Trevor Thanks Jimmy! and I thank Trevor

When I saw the message from Trevor about a gift waiting for me at Manantler's tasting room in Bowmanville I got a little excited.

Surely it meant Trevor, a huge fan of iconic U.S. brewery Dogfish Head, had returned from a pilgrimage to Delaware with a bottle of 120 Minute IPA, a nearly 20 per cent, 120 IBU, very limited release hop monster that has nearly the cachet of Pliny the Younger.

Okay, I'm kidding. If Trevor, the Cellarman at Manantler Brewery, did get his hands on one of these bottles it wouldn't be me he would be sharing it with. If he shared at all.

I figured it was the latest new release from Manantler and he wanted me to have an early crack at whatever delicious ale they had cooked up. Such a swell guy, that Trevor.

But no, that's not what it was. Instead, I was gifted a home brew (with a flip-top cap and all) from Space Taco Brewing Company (Trevor's brewery, should he ever start one) called Thanks Jimmy!

It was an IPA brewed on the 37th anniversary of President Jimmy Carter's decision to legalize home brewing in the United States. It's also a homage to James (Jimmy) Gorry, Manantler's brewmaster and Trevor's boss.

"He taught me a lot," Trevor said simply.

The beer was brewed with Canadian 2-row malts with a "little bit" of Crystal 60 malt, and he used Galena hops for bittering with Mosaic and plenty of Nelson Sauvin hops for the aromatics.

Trevor,  Bowmanville's greatest ever
Cellarman, in action

It was forced carb'ed (because Trevor was clearly in a hurry to drink it) and the result was a delicious west coast-style IPA that came with a fragrant bouquet of tropical fruit, with citrus and pine on the tongue. Really, really nice.

The alcohol count remains a mystery, however, as Trevor's hydrometer was giving him a hard time. "Between four and seven per cent," he said, somewhat unhelpfully.

Funny. I was given a glass of Manantler's Root Beer Porter (unreleased and un-carbonated at the time) the day I was at the brewery picking up my gift. My friend Sarah (aka My IPA Girl) was also there and she asked Chris, brewer, brewery President and famed music video actor, what the ABV was. "Between four and seven per cent," he answered.

Must be a brewers' inside joke.

As to whether Thanks Jimmy! will ever be in Manantler's lineup of fine beers, Trevor was unsure but hopeful.

"The recipe belongs to Space Taco Brewing but if Manantler wants to do a collaboration, I'm game!"

Thanks, Trevor!

An Epicurean surprise

Yeah, I know. Another mention of Epic Brewing of Aukland, New Zealand. I promise not to link any of the SIX previous blogs written about my adventures getting their wonderful beer, but I had to mention this.

Epic Epicurean Coffee & Fig Oatmeal Stout is in the LCBO. Or was. though there are, at the time of writing, some left in Oakville (Don! Are you listening?), Niagara Falls and some place near Ottawa.


It's unlikely we'll see more but I'm hoping I'm wrong.

In any event, if you are lucky enough to find this eight per cent bottle of black magic ("raisins and roast coffee with bitter chocolate ... smooth and rich and really, really good") in your local liquor store, buy it.

You can thank me later.

Braids, beards and Lauren, Oh My

And finally, a bit 'bout braided beards. Goatees, to be precise.

I had a delivery the other night and was met at the door by two young girls. The older girl - about 16 or so - went off to get the money while the younger sister - I'm guessing 12 or 13 - remained at the door to take the food.

And she stared at me with what appeared to be wonder in her eyes.

"That's awesome!" she finally blurted.

"Uh, thanks?" I stuttered.

Sort of like this?

"You really rock that goatee!"

What the hell does one say to that? So I thanked her again.

Then she asked me if I had kids. "Four," I tell her, adding, "And grandkids too."

"Well," she said, with excitement rising in her voice, "You must let them braid your beard!"

Maybe I should. I have just the grandkid (*cough* Lauren) for the job.

Cheers!

Gary Hogg - newspaper man, family man, prankster

One of the powerful things about Facebook and social media in general is the way it make it makes life easier when you are trying to track down old friends.

It took three of us several hours in the fall of 2014 to find our pal Gary, a J-School chum of myself and Beer Bros Don and Steve. Actually we didn't find Gary, who had achieved a good deal of success in the newspaper game since he left Humber, most notably with the North Bay Nugget, but his wife Pat instead.

No matter. The connection was made and we made up for some lost time with our long lost pal and reminisced about the good ol' days, which mostly involved drunken escapades and semi-illegal activities.

It's a wonder all four of us actually graduated.

The couch in the apartment Gary and Don shared was a favourite landing spot for me after an evening of drinking, although there was one time I didn't make it that far.

It was the night Miller Beer officially introduced their products in Canada and Steve, through his internship at some Rogers magazine, had scored us six passes to the media event to celebrate this momentous occasion. There was a small hitch in our plans, however: we showed up the night before for the corporate schmoozefest, which was open only to suits and friends with suits.

Which wasn't us.

No worries though. We just let Steve, our best schmoozer and, at 6'7" an intimidating one at that, do the talking for us and we were eventually allowed entry.

The 'we' would be Gary, Don, Steve and myself, as well as other J-School pals Tony and I think Keith, though it could have been Wayne. And we walked in to a free Texas BBQ, Joe Theismann as the motivational speaker and the very beautiful Louise Mandrell (of the Mandrell sisters) on the stage.

And free beer. All night long.

Anyway, we had a great time drinking copious amounts of free beer (did  I say it was free?) and we capped off the evening by stealing a six-foot Miller sign and taking it onto the subway and eventually back to Gary and Don's pad.

The reason I didn't make it to the couch? I did say free beer, right? Anyway, I woke up on the linoleum floor of the bathroom with the worst hangover of my life. Lucky Mom and Dad's place was only a half-hour walk away.

Good times. Good times.

Our re-connection on social media was some 18 months ago and we did some catching up at the time. Gary, after a long career as an editor, had gravitated to sales and moved to the Ottawa area.

Gary Hogg. August 4, 1961-February 12, 2016

Gary was smart as a whip but he had a notorious dry wit - some might have called him sarcastic; perhaps cranky - and I was the butt of his pranks more times than I can remember. I told him I couldn't get my head around the fact he was now in sales.

"Don't you have to like people for that? I asked him. "Obviously," he countered, "you don't need friends to be in sales."

Well, you have us, Gary. Had us, anyway.

We hadn't heard from Gary for a while until Pat contacted Don and told him Gary died three weeks ago. He had been in and out of hospital for several months until suffering a massive heart attack. He was 54.

Rest In Peace, Gary. You will be missed.

Spring and the circle of life

The snow is still on the ground but spring is in the air here in Southern Ontario.

Just ask the birds.

Our resident cardinal has been singing for weeks now in the hopes a lady friend is within earshot. Good luck to him. I've tried that and it has never worked.

I have even seen woodpeckers and nuthatches from my balcony hunting for food and staking out
nesting sites.

Love at first sight

I  wouldn't have thought grubs and other tree-dwelling bugs would be up and about already but I'm going to go out on a limb (you see what I did there?) and assume Mother Nature - and  the birds - know more about this stuff than I do.

All this early season activity by the birds has a three-fold purpose: find a mate, make some babies and raise a family.

Real circle of life stuff and right outside my balcony to boot.

Cheers!