsner, or maybe a wheat beer if you were really daring.

And then there's the dive off the end of the dock in December method used by a few of us, myself included, where we started right off the, uh, hop with an IPA - in my case a Smashbomb Atomic from Flying Monkeys - and never looked back.

This is also called the Epiphany Method.

Which is a long way of explaining why IPAs and their friends - the Triple IPAs, the Double IPAs and the Pale Ales - are so near and dear to me and why it is such a difficult process to pick a winner in these categories when I write my annual Beer of the Year blog.

Octopus Wants to Fight - best new IPA

There were no less than ten worthy candidates in the 2015 IPA class - any of which could have been a finalist in the Beer of the Year category as well - and I could have picked a handful of others as well.

I went with Karma Citra and Octopus Wants to Fight from Great Lakes; Headstock (Nickel Brook) and Ransack the Universe (Collective Arts) from the fertile mind of Ryan Morrow; Moralite (Dieu du Ciel); Time Damage (Manantler); Centennial (Founders); Roman Candle (Bellwoods); Big Eye (Ballast Point); and Smashbomb Atomic (Flying Monkeys) to round out my honoured IPAs.

I knocked it down to five finalists from there, including the one-two punch of Karma Citra and Octopus Wants to Fight (one of the best new releases of the year); the Headstock (the Mid-Summer  Beer of the Year) and Ransack the Universe duo; and Big Eye as my international representative.

The winner I sadly haven't seen since the spring - please find more Citra hops and make more beer, Mike - but it was soooooo good.

Great Lakes Karma Citra (IPA)

The Double IPA category may have been even tougher to handicap, with 11 qualifiers and five finalists. The semi-finalists include Ruination 2.0 and Enjoy By IPA - both from Stone Brewing - and Japanese Green Tea IPA from Stone/Baird/Ishi; Witchshark and Double Nelson (representing Bellwoods); Twin Pines (Sawdust City), Seismic Narwhal (Manantler), Refugee (Rainhard), and Immodest (Nickel Brook); as well as Double Trouble from Founders and the great state of Michigan.

My final list was slimmed down to five: Ruination 2.0 ("just as sticky as the original but with more fruity pizazz. Complex as shit. I like it better"); Immodest ("obscene use of Citra and Simcoe hops delivers obscene amounts of flavour"), Witchshark ("deliciously bitter...an all-time favourite"), Twin Pines ("a powerful pint of pine and earthy goodness") and the "divine smelling" Double Nelson.

I was too weak in the knees to pick one winner here, so I picked two:

Stone Ruination 2.0 and Nickel Brook Immodest (Double IPA)

Last year at this time I was drooling over 11.05, a collaboration beer from Nickel Brook and Sawdust City, but not much else in the Triple IPA category. This year the birthday brewmasters from Sawdust City and Nickel Brook changed it up to an Imperial Saison (which I sadly missed) but 2015 also saw me enjoying half a dozen of these high octane (ten per cent ABV and above) Triple IPA delights, with four making the cut as finalists:

Life Sentence, a collaboration between Amsterdam and Great Lakes which had an "intoxicating aroma of mango, grapefruit, orange and other tropical fruit goodness;" Cockpuncher from Indie Ale House (which wasn't billed as a Triple but at ten per cent ABV I'm calling it one AND it has one of the most awesome names in beer); RuinTen from Stone; and Green Bullet from Green Flash of San Diego.

Cockpuncher - the best name in beer?

Here again I couldn't choose so I went with co-winners:

Great Lakes/Amsterdam Life Sentence and Indie Ale House Cockpuncher (Triple IPA)

That leaves me with the American Pale Ale category, a class of beer I probably drink more than any other. Because man cannot always enjoy seven to ten per cent alcohol beers and still operate heavy machinery. Like toasters.

I got this list started with nine names: Nelson Sauvin Monogamy (Bellwoods); Golden Beach Pale Ale (Sawdust City); Grunion (Ballast Point); Amarillo Lollihop and Falconer's Flight Single Hop (both from Manantler); Naughty Neighbour (Nickel Brook); Rhyme and Reason - the reigning champ - from Collective Arts; and Johnny Simcoe and Citraddiction - last year's winner, which hasn't been in my fridge since  January - both from Great Lakes.

My final four? Nelson Sauvin Monogamy, Grunion, Naughty Neighbour and Rhyme and Reason. The best of a great bunch.

The  winner  has become my go-to beer for the past six months. I remember reading a blog from Ben Johnson, a two-time Golden Tap winner, where he lamented the fact the recipe had been tweaked to accommodate Nickel Brook and Collective Arts' move to larger brewing facilities at the new Arts and Science Brewery in Hamilton. If it has been changed, viva la difference! I love the 'new' Naughty Neighbour.

Doesn't everyone?

Nickel Brook Naughty Neighbour (American Pale Ale)

It's always difficult to choose a Brewmaster of the Year champ because, well, I don't get out much and I have a personal relationship with just a couple of finalists. 

I think James Gorry at Manantler is going to make some serious noise at next year's Golden Tap Awards (after his Manantler Brewery wins a few prizes at the Ontario Brewing Awards first) and Jordan Rainhard (the 2015 Newcomer of the Year at those Golden Taps) is a bit of a genius. Mike Clark and Luke Pestl are doing a whole bunch of great things at Bellwoods; Mike Lackey is the King of IPAs out at Great Lakes; and defending champion Ryan Morrow makes brewing magic at Nickel Brook, at Collective Arts; and at Arts & Science. Maybe more, for all I know. 

I also honoured Jeremy Kosmicki (Founders) as this year's international Brewmaster nominee.

As much as I favour Manantler's products (I'm heading out there this afternoon) I knew the final two had to be Lackey and Morrow. It was a super tough call. So tough, in fact, that I wussed out once again and picked them both.

Mike Lackey (Great Lakes Beer) and Ryan Morrow (Nickel Brook/Collective Arts) Brewmaster

Choosing a Brewery of the Year was not any easier than the last category. I discovered a ton of fantastic beers in 2015 and they came from 14 (!) different breweries: Manantler, my local from Bowmanville is represented and Toronto provided five top breweries this year in Rainhard, Great Lakes, Amsterdam, Indie Ale House and Bellwoods. I have three American breweries on the list in Founders, Ballast Point and the legendary Stone Brewery; cottage country provided a trio as well in Flying Monkeys, Muskoka and Sawdust City; the Nickel Brook/ Collective Arts duo is here; and Beau's All Natural from the Ottawa Valley also made the cut.

Everyone loves a 'new'
Naughty Neighbour. I know I do

I had to do a lot of research (mmm...delicious research) to come up with four finalists but I muddled through, choosing Manantler, Great Lakes, Founders and Nickel Brook.

If I say Karma Citra, Octopus Wants to Fight, Thrust!, Maniacal Hopshop, Life Sentence, Audrey Hopburn, Citraddiction, RoboHop, Johnny Simcoe and Long Dong Pilsner three times fast, the choice is clear.

Great Lakes Beer (Brewery)

That leaves me with just one category: Beer of the Year and I promise I won't be weak. Just one beer will be selected from my seven finalists: Naughty Neighbour and Immodest from Nickel Brook; Karma Citra from GLB and Life Sentence, the Amsterdam/GLB collaboration; American brews Ruination 2.0 (Stone) and Founders Breakfast Stout; and Cockpuncher - love that name - from Indie Ale House.

I think I surprised myself when I made my decision. Instead of some of the near-perfect doubles and triples on this list, I went with an under five per cent beer that, with all due respect to my human friends, became my best pal in beer this year.

Nickel Brook Naughty Neighbour (Beer of the Year)

Cheers!

2015 Beer of 

the Year Awards 

(Part 1)

So many beers. So many wonderful beers.

When I wrote my Mid-Summer Beer of the Year blog in early August I declared that it had been a "really good year for beer" so far. Since then I've  reviewed no less than 61 new beers, so 2015 has only gotten better.

I could call 2015 the Year of the Beer, but I expect every year going forward will be described the same, so I'll just say this year rocked!

There have been some stinkers - a Hefeweizen or two, a couple or three light lagers, a few macro beers (including Molson Export and Lucky Beer's Lucky Buddha) - and there have been many, many glorious examples of the proper use of hops, barley, yeast and water.

More than a dozen new beers rated in the past four months ave been worthy of being a finalist on this highly subjective list. Founders Brewing of Michigan gave me a trio of beers to consider this fall and there was also a trifecta of rare Triple IPAs that jumped into consideration for Beer of the Year, with two of them coming very late in the race. There were three new and exceptional IPAs - including one brewed in honour of iconic Toronto punk band The Diodes; three Double IPAs; and even an Imperial Brown Ale, just to name a few that made a late run for the prize.

I put the newbies against my mid-summer winners and, well here we are at the (Second Annual) IPA Tales Beer of the Year Awards:

I tried plenty of superb Strong Ales in recent months - so many, in fact, the mid-summer winner in the Belgian Strong Ale category (Chimay Bleue) and American Strong Ale favourite Arrogant Bastard from Stone Brewing didn't even make the cut in this catch-all division, in which I lumped Quadrupels, Tripels and Belgian Ales together with American and English Strong Ales.

Rochefort Trappiste 10, last year's champ in the Abbey Ale category, is a Strong Ale finalist, as is Avery Brewing of Colorado's The Reverend; Duvel's Tripel Hop, Westmalle Tripel; and Manantler's 3 Legged Dog. For the win I went with the beer that tasted of "ripe fruit of various ages," was simultaneously "sweet and bitter,"" and was just a superb world class beer:

Rochefort Trappiste 10 (Strong Ale)

Pilsner was a hit or miss category for me this year. There were several terrible beers that just missed the cut for the Worst Beer of the Year (I'm not naming names but one had  something to do with apples and two more paired well with trucks) and there were two fantastic examples - the same two from the mid-summer list: Black Oak's Epiphany No. 2 and Great Lakes' Long Dong Pilsner. The winner, with its lemongrass and spices aroma and creamy texture, remained unchanged from August.

Great Lakes Beer Long Dong Pilsner (Pilsner)

Couchsurfer (Indie Ale House) and State of Mind (Collective Arts) were my mid-summer Session Beer finalists and I can now add Manantler's Steady Horse to that list. The newcomer - "juicy and delicious" is how I described it - steals the win here.

Manantler Steady Horse (Session IPA)

Wheat Ales - another catch-all category - started strong this year but faded a bit near the end of the year. My finalists remained unchanged from August: 2014 winner All or Nothing Hefeweizen and Mid-Summer champ Wag the Wolf from Beaus. The current champion was not dethroned.

Beau's All Natural Wag the Wolf (Wheat Ale)

Golden Ales also tailed off in my interest after a  strong start to the year, with Manantler's The Citra Situation (which I haven't see since last winter) again besting Saint of Circumstances from Collective Arts.

Manantler The Citra Situation (Golden Ale)

The Belgian IPA category is a long time favourite and I considered four finalists this year. There was La Formidable, the Beau's collaboration with Gigantic Brewing of Portland, Oregon, which tasted of lemon and grapefruit with "plenty of Belgian spices;"  Catherine Wheel from Bellwoods, with bubblegum, spices, lemony hops, pepper and wild flowers; Cali-Belgique from Stone, which appeared in Ontario liquor stores earlier this year and then disappeared; and Audrey Hopburn from Great Lakes. This was close - I drank La Formidable more but I think I liked Audrey the best.

Great Lakes Beer Audrey Hopburn (Belgian IPA)

There were quite a few categories with just one worthy finalist, though it didn't mean they weren't worthy champions. Apocalypso, a White IPA from Le Trou du Diable, produced a near perfect combination of citrus, spices, tropical fruit and awesomeness; Drew and Steve's Imperial Mutt Brown Ale is a wonderful example of what brewers can do with a Brown Ale and why Stone Brewing can do no wrong; my first Belgian Pale Ale (Continental Drift from Nickel Brook) turned out to be superb; and Blacksmith knocked me over with their excellent Smoked Porter.

Le Trou du Diable Four Surfers of the Apocalypso (White IPA)
Stone Drew & Steve's Imperial Brown Ale  (Brown Ale)
Nickel Brook Continental Drift (Belgian Pale Ale)
Nickel Brook Equilibrium (ESB)
Highlander Blacksmith Smoked Porter (Porter)
Creemore Springs (Mad & Noisy) Hops & Bolts (India Pale Lager)
Bellwoods Farmhouse Saison (Saison)
Innis & Gunn Toasted Oak IPA (British IPA)
Manantler The Dark Prince (Black IPA)

I split Stouts into two categories this year and I was all set to anoint Manantler's  Rococo Chocolate Milk Stout as the Sweet Stout winner until I bought myself a bottle of The Chocolate Manifesto from Flying Monkeys over the holidays. This beer clocks in at 10 per cent ABV so it is definitely an Imperial Stout, but OMG this was sweet! Three kinds of chocolate make this beer taste like those rum-filled chocolates you get at Christmas. In beer.

Flying Monkeys The Chocolate Manifesto (Sweet Stout)

The Imperial Stout class was a far tougher category in which to pick a winner than it was in 2014, as my palate finally adjusted enough to really appreciate the dark deliciousness of the style.

The finalists for this year include 2014 winner Wellington Imperial Russian Stout, plus WOOT Stout from Stone/Farkin/Wheaton (yes, Will Wheaton of Star Trek and Stand By Me fame)and Founders Breakfast Stout from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I was anticipating adding The Imperial Bout from Great Lakes to this list but, what with the busy holiday season and a battle with a Christmas Cold, I never got around to drinking it and there she still sits in my fridge.

I'll get to that in 2016.

I also have a rare and expensive ($34.70 a freaking bomber!) bottle of Goose Island's Bourbon County Vanilla Rye Stout in my pantry, which I expect to enjoy early in the new year and also expect to see on this list in the 2016 'Best Of' blog. 

The champ comes from both 600 kilometres straight west and south of the border at the same time and was a phenomenally delicious blend of bitter coffee and dark chocolate.

Founders Breakfast Stout (Imperial Stout)

I made up my own category - Hybrid IPA - to honour a couple of beers that were a tad difficult to properly pigeon hole. Hopsta la Vista (Longslice Brewery) - which I enjoyed at the Burlington Beer Fest - was pretty good but the winner here was a hoppy/malty brew that invoked ancient yearnings for my father's Scottish hometown.

Brew Dog Punk IPA (Hybrid IPA)

In Part Two of this blog (hopefully tomorrow) I will honour the best of the IPAs and their friends, as well as Brewery of the Year, Top Brewmaster and Beer of the Year.

The final category for Part 1 is a new class for 2015: Worst Beer of the Year. Because some beers just suck.

It was tough to choose my least favourite beers, what with those pesky Hefeweizens (though I love All or Nothing's take on the style - Oshawa represent!); the Pilsners mentioned earlier and a pumpkin beer or two.

Not so Lucky Ale from Lucky Buddha

My four finalists in this prestigious (!) category include a Rye Pale Ale (Forked River Riptide); a found-only-in-America Bourbon Barrel Ale from Labatt (Prohibition Series) and an old favourite (Molson Export) which was actually the best of the bunch.

But my choice for champion, a gift from my ex-wife (honestly we are still great friends!), was an easy one:

"Pale yellow pour with a persistent, creamy head; which is probably the best thing about the beer. Smells vaguely of spices and tastes of lemon, metal shavings and sweet malts."

Yeah, metal shavings. 

Lucky Ale (Lucky Buddha), which comes in a funky green bottle that would be a cool flower vase except looking at it would be a painful reminder of how bad the beer tasted, is my Worst Beer of 2015.

Cheers!

Found beer is the best beer - especially at Christmas time

When Stone beer was introduced to Ontario liquor stores in the spring it was a really big deal in the craft beer community but it was a HUGE deal for me. Stone, you see, is the brewery that can do no wrong and is my favourite brewery in the world.

So when the Escondido, California brewers announced they were sending Stone IPA, Cali-Belgique IPA and Arrogant Bastard - an iconic American Strong Ale that propelled Stone into the marketplace nearly two decades ago - to the LCBO I was naturally excited.

And I snapped up some of each when they arrived and continued to do so until one day a month or so later they were gone.

Save for an appearance at my local in early summer I haven't seen Arrogant Bastard since.

Until 5:30 this morning - Christmas Eve morning - when I found a bottle in a bus shelter in Ajax.

I work with a bunch of macro beer drinkers who wouldn't know an Arrogant Bastard ale from a Coors Light (fail) and I expect if one of them discovered the bottle on their morning litter run it would disappear into the nearest garbage bin.

But not me. I knew what it was and I let everyone know what I found: Seven point two per cent of malty, hoppy goodness in a bottle and only three-plus months past the best before date.

It was love.

But where did it come from?

Stone has been discontinued at the LCBO and my research found there are a few bottles scattered
around some downtown outlets but none in the Ajax store, which is located directly behind the bus stop in question.

So it had to come from someone's stash - there is a small housing subdivision on the other side of Kingston Road - and it was simply left it behind in the bus shelter as he or she left home to go to a party.

Merry Christmas ya Arrogant Bastard.

I know it sucks to lose something precious but if the person who lost the bottle is reading this, take comfort in the knowledge that (as I write this) it is being put to good use.

Thank you.

I found $20 yesterday, so today was the second day in row in which I left work richer than when I arrived. They say good things come in three, so tomorrow should be wonderful as well and well, pass me the antlers and call me Rudolph but it's Christmas tomorrow so there you go.

It's a special weekend for me, actually, as I am taking the J Man with me to a cottage near Bobcaygeon for a reunion with the Scottish clan and my cousin Neil, who has arrived with his family from Australia after a decade or so away and might have even remembered to bring an Australian IPA or two with him.

(He may have forgotten too, but I won't mind. Miss you Cuz.)

The following day my family celebrates Christmas at my daughter Adrianne's beautiful farmhouse near Millbrook so I am seriously stoked for the weekend.

Cheers and Merry Christmas everyone!.

Grocery beers, Peyton Manning and Triple IPAs

I don't want to sound ungrateful about the beer-in-grocery-stores present gifted to us by the Ontario government last week, but jeez Louise this wasn't much of a launch.

Oh sure, Premier Wynne was on hand last Tuesday to kick off this new era in beer sales - and my "new era" line may be a bit of hyperbole - and her choice of a six-pack of Rhyme and Reason from Collective Arts .was a smart political decision because it is a damn fine beer.

But I would have hoped for a bigger splash, especially from the newly licensed grocery stores.

On opening day I wandered over to the Loblaws Superstore in North Oshawa - one of 24 in the province and the only store in Durham Region selling beer right now - to see what the fuss was all about. I found not a lot of fuss at all.

I was worried I had been misinformed about the location as I couldn't find the beer section until I had walked clear around the store. And then, there it was. All two end caps worth of beer, with one slightly bored young clerk handling questions from a crowd of two: "Is that all?" and "Where's the PC beer? This is Loblaws, right?"

Which gave me a little perspective on the issue. As a craft beer drinker I had only considered how this affected me and those in the craft-not-crap camp. I had not thought how the macro beer drinkers would feel about it.

My symbolic first purchase at an Ontario grocery store
included a Headstock IPA from Nickel Brook (pictured),
a Canuck Pale Ale (GLB) and a Side Launch wheat beer.

One of the concessions the big beer boys made to make this deal happen - a shocking concession, I thought at the time - was to agree that at least 20 per cent of the beer on the shelves be craft beer. I was following the events of opening day on social media and the general concession was the ratio was closer to 50/50. Here at Harmony and Taunton in Oshawa the number was closer to 70/30.

I know because I counted. Okay, I eye-balled it and made a good guess. Either or.

So if I felt a little underwhelmed by the launch, imagine how Mr. and Mrs. Bud thought about walking into a 'beer store' and seeing only a few of their favourites on display.

It must have been difficult for them.

I spoke to another Loblaws staffer during my walkabout and he assured me the store will be providing more space for more beer in the new year, along with more attention and funds to marketing and promotion, so we have that to look forward to.

For now I am happy there is one more place to buy beer, with two more Durham grocery stores (Farm Boys Whitby and Pickering Metro) coming on line soon.

Merry Christmas and Viva la Revolution!

Peyton Manning and the Colorado sour

The only thing better than good beer is good beer that is free, so when my pal James said he was going to Denver for the weekend to watch a football game and did I want him to pick me up some Colorado beers, I said, well, I said yes, of course.

Duh.

James, the proprietor of Oshawa's legendary Mr. Burger restaurant (home of the world's best Macedonian chicken sandwich), is a big Peyton Manning and Denver Bronco fan. His dad Bill, meanwhile,cheers for the New England Patriots. So with the two teams pencilled in for a late November game, a father-son outing was on.

Mr. Peyton Manning

James is also a huge craft beer lover, having worked in the restaurant business most of his life (Bill owns Stacks, a fancy-pants craft beer bar in Uptown Toronto), so tasting Denver's beer scene was also high on his to-do list that weekend.

Seeing Manning was number one on the list, making James' timing as bad as it gets, as the future first ballot Hall of Famer (Peyton, not James) hit the injury list the week before the game and did not play against New England, who just happened to be 10-0 at the time.

Damn. But there's always the beer.

But in one those that's-why-you-play-the-game moments, the Broncos and back-up quarterback Brock Osweiler played a great game and knocked the Patriots from the ranks of the unbeaten with a thrilling 30-24 overtime win in a raging blizzard, sending James and the rest of the fans in attendance home happy.

Except for Bill, but that's what you get for supporting the New England Patriots. Sorry Bill.

I am also a Broncos fan, so I was happy too, and I was even happier when I saw James a few days later and he gifted me a couple of bottles of Colorado's finest.

The Reverend from Colorado's Avery
Brewing, with some of his friends

Maybe not its finest, as one of them was a Sour, but free beer is automatically good beer, so I was ready for the challenge from the first of the two beers, a Sour/Wild Ale from Paradox Beer called Skully Barrel Number 27.

With 108 IBUs this beer was supposed to be super hoppy but I didn't get the hops at all. There was a little bit of roasted malt on the nose but mostly it was just...sour.

This was my second sour beer of the year and both tasted overwhelmingly sour, to the exclusion of all other flavours. Perhaps in time my palate will adjust. But not yet.

The second beer was more in my wheelhouse: a Quadrupel from Avery Brewing called The Reverend.

This was a big beer, with ten per cent alcohol and a rich, even reverential taste, with dark cherries, plums and other dark fruits, as well as lots of sweet malts and a bit of booze at the end. A real classic Belgian strong ale.

Thanks James. I don't know if Peyton Manning would love this, but I did.

Life Sentence IIIPA

For the second time in less than a month I found myself lining up for a special beer release.

On November 27 I was at the Summerhill LCBO in downtown Toronto for the much anticipated release of Goose Island's Bourbon County Vanilla Rye Stout (read Bourbon County and the InBev Bashers for the rest of the story) and I was back in Toronto last Friday for the release of Life Sentence, a Triple IPA collaboration between Amsterdam and Great Lakes breweries.

There was far less fanfare for Friday's release, but there was still a small hitch in my plan when I showed up at Amsterdam Brewery, thinking (wrongly, as it turned out) that because the beer was brewed there, I should be able to buy it there. Be off to Great Lakes Brewery (on the other side of the city) I was told. No worries.

Life Sentence IIIPA - a collaboration beer
from the great minds at GLB and Amsterdam

Once safely in the GLB retail store I still had to brave a lineup to get my hands on this hop monster but on the bright side, the lineup was exclusively inside and, more importantly, I got to sample the beer while I was in line.

That's how you handle a beer release.

I picked up seven of the tall boy cans - at $5 a can that was all I could afford - along with a pair of Lake Effect IPAs, two Long Dong Pilsners and a big bottle of the Imperial Bout, a 11.9 per cent ABV Vanilla Bean Coffee Stout.

The stout is still in my fridge and the Lake Effect and the Long Dong Pilsner were awesome as always but the real prize was Life Sentence because Triple IPAs  don't come around very often as they are expensive and time consuming to produce.

This one clocked in a 10 per cent and smelled of mango, grapefruit, orange and other tropical fruit goodness. It tasted of powerful citrusy hops and went down very smooth with only a hint of booze. Excellent stuff.

So good in fact that after I gave it an excellent score on Rate Beer (giving the beer its first 'official' score of 96 out of 100), I played Santa and gave a couple away.

I gave one to James because fair is fair, and one went to Trevor at Manantler Brewing in Bowmanville because he asked and because he heaped loads of praise on my blogging style. I may even have blushed.

Enjoy your beer my friends!










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Epic tale of Hop Zombies and heartbreak

"Well, we're fucked."

Nothing good ever happens after you hear those words.

When my beer bro Steve said this to me more than two months ago I knew it was especially bad because this time it involved beer. This time it involved the legendary Hop Zombie Double IPA from Epic Beer in New Zealand and it meant I wasn't going to get it.

It has taken me until now, months later, to even talk about this.

There's a scene on The Simspons (Season 4, Episode 15: I Love Lisa) where Lisa, after rejecting Ralph's appeal for love on live TV, is forced to watch the scene again on the VCR, courtesy of Bart. "Watch this Lis," says Bart. "You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half."

Poor Ralph. I knew exactly how he felt.

After a month of checking my mail box - each day more hopeful than the last - for news of the five hop bombs that were supposed to be coming my way from far away New Zealand, it became clear that my prize was not going to arrive in Oshawa.

Damn.

The legendary hop bomb that is
Epic Hop Zombie

So close, too, as the beer (safely and strategically housed - we thought - in a box marked 'souvenirs') had left Wellington a month earlier and had already cleared customs at Vancouver. Having travelled more than 14,000 kilometres, the beer had a mere sixty clicks to go when a bored customs official deemed it worthy of a random search  at Pearson International Airport.

Busted. Double damn.

Now I don't want to seem I am soft on smuggling or other serious offences, but shipping beer by mail
is an everyday thing and perfectly legal, provided you have the required paperwork. But as soon as you go global (or, say, not be licensed to export beer across international borders) somebody starts looking for a tax to grab and the next thing you know your package is subject to two inspections by customs and your treasonous larceny is discovered.

Steve's treasonous larceny anyway. I was the innocent victim in this sordid tale.

I didn't want to put a curse on the success of the shipment, but I had a feeling something would go wrong after my experience sending beer to Steve in New Zealand the previous year. The poor guy was holed up in Wellington with no access to great Canadian craft beers, so I sent him some. Okay, I lost a bet. It took three-and-a-half months (Around the World in 108 Days) before the beer arrived.

It could have taken so long because I cheaped out on the shipping - Pony Express to the coast, then Sea Turtle the rest of the way - so my old college roommate decided to spare no expense sending me (and other former college roomie Don) care packages of New Zealand brews in return.

But I need to back up here, because before Canada Customs and Canada Post even had a chance to destroy my hopes and dreams, Don was already enjoying his over-hopped monsters in the comfort of his Burlington home.

Truth is, Don enjoyed Kiwi contraband TWICE before all this happened.

And not for the first time I felt those pangs of jealousy when it comes to my pal Don.

Back in June Steve landed at Pearson after many years away to perform the sombre duty of burying his father, John. Don, being the good and noble friend that he is, delivered Steve to his family and offered to host his pal after the funeral for a week of catching up.

My dreams of getting Epic beer from
New Zealand were, like this bottle cap, crushed

So naturally Don got first dibs on the treasures Steve brought with him from home. I knew this but I wasn't worried. I was meeting up with them and some other friends a few days later at Donny's Bar & Grill for a mini college reunion, so I was confident they would save some for me.

They didn't. The bastards.

"As soon as I get back home I will send you some," promised Steve, without even a shred of guilt in his voice.

"I will wait by my mail box until it arrives," I responded. If there was a beer fridge and a bathroom in my building lobby I might still be there.

The first sign of trouble happened August 20 when Steve told me my box of fun had been delayed but was finally en route. "Took me a bit longer to find you a Hop Zombie as the stuff is gold and keeps selling out. You should have it by the middle of next week."

You know where I'll be waiting Steve.

That same day, just five business days after mailing, Don was enjoying his treasures - again. All four beer were certified over-hopped monsters, led by Four Horsemen of the Hopocalypse, a collaborative IIPA that clocked in a 14 per cent alcohol. There was also Triple Eye, a 13 per cent Triple IPA from Panhead; Hellbender from Garage Project (11.2 per cent); and Louisiana Voodoo Queen (also from Garage Project), which was 'only' 9.5 per cent ABV.

Or, as Steve explained it, a "bit more sessionable," which in the New Zealand rating system, includes all beers under ten per cent. "We  set the bar high here in beer heaven," he added.

Sure, Don gets his smuggled beer. Me, not so much

I managed to keep my jealousy under wraps and said all the right things to Don, who also scored a cool Wellington Lions rugby shirt, a t-shirt from Behemoth Brewing and a few other trinkets.

"I am (*grits one teeth*) very happy for you Don," I said.

Trouble spot number two came ten days later when I got a message from Steve that my package had arrived back at his apartment. Seemed one of the bottles broke.

"It wasn't the Hop Zombie that broke; it was the Four Horsemen," Steve assured me, as I already had been told that finding more Hop Zombies on the streets of Wellington was becoming more difficult each day. "Also, the broken beer soaked down the t-shirts so I'm needing to wash and dry them. Re-packaging will ensue once that's done."

And then the wait began again.

Using the tracking number provided by the New Zealand postal service (I told you: Steve spared no expense) we were able to track down my shipment September 9 when we learned it cleared customs in Vancouver.

That was happy news because that was the hard part done. It's here! It's here! And unless somebody drops it again, my box of hoppy awesomeness should be arriving any day now.

I'll be waiting.

A week or so later I inquired as to its whereabouts and was told it would be arriving in one to three business days. When that deadline came and went I inquired again, with the news this time not as wonderful.

"The item had been declared undeliverable and has been returned."

Wait, what?

The only known photo of Canada Post's
Undeliverable Mail Office in Scarborough, Ontario

I contacted Canada Post looking for answers, only to fall down the bureaucratic rabbit hole. Only the sender (Steve) can be told anything about the delivery.

Uh, Steve? Ball's in your court man.

Within the hour Steve was on the case and he quickly learnt the bad news, prompting the reply that broke my heart.

"Well, we're fucked." That one.

We'll never know why Canada Customs opened my box of goodies at Pearson, but maybe, as Steve suggested, they were just bored. In any event, I wasn't going to get my beer.

A few days later I received the first letter from Canada Post, thanking me for my enquiry, expressing "regret" I had not received my package and offering assistance on "resolving this matter."

It was dated September 24 and at the bottom of the letter the 'Contents' were described as Alcohol & Tobacco. Which was odd, but it was partially explained by the letter I received the next day, dated September 23, which clearly spelled out the crime Steve and I had attempted to commit.

(Steve, anyway. I'm the victim  here.)

Dear Customer,

The purpose of this letter is to advise you that a mail item addressed to you contained intoxicating beverage(s)/liquor listed below and has been removed from the mail stream: 5 bottles of beer.

The importation of such item(s) by mail is prohibited under the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act. Consequently, Canada Post must dispose of the item(s).

The letter went on to say that the item(s) would be 'detained' (like, held prisoner?) at Canada Post's Undeliverable Mail Office in Scarborough for thirty days, just in case I decided to pay for the postage required to send it back to New Zealand.

Oh Bart.What would you do for a Hop Zombie?

That wasn't going to happen, but it did give me, ever the eternal optimist, hope. It hadn't been destroyed yet, dammit!

So I phoned the 1-866 number and I was told I could have the bottles - after they had been emptied, of course -  if I wanted. That proposal didn't interest me either, but it did spark an idea, one that would involve a little spy work, the small matter of theft of government property, and bin diving, among other late night skulduggery.

I was prepared to do almost anything to get my hands on a Hop Zombie, just like Bart in the same Simpson's episode (Season 4, Episode 15: I love Lisa) mentioned at the top of this tale.

Bart, a huge Krusty the Clown fan, was jealous Lisa was going to the Krusty special with Ralph, and offered to trade places with his sister.

Bart: It isn't fair. I'm ten times the Krusty fan you are. I even have the Krusty home pregnancy test!
Lisa: I'm not sure I should go. I don't even like him.
Bart: You're right, Lis, you shouldn't go. It wouldn't be honest. I'll go, disguised as you.
Lisa: What if he wants to hold hands?
Bart: I'm prepared to make that sacrifice.
Lisa: What if he wants a kiss?
Bart: I'm prepared to make that sacrifice.
Lisa: What if he...?
Bart: You don't want to know how far I'll go.

So here was my plan. It wasn't foolproof but it was better than nothing.

From my home in Oshawa I could be almost anywhere in Scarborough in 15 minutes - as long as it was three in the morning - so my first move was to find out where the hell Canada Post's Undeliverable Mail Office was located. No address was found during my preliminary inquiries, though I did receive a tip that it may be found in an underground bunker somewhere.

The rest of my plan would unfold in the dark of night after the thirty-day deadline was reached. I assumed 'disposal' would either involve a special ceremony involving sacrifices to the ancient border guards of legend, or they would just toss the bottles into the garbage bin out back.

I was betting on the latter and I was prepared to dive into the bin with a flash light and hope that at least one of the bottles - please, with apologies to the other hop bombs in the package, let it be Hop Zombie - survived the impact.

It would have worked, I am sure of it.

Shirts! I got shirts!

Except I never did find out where the Undeliverable Mail office was located and I promptly forgot about the whole matter until the thirty day deadline had expired.

And then, a day after I realized it was too late, I received a package from Canada Post. Inside were two t-shirts: a Hop Zombie shirt and another from Garage Project.

God Bless you, Canada Post. God Bless you, Canada Customs. I got t-shirts!

And God Bless you, Epic Brewing Company. Please send me beer.

I'll be waiting.

Bourbon County Stout and the InBev bashers

I made it downtown with 15 minutes to spare and got my golden ticket. Number 160.

I was at the Summerhill LCBO, the crown corporation's flagship store, for the release of a special beer - Goose Island Bourbon County Imperial Stout - and the lineup wasn't terribly long. There was the usual assortment of man-buns and other hipster accoutrements, but most of the beer lovers on hand seemed pretty normal - not that there's anything wrong with man-buns - with the demographics skewing towards the twenty-something crowd.

Not that there's anything wrong with that either.

Some of the people in line had been there for several hours but I didn't care that much. To each his or her own. With 200-plus bottles available my ticket number assured me of one of them - it's the 2014 version further aged in whiskey barrels with vanilla beans added, if you're wondering - and that was my only concern.

That and getting my hands on one of the delicious looking donuts I saw through the window being handed out with the bottles. It was a carb day after all.

Bourbon County Imperial Stout
 (Vanilla Rye) from Goose Island

Thirty minutes after my arrival I was in and pre-paying for the bottle while trying not to flinch at the $34.70 price. (I had no idea until then how much this was going to cost me: Ouch.) Then I had to run the gauntlet of Goose and LCBO officials handing out bottles like they were Santa Claus and his elves at a kids' Christmas party.

I picked up a bottle of Rochefort Trappiste 10 while I was there - the 11th ranked beer in the world (according to Rate Beer) that was a bit more affordable at $4 and change for 355 ml of Belgian goodness - and headed home; satisfied that the morning was well spent.

Turns out not all beer lovers approved of my little adventure, however. I saw a few posters on Facebook that could barely contain their excitement at the thought of drinking this 13.6 per cent brew, but other threads were less than complimentary.

Why, you ask? Despite the fact Bourbon County is the twenty-second highest ranked beer in the world (Rate Beer) and the release is extremely limited, the ownership of its brewers has put Goose Island squarely on the shit list in the eyes of a certain segment of the craft beer community.

Goose Island, as most of you know, was bought by InBev in 2011.

Stephen Beaumont, a Canadian who is one of the world's foremost beer writers, poked some fun at the hype surrounding the beer, asking his followers what the "opposite" of Bourbon County was. "I think I'll drink that today," he said.

Stephen did not dump on the beer, admitting he hadn't tried it but that he was not a fan of the hype surrounding it. Which is fine, because he was right. Bourbon County Vanilla Rye is over-hyped and certainly over-priced. But his pals quickly raised the bar on the vitriol. We had Ben the angry beer blogger ("I'm buying $35 worth of 'other beer' today at whatever fucking time I want"); and Chris the hipster slagging other hipsters for being hipsters ("Let the dolts stand in line for their over-priced fancy Budweiser").

I don't think I need to get into a long debate on the ethics of buying beer from craft breweries that have been snapped up by the macros lately because, frankly, I believe it should always be about the beer, not the conglomerate who owns it.

So here's a thought: how about you folks buy whatever beer you fucking want and leave the rest of us to do the same.

I haven't tried the beer yet - I'm hoping to do a bottle share with my friend Sarah (AKA My IPA Girl), who is soaking up the sun on a Cambodian beach (or some other exotic locale) as we speak and does plan to eventually return and, even more importantly, has a cellar full of world class beers - and I'll let you know if it was worth all the fuss.

By the way, the Rochefort Trappiste 10 was amazing.

The Broch and Punk IPA


I was in the Pickering LCBO - the best store we have out here in the wilds east of Toronto - and not having much luck when I ran into their beer guy.

"I'm looking for something different," says I, already starting to head for the door with my seen it-drank it-may actually own the t-shirt beer purchase. "A new IPA would be perfect. Got any of those?"

Turned out he did, and this shining star of the Ontario Government workforce pointed to a row of tall boys on the back wall. "We have Punk IPA. You want a case? I have plenty in the back."

Punk IPA. From Brewdog. A beer I have been chasing since I first heard of it six months before. Um...yeah, I want that.

Punk IPA. And that's the wedding picture of my grandparents
 Fred Hendry (Fraserburgh) and Jean Gatt (Pennan)

Punk IPA is found in many LCBO outlets now, but this was the first time for me. And truth be told, it was a little underwhelming when I drank it about two minutes after I got home. It was good, with tropical fruit and light citrus, and I have enjoyed it numerous times since that first one, But it was a little British IPA-ish, actually.

Which shouldn't be too surprising as it is British. Scottish actually. And that was a big part of the attraction for me.

I first heard of Punk IPA on a "30 IPAs to drink before you die" list, which intrigued me. Then I read about the frequent collaboration between Brewdog founders James Watt and Martin Dickie and Stone Brewing, the California brewery that can do no wrong. That certainly piqued my interest as well.

But the kicker for me was that Brew Dog was founded in 2007 in the Broch, the Aberdeenshire town better known as Fraserburgh and better known to me as the place where my father grew up.

Punk IPA retails in the LCBO for $3.40 a can but an IPA from my father's hometown?

Priceless.