I shout about stouts, but pumpkin ale gets a fail

I love fall.

The colours, the cool nights, my birthday - they all signify change and they all help to make autumn my favourite season.

Except when it comes to beer. Beer has its seasons too, and in the world of beer, fall means pumpkin and pumpkin ales are among the vilest creations to come from a brewmaster's mash tun.

I've tried the Pumpkin Ale from Great Lakes - which churns out winners every other season - I've tried Black Creek Pumpkin Ale - a gift from the lovely and talented Adrianne for watching her awesome kids - and I've sampled several others as well, with the experiences so traumatic I can't even remember the name of the brews.

Something-Something Pumpkin Ale, I imagine.

All these beers left me wondering why brewers continue to ruin perfectly good beer by adding pumpkin pie spices to it.(FYI - I love pumpkin pie.)

The answer to that question is because many people - their taste buds ruined by years of drinking commercial crap perhaps - like the stuff. Or maybe they just expect pumpkin beers each October and buy it by the case when it comes in, taste be damned.

But I do know there are some 40 pumpkin beers rated 95 (of 100) or better on Rate Beer so somebody is producing quality pumpkin beers. I just haven't had any yet.

But despite my aversion to the style (and I'm not the only Musketeer with this problem) there will be two more Pumpkin beers on hand at the Donny's Bar & Grill session tomorrow in Burlington. My last two (I hope) of the season. Jumping Jack India Pumpkin Ale from Tree Brewing in B.C. and Pissed Off Pete Pumpkin Porter from Nickel Brook.

Despite the Jumping Jack beer being an IPA of a sort, I'm not thinking positive thoughts over this one. I am slightly more optimistic, however, about the Pumpkin Porter. I figure the pumpkin spices will go better with a porter, which is a sweet dessert-style beer.

We shall see tomorrow, but I am reminded of the words of Rob Leonard, the owner of New England Brewing in Connecticut, when asked about pumpkin beers. "If pumpkins could make a sound they would offend all five of my senses."

While I'm on the subject of beer styles that made me duck for cover, I must confess that I have been all wrong about stouts.

I used to fear them; all dark and evil looking, with aromas of coffee and chocolate and licorice and other dark and scary things. "You'll come around Glenn," said one Musketeer. "Just give it time," said another. But still I held back, afraid to go over to the dark side.

About a month ago I decided to give stouts another go. On the advice of pal Don ("I absolutely, positively guarantee you will like it," is what he said), I started with a big one: Wellington Imperial Russian Stout out of Guelph, a big, 8 per cent stout that was all dark chocolate, dark fruits, roasted coffee, toasted malts and awesomeness. Why the hell did I wait so long?

Next up was the Stone Coffee Milk Stout from California, a 4.2 per cent session stout. Lots of coffee on the nose for this one and hints of chocolate (milk chocolate, natch). A really smooth beer.

I followed that up with Lost Coast 8 Ball Stout, a 5.8 per cent beer also from California. Black as treacle with a creamy head, this beer brought lots of roasted coffee and bitter chocolate (my fave) to the table. Then more coffee, a little nuttiness and rich caramel malts to finish. Outstanding!

Closer to home, I tried the Sleepy Time Imperial Stout from Beau's All Natural, which uses Belgian yeast before ageing the beer in oak staves. I got chocolate, licorice and black coffee, with some banana bread as well as hints of vanilla. Very smooth for an 8 per cent beer.

Montreal's dark side

I enjoyed Sawdust City's Skinny Dipping Stout on a perfect sunny afternoon on the patio at Buster Rhino's in Oshawa recently, and I was impressed. Dark chocolate and roasted coffee - the perfect fall sipping stout. Who knew?

Finally I got to St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, one of the highest rated beers in Canada. It poured black, like a Montreal back street after midnight and smelled of dark roasted coffee and bittersweet chocolate. It tasted all that too, with some spiciness as well.

Well worth the score.

All I can say is why didn't I try these sooner? At least now I understand why my friends were gushing over Aphrodisiaque, the glorious stout from Montreal's famed Dieu du Ciel Brewery when we visited C'est What in downtown Toronto in the spring. Next time I'll say yes.

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Wednesday was my birthday and it was certainly one I will never forget. We've all read and watched many hours of coverage on the tragic shootings that took place in our nation's capital, which left one soldier, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, dead and a country in mourning over his death and over our loss of innocence.

As I write this thousands of people are lining the highway overpasses along the Highway of Heroes as Corporal Cirillo's procession makes its way west towards his hometown of Hamilton; a symbol of the reverence we hold towards those who have died protecting our way of life.

With so much written about the events in Ottawa on Wednesday I will mention just one small thing that resonated with me: the playing of Oh Canada before the Pittsburgh Penguin-Philadelphia Flyers NHL game Thursday night.

That the anthem was played that night did not surprise me: the Penguins are a classy organization and I expected no less. But to see so many Americans singing along to our anthem gave me chills, I tell you.

Thank you America. Thank you. We noticed.

Butter tarts and the IPA

that broke his brain

Sometimes the best part of any journey is found not at the destination but in the treasures found along the way. Or in this case, the one's found on the way back.


Northumberland Hills Brewery is a brand new brew house in Cobourg, just a 40-minute drive - 35 minutes if I'm in a hurry - to the east. I used to work in Cobourg a quarter-century ago while serving as the Sports Editor of the neighbouring Port Hope newspaper, so I'm familiar with the area, one of my favourites east of the GTA. And when I heard last month the new guys had an IPA, I just had to go.

Hoppy Go Lucky it's called, and it wasn't bad, as I did go home with a couple of bottles. But it's no IPA and brewmaster Rick Bailey admitted as much about his 5 per cent beer, calling it "more of a pale ale."

It' a blend of Cascade and Saaz hops - which is unusual right off the top - and it provided muted hops with some sweet bready malts on the tongue. Decent, but I'm waiting for the upcoming release of its Moonstone IPA - this is homegrown Cascade hops (from Rick's back yard) mixed with Galaxy - before making a return trip.

Speaking of return trips, I made mine via the connecting road to Port Hope and along the way I spotted a roadside shop called Betty's Pies and Tarts. Tarts? Butter tarts? I had to stop in.

So I did, making a U-turn to get there while the rain, a steady drizzle when I left and now a veritable monsoon, soaked me to the skin on the 15 foot run to the door.

Betty's Pies & Tarts - billed as the "best butter tarts in the Kawarthas - was worth every drop of rain. I ended up buying a six pack, with four different kinds of butter tarts, a raspberry tart and the prize of the pack, a peanut butter and jam tart.

Nectar of the Gods. It was that good. And the tart judges whoever and wherever they are, agreed as the tart qualified for the prestigious Royal Agricultural Winter Fair this November.

Sounds like a good excuse to go next month. They have a wine competition as well, and with several pop-up restaurants and pubs happening during the week-long event, they'll probably have a few craft beers as well.

As to the overpowering smell of horse, cow and pig shit; you'll get used to it.

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When I read Chris Staten's review in DRAFT Magazine of a new beer from San Diego's legendary Stone Brewing, I felt weak in the knees. The beer, Stone 18th Anniversary IPA, is packed with tropical fruity flavours. So much so, in fact, that the writer - the magazine's Beer Editor - started questioned the future of IPAs, his own mortality; that sort of thing.


You can read the link here (The End of IPAs As We Know It) and suffice to say, it was also the IPA that broke his brain, so I must try it. The good news is I'm heading to a store across the border which traditionally carries many of Stone's offerings this weekend. Here's hoping.

The beer made me think of a few others on my bucket list (if you count 20 as a few), starting with another San Diego beer: Green Flash Green Bullet, a Triple IPA that doesn't fit the usual mold of super boozy brews. At 10.1 per cent ABV and 100-plus IBUs, that's asking a lot, but this new release promises plenty of big citrus hops, a solid bready malt backbone while being "impressively" non-boozy. Must have.

Also from Stone: Enjoy By IPA, which includes the best-before date in the beer's name while being totally awesome. But it is from Stone Brewing. And staying in San Diego, I need to enjoy Grapefruit Sculpin from Ballast Point, which is their wonderful Sculpin brewed with grapefruit rind for "extra" citrus power.

Some of the usual suspects on anyone's wish list include Pliny the Elder and its rare Triple IPA nephew, Pliny the Younger from Russian River, as well as the IPA that started it all for brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo, Blind Pig. The world famous Heady Topper from The Alchemist is here and while we're in Vermont, damn near anything from Hill Farmstead (but I'll go with Abner (IIPA) and Susan (IPA).

There is also Hopslam from Bell Brewery in Michigan, and two brews from Three Floyds in Indiana: Dreadnought IIPA and one of the world's best pale ales, Zombie Dust. If you can call a 6.2 per cent ale 'just' a pale ale.

Internationally, I'm dying to get my hands on Punk IPA, the Brew Dog beer from Fraserburgh, Scotland. Only my father's home town. There is also Nogne IPA from Norway (yes, they make great IPAs in Scandinavia) and a trio of beers from New Zealand:  Hop Zombie from Epic; Hopwired from 8Wired; and Pernicious Weed from Garage Project, just to name three.

I haven't forgotten Canadian IPAs: I'm just doing a better job of whittling down the list.

There is Yakima IPA from Le Castor Brewery in Quebec (Canada's highest rated IPA), Sartori Harvest from Victoria's excellent Driftwood Brewery, and Humulous Ludicrous, a IIPA from Winnipeg's Half Pints Brewery.

And I would be remiss if I didn't add Cockpuncher, the Imperial IPA from Toronto's Indie Ale House. I've has their Instigator IPA - fantastic - but not Cockpuncher. My 12 year-old son, who has heard many of the crazy-ass names for the beers I've tried, is convinced Cockpuncher is the craziest.

Reason enough to drink to that.

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There’s an apartment building on Oshawa’s west side with a second-floor balcony that’s just a little bit lower – okay, a lot lower – than your average second-floor balcony. I know how low because I walked into it about a dozen years ago, and ever since then I have been very wary of its presence each time I visit.

I was there on delivery Friday night and I steered a wide berth around the concrete structure as I walked from the parking lot to the front door. That’s when things got ugly. There was no answer from the buzzer and I realized I left my phone in the car so I had to go back to retrieve it. On my return, with my head down and my attention focused on dialing the customer’s phone number, I walked straight into the balcony.

The impact cracked the top of my head so hard I went down on the grass like I was shot and I’m pretty sure I blacked out for a second. I lay on the grass for what seemed like an eternity – it was probably three or four seconds – before I thought someone might think I was dead. So I got up, my head throbbing badly and my legs wobbling slightly, to hear a guy across the street yelling, “Dude! Are you all right?”

The customer, who was at the front door by this point, was concerned at first and then, seeing I was alive, amused. So was my ex-wife when I told her this story an hour or so later, a bag of ice still melting on my coconut, when she called to see when I was picking up Jake. “Didn’t you do that before? she asked, trying hard to suppress the giggles.

“Yes,” I answered. “Same balcony, too.”

This time Christian laughed out loud.

Oshawa - A 2014 Political Primer

Our politicians are not hooked on crack - as far as I know - but, with kidnappings at gunpoint, police take-downs on the council floor and more lawsuits than there are new models planned for the GM assembly lines, there's never a dull moment in Oshawa politics.

That's what make this municipal election so much fun. And thanks to the elimination of the ward system and the introduction of elections for the Durham Region Chairman, there are 13 - yes, thirteen - different 'X's I can mark on October 27.

What other election offers that kind of choice? What other election offers that much fun?

The race for the Mayor's seat offers the most intrigue (though it is but one 'X' of 13) as nine candidates - a rogues list of kooks, shit disturbers, hard-core radicals (and a sensible one) and an ex-Mayor - try to unseat the incumbent, John Henry.

This tempest has been brewing for most of Henry's four year term, as a group of local activists has taken to attending council meetings en masse to voice their displeasure over the decisions made by the Mayor and his allies (affectionately known as the Bloc of Eight), with their presence described as being a cross between a thorn in his side and a hive of hornets down his pants.

A key issue of contention has been the controversial purchase of a former call centre on Wentworth Street for a new works depot for the City, a deal that ultimately led to the cops-in-the-council-chambers take-down last year.

See, the council watchdogs thought the City paid too much for the property and cried foul, a stand supported by Ron Foster, Oshawa's then-auditor-general. Foster released a damning report on the purchase, which noted among other things that City staff tried to sabotage his investigation.

Council then hired George Rust-D'Eye, a noted municipal lawyer who once represented Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (Coincidence? Not with Toronto and Oshawa councils seemingly Separated at Birth) to prepare another report, which naturally concluded Oshawa did not, in fact, overpay for the property. Oh, and perhaps we can eliminate the auditor-general position while we're here.

Which is what the Gang of 8, by a vote of 8-3, did. And then the shit hit the fan. When decorum was returned Bill Steele, in handcuffs and with blood trickling down his nose after being wrestled to the ground by a security guard and two undercover cops,  was arrested and charged with assault. Another activist, Dan Hammond, was also charged.

Charges against the two were later dropped. The security guards were subsequently charged with assault as well and those charges also disappeared.

The video of the event, naturally, went viral.

Bill Steele

Steele is now running for Local Councillor while Hammond is taking a shot at the Mayor's seat. Hammond is also defending himself from criminal harassment charges involving Councillor Roger Bouma, a Bloc of Eight member who is not seeking re-election. Hammond's personalized licence plates - they read NOBOUMA - were a regular sighting around town until Service Ontario cancelled them.

And Foster is threatening to sue the City unless his job is restored.

Other council watchdogs are also in the race for Mayor. There's Lou DeVouna, who has been embroiled in a legal dispute with the City since 2011; and there is perennial contender Bill Longworth, who this campaign decided to distance himself from his fellow activists by ignoring issues like corruption and the economy to concentrate on a single subject: the return of the ward system.

Joe Ingino is running as well. Joe runs a local newspaper (alleged) called the Central (which I interviewed for once in the mid-90s. Our session was brief.) and has alienated an entire generation of social media users because HE ALWAYS TYPES IN CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE HE'S SHOUTING.

But there is one Council contrarian who has risen above the fringe level of her fellow agitators: Rosemary McConkey, the Sensible Radical, who has campaigned against rampant development up in Columbus for years before switching her attention to Henry and Oshawa Council in 2010.

But even McConkey, who calls herself an Accidental Activist, has legal issues to deal with. She has been ordered to pay $10,000 in court costs to real estate giant RioCan (full disclosure: the company I work for would cease to exist if not for RioCan contracts, making the developer - Canada's largest - my defacto boss) but her campaign had promise, at least until John Gray entered the race.

Gray, who has been doing some fear mongering lately as to the future of General Motors in the city, was a two-term Mayor who was defeated by Henry in 2010.

Gray made his biggest splash in office when he initiated a comedic feud with Stephen Colbert - over hockey of course - in 2007. The trash talking put Oshawa in the spotlight for a while and culminated in a bet over a junior hockey game between the Oshawa Generals and Colbert's beloved (kinda) Saginaw (Mich.) Spirit.

The Gens lost the game, Gray lost the bet and March 20 (Gray's birthday) was declared Stephen Colbert Day in Oshawa, an event held at the General Motors Centre that was attended by some 3,000 people, including Don Cherry.

Stephen Colbert

(Cherry, for his part, called Colbert a "leftie pinko" who, if he played hockey, would probably wear a visor. But I digress.)

Chris Topple, who ran provincially for the Liberals in 1999 and 2003, and Don Woermke have also thrown their hats into the ring for the Mayor's race.

And that's just one of the 13 delicious choices I can make on October 27. With seven representatives on Durham Regional Council, I have a lot of options there as well. Some, like Bouma, have had enough of the circus and are going back to private life. Other Bloc Eight members, like Amy England (who made headlines for her stand in favour of breastfeeding) and former Mayor Nancy Diamond, are sticking around.

Diamond, who was sitting in the big chair when I arrived in the county in 1992 (her 12-year term made her the city's longest-serving mayor), is taking another shot as a Regional Councillor.

Tito-Dante Marimpietri, one of the councillors on the other side of the majority voting bloc, is also looking to grab one of seven regional spots again. I don't know Marimpietri, who is in a legal battle of his own, having been ordered to pay $9,500 in court costs to City Solicitor David Potts, the first salvo in a $2 million lawsuit filed against Potts (which is related to a $1 million suit brought against the City by former real estate manager Chris Harper), but he's a childhood friend of my pal Santo so he gets my consideration at least.

There's some new blood as well, such as local television personality and public speaker Dan Carter, who I believe will bring a civil and circus-free approach to council.

That would be a breath of fresh air.

There are also three Local Councillor spots available, with Bruce Wood hoping a return to council will mean his vote will mean more than just the usual 8 to 3 losing proposition, and a few promising fresh faces, such as Stuart Smith

There is one name notably missing from the ballot, however, and that's Robert Lutczyk, a former councillor now residing in Lindsay's super jail facing a shopping list of charges stemming from an incident from two years ago.

Always a bit off the wall - he once advocated caning as a form of punishment for inmates and called for Oshawa to add the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean to its urban boundaries - Lutczyk snapped two Octobers ago, (allegedly) abducting Potts, Oshawa's in-house lawyer, and taking him to a warehouse in south Whitby. Barricaded inside with a cache of weapons and explosives (allegedly), the standoff lasted more than 24 hours before Lutcyzk finally gave himself up.

Robert Lutczyk in better days

The case has come before the courts several times since, with Lutczyk, armed each time with volumes of legal briefs, electing to defend himself. He never found the time, however, to update his drivers licence, which is the reason the City gave when they denied his last minute application to run for council.

From jail.

It's too bad, really, because that would have been too awesome.

I've also got the Regional Chairman post to vote for, with incumbent Roger Anderson (who I've also known since I arrived in Durham 22 years ago) squaring off against a handful of political neophytes.

There's a school trustee I can cast my vote for too, though with my tax dollars going into the public school board and my last school-age child in Catholic school, there's not much point in casting a ballot.

I may anyway.

It's the Mayor's race that has piqued my interest, however, and handicapping it has proven interesting. It appears to be a two-horse race between the two Johns - Henry,  who Jake and I met in rural Columbus a year or so ago - an incident now known as The Day Jake Told the Mayor he was Missing a 'D' from his Last Name - and Gray, with McConkey emerging as the wild card.

I'm torn at the moment in deciding between Gray and McConkey for my vote, with Henry on the the outs because of the spelling of his name.

As the J Man said last year, the Mayor is missing a 'D.' And as every sports fan knows, you can't win without the D.

                                                        *

As this is a beer blog I thought I should finish by talking about a few beers. I may not drink before I vote on October 27, but I'll certainly drink after.

I was going to write one more story from the mini vacay Jake and I took to Rochester and Niagara Falls - our visit to the Strong Museum's vintage games exhibit, to be exact, when I took the boy to school in pinball, Galaga, Pac-Man and table top hockey - but I decided not to mention it and talk about beer instead.

Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA from Delaware and Epic Pale Ale from Auckland, New Zealand. Two outstanding ales.

The 75 Minute IPA is a 7.5 % ABV blend of the brewery's 60 Minute IPA and 90 Minute IIPA; cask conditioned and post-hopped. There's lots of citrus and pine with some tropical fruit and sweet malts. Beautifully balanced with a decent bitter finish. I would expect no less from this brewery.

Epic's Pale Ale was even better, which is a pretty good trick for a 5.4 per cent beer. Fifteen different hops were used during the brewing process and the result is a beer with plenty of 'wow' factor. There's citrus and tropical fruit - passion fruit, maybe? - along with some pine and floral notes. There's a peppery spiciness as well, making this beer quite different from anything I've had before, and quite tasty. A world class pale ale.

Cheers! (And don't forget to vote October 27!)