Here's two stouts for the Christmas table

So something like this but in four separate
six-packs... with tighty-whiteys on top

Well, it's Christmas time and that means I can finally tell the Christmas beer story that my Mom has been pestering me about including since she was told of this blog. She doesn't read this exactly because, well, at 83, she seems puzzled as to how the magic words appear on the TV screen attached to the typewriter. Actually, she's not quite that bad... she goes to the local library and uses their computers to regularly retrieve e-mails from my brother, Gary, in Valencia, Spain. But checking e-mails is far as she's willing to venture. I'd show her how to use Skype but I'm afraid she'd think Gary was trapped in the magic-typewriter-TV bad magic thingey. Then the whole thing turns into a scene from the movie, Poltergeist. Plus the last time I used Skype with my brother, he was in Vietnam, it was 10,000-degrees in his room and he spent the whole conversation naked. But he was good enough to cover his junk with a beer bottle whenever he stood up. Got some gratuitous butt shots I could have lived without but that disturbing imagery aside, it was, as always, great to talk with him.

"Gary, are you in there??? Donald, save your brother!!!"

Okay, the Christmas beer story... and this will truly warm your heart. I would have been, oh, 19 or 20 and Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. "A case of beer!" I said instantly. She scoffed, noting there was no chance I was getting that. "How about some underwear, instead?" she countered. "Nope, case of beer," I insisted. And this went on for a few weeks. Every time, I saw or talked to her, I'd blurt out, "Case of beer!" and she would counter with "Underwear!" So Christmas rolls around and spread out under the tree are four identically-sized wrapped gifts for me. Turns out my Mom had bought me four six-packs of Labatt's Blue and on top of each was a pair of tighty-whiteys underwear. I got my beer... and some underwear. Fast-forward one year and my Mom is asking Gary what he wants for Christmas. I lean over and whisper, "Say 'underwear like Donny got last year'." He looks at me and whispers back, "I don't want underwear!" So I tell him, "Just trust me on this one..."

Winter Beard notched a very high 95 on RateBeer but
only 48 style points. Why? It's deliberately different!

In keeping with the Christmas theme we have going here, a couple of stouts have struck me as perfect for the Christmas dinner table. The reigning Craft Beer Queen of Toronto, Mel, does not recommend beers to me lightly. Ever. And frankly, she couldn't have picked a better time of the year when she recommended this one, although Muskoka Brewery has more say in this matter since their Winter Beard Double Chocolate Cranberry Stout is a winter seasonal. Coming in a very cool box - you can't tell from the picture but that beard is shiny silver - this is an outstanding dessert beer. The aroma is a blast of chocolate with some coffee hints and the taste is strongly chocolate with bits of dates, cranberries and I even sensed a bit of cherry. At 8%, be prepared to undo your belt because it's packing a whoppin' 240 calories! Nice job, Muskoka, this was fantastic. You might want to graduate this from the seasonal section and six-pack this bad boy. And Mel, another excellent find... as always!

Like Winter Beard, this also got 95 on
RateBeer but only 47 style points. Why?
Maybe the bourbon, bourbon, bourbon!

Okay, everyone has that uncle who loves his bourbon. With me, it was my now-late Uncle Bob in Winnipeg. Boisterous, loud, happy, total joker guy, he was my "fun" uncle. Aaaaaaaand I am just now making the connection from the bourbon to his happy-go-lucky personality. Hey, I was a kid. His traditional post-meal naps on the couch also make more sense now. Here's a beer Uncle Bob would have loved - Nickel Brook's Old Kentucky Bastard Imperial Stout. What the Burlington brewery does is take their Bolshevik Bastard Stout and age it another year in Kentucky bourbon barrels. Its aroma is roasted malts, vanilla and bourbon, bourbon, bourbon!!! The taste has some chocolate but also strong hints of figs, coffee, vanilla and... something else. What is it? Oh yeah... bourbon, bourbon, bourbon!!! I'm not even a bourbon drinker but I loved what it does to this 10% stout. Don't want it now? Wait a year. Or two. Or three. It just keeps aging and getting richer in taste. I can think of two friends that will enjoy this even more than me: co-worker Saga and New Zealand college buddy Stevil St Evil who both love their bourbon. I'm also gonna guess fictional TV anchorman Ron Burgundy would pound this stuff. And then say really inappropriate things... like my Uncle Bob did. Again, I was a kid. I didn't catch any of this at the time. Much like now, pretty much oblivious. I was A.D.D. back in the day when they simply said, "I think this boy's head is in the clouds."

Please, Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery and Central City
Brewery: do NOT make this red ale treat a limited edition. 

Okay, I was gonna talk about some new IPAs I've tried but you guys hear about enough about those so it can wait until 2014. Yeah, sorry... should have warned you. Not stopping. In the words of the late great Walter White, well, I'm gonna let him tell it his way... just click on this link: Brew Ha Ha? Nothing stops this train! So like that... but without the Meth. So instead, let's hop forward (yeah, I said hop) to Brew Ha Ha's 2013 Christmas Wish List. Ummm, some of which involves IPAs. Okay, pretty much all of it is about IPAs... but not new IPAs. Sue me.

First up to my friends at Spearhead Brewing who brew their outstanding Hawaiian Style Pale Ale out of the Cool Brewery in Etobicoke: Where is your Big Kuhana IPA? Back in April, you unveiled two versions of it at the Victory Cafe in Toronto. You used Cascade hops in one; Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand in the other. That was April. By the way, where the hell was my invitation? Clearly, you got the beer-lover feedback you needed. When is this 10%, 100 IBU (international bitterness units) gift from the gods gonna land in the fridge at Donny's Bar and Grill in six-packs?? Ask any woman who's ever met me: I'm not above begging!

The Waterloo Wheat belongs in the Summer
Small Batch Sampler. Yank the Traditional IPA
... you have no idea how much that hurts me

To Barrie's Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery and Surrey, BC's Central City Brewery: Collectively, you  brew two of Canada's top-ranked IPAs with your Smashbomb Atomic IPA and Red Racer IPA. I had no idea that the Red-on-Red Ale I so enjoyed at the Mill Street Oktoberfest was a collaborative effort between you two. That said, it's outstanding. It was my palate-cleanser at the Oktoberfest. Yes, a 9.5% red ale as a palate cleanser? I'm messed up - I get that. But it also says "limited edition" all over the bottle. Could you, uhh, un-limit that and have Flying Monkeys distribute that here in Ontario in six-packs? Again, willing to beg...

To my friends at Brick Brewery in Waterloo: I loved your Winter Small Batch Sampler, particularly your Union Mills Porter which was pretty damn outstanding for a brewer of somewhat larger proportions. Your Small Batch Summer Sampler needs a tweak, though. Keep the Classic Pilsner and Jack Pine Belgian Ale but yank the Traditional IPA and replace it with the Waterloo Wheat, much more of a summer beer. Keep selling the Traditional IPA but send your brewmaster in that Small Batch lab of his with these small tender words of instruction: "Imperial IPA... go nuts! By nuts, we mean bat-shit crazy."

Imagine this... but filled with Cameron's
Rye Pale Ale. Want this. Need this...

To my favourite home-town Oakville brewer, Cameron's Brewery: You've already very recently granted one of my Christmas wishes by putting your Rye Pale Ale into traditional six-packs and shipping them out to Beer Stores and LCBOs. But set your brewery up with spigots so I can get growlers filled there. Why? Well, it's selfish but while I live in Burlington now, my Mom, the above-mentioned 83 year old sweet (I mentioned she was sweet, right?) white-haired lady needs me to come by for yard work on regular occasion and you are literally down the hill from her. I think heading home with a fresh growler of your Rye Pale Ale... well, that would kinda rock, Plus it's kind of incentive for me to come out and help out my really sweet (still kinda emphasizing the sweet old lady thing here) mother. I said she was 83, right? No pressure or anything.

Next up and I have a feeling this has nothing to do with me and my earlier begging (seriously, women, I'm a push-over - okay, moreso for breweries but give 'er a shot) but Rogue Ales (Newport, Oregon) is keeping a regular stock of their outstanding Brutal IPA in one of my Burlington liquor stores. I bought it out. Twice. The Brutal IPA is one of the most best IPAs out there. I told them I would continue to buy it out if they kept shipping it. And it keeps returning - there's 24 of those bad boys there as I speak! I love Rogue for that. Also try their Dead Guy Ale - dynamite!

I've never had you but I love you. Please come here...

But if it is truly that simple and just a matter of casting the line in the water... well, here goes nothing. To Epic Brewing in Auckland, New Zealand: my friends, Stevil St Evil and top-of-the-class beer writer-blogger Neil Miller get to drink Hop Zombie Double IPA all they want. At their leisure. I'm not saying this is unfair... because war and pestilence and bad diseases are unfair. Dropping your iPhone into the toilet and no access to Hop Zombie are far less unfair. But did I mention my 83-year-old Mom? Boy, I bet an 83-year-old sweet white haired Mom would love her son to have some of this beer. If you could just ship it to an LCBO in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, wow, you would make her so happy. Just sayin'...

Okay, Stevil St Evil had nothing new to add but will be crapping on Year End Lists in his next outing which, of course, lines up with my next blog... That Was The Beer (Half) Year That Was. I can take the mockery. But my comely young lass, KC??? Always a fresh one with this girl! Here's the latest Confessional of a Former Fat Girl that we're gonna call: It's a trap!

Okay, that's it.... that's all... and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain...

OCB's Brewmaster's Choice a killer combo

Six beers of very different degrees, all in one package.
Hats off to the OCB. Okay, no more resting on your
laurels. What's next? Need some suggestions? 

When the Ontario Craft Brewers (OCB) decided to pull together six beers from six different Ontario craft brewers in their Brewmaster's Choice Discovery Pack, they did so, very much to their credit, with an eye to beer-lovers who are not me or even remotely like me. A personal slight? Nahhhhhhhh... The simple fact is ever since I started this Clydesdale-and-Pony beer blog show back in the summer, I've been on my own craft beer journey of discovery. (Clydesdale - see what I did there? The subtle beer reference? No? Never mind...) So trust me, I do not feel snubbed.

The reason is simply this: I've already had five of the six beers - some of them repeatedly. I'm a social beer drinker so obviously, I'm pretty much social all the time. No, this six-pack is about "discovery", meaning mainstream beer drinkers finding beers that are different from the ones they've had and discovering a style - or styles - that they never knew they liked. If beer commercials have taught us anything, it's this: exceptionally good-looking people like run-of-the-mill beers. Not trying to be a beer snob here. After all, it wasn't until the Craft Beer Festival at the Steam Whistle Roundhouse this past summer that I learned I really love IPAs and began searching out different ones from craft brewers across North America. This is all relatively recent for me. And, this is important, the Discovery Pack contains six beers from the various ends of the spectrum. On the lighter end, they start with an excellent choice: Toronto's Amsterdam Brewery's Natural Blonde Lager, a beer I praised as a great "sessions beer" in my last blog.

This is the label you will only see at
the brewery itself. They had to create
a second one for distribution because
the image of Joseph Stalin was deemed
"offensive". Really? By who? The dude
was a Bolshevik and by many accounts
he was something of a bastard, as well...

From there, we go to Oakville's Cameron's Auburn Ale, to me, the best of the four they offer at my Beer Store - we also carry their Lager, Cream Ale and Dark 266 (all good but someone has to win...) Another good choice was the Wellington Dark Ale, a Guelph brewery I will be talking about very soon. Their Special Pale Ale? One of those rare beers my co-worker Saga and I agree on - top drawer stuff.

Next up is the Lake of Bays 10 Point India Pale Ale, which I had at the Mill Street Brewery Oktoberfest and quite liked. Brewed as a celebratory beer for brewery owner Darren Smith's wedding in the British style, it's a good starter IPA - 6%, lower and safer 55 IBU (international bitterness units) so it's not gonna blow the top off your head off if you're unfamiliar with the style. No, let's leave that to my all-time favourite in this six-pack: Muskoka Brewery's Twice As Mad Tom Double IPA. It's 8.4%, 71 IBU and is aggressively doubly dry-hopped. I wish you all the best with this one. It'll pull down your pants, beat you up and then steal your lunch money... and this is after it makes out with your Mom and posts it on You-Tube. Mad Tom is a bad-ass.

It turns out the only beer in this 6-pack that I hadn't tried was the Nickel Brook Bolshevik Bastard Imperial Stout, the heaviest, darkest and meatiest of the bunch. Fortunately, finding it wasn't much of an issue since the brewery is right around the corner from Donny's Bar and Grill.

John Romano, the smiling public face of Nickel Brook
Brewery. He sees a lot, probably too much, of me...

So I popped in to check it out. The guy at the front counter? None other than brewery owner John Romano, who, with his brother Peter, created the Better Bitters Brewing Company in 2002. I got a chance to shoot the breeze with him for about a half hour while he was serving me and others. From all accounts, running a craft brewery must be a labour of love because the financial pay-off is an extreme version of delayed gratification. Pointing to some bourbon barrels purchased late last year, he noted that their Old Kentucky Bastard Imperial Stout was aged in those barrels for a year before they started bottling it now. (Thus putting the bourbon in suburban.) That's slightly more than a full year before any cash comes back on that batch. Imagine going into work and being told, "Yeah, we'll pay you next year..." Unless your job involves shooting Playboy centrefolds or in the case of women, shooting shirtless photos of Brad Pitt, no-one is gonna go for that.

My super-cool Nickel Brook growler... well, one
of them. That's one big-ass jug of beer. On the
right is how I used to drink Headstock IPA...

In the end, I walked out of there with two growlers, a 1.9 litre bottle (or 64 ounces, for my American friends), which is basically a six-pack in a jug. One was filled with my old favourite, Headstock IPA, while the other was filled to the brim with the Bolshevik Bastard Imperial Stout. Let me tell you why this stout was a perfect choice for the Discovery Pack. First off, the specialty pack was released in late fall and you need a stout or porter in there for the winter weather. Stouts are sipping, warm-you-up beers. Secondly, to me at least, it's a local business so I get to support that. And finally, it's delicious. At 8.5%, the aroma is one of roasted malt and a bit of licorice. The taste has strong hints of cocoa and pours with a nice brown head. This will not be my last growler of Bolshevik Bastard. As for the growlers themselves, once you purchase them for $5, you can continue to go into the brewery and get the freshest possible beer for about $11. So 11 bucks for nearly a sixer of top-notch craft beer? As the customer, I get the opposite end of the scale where John suffers - I get instant gratification. And hey, I'm all about that. (Women everywhere reading this are nodding their collective heads and muttering, "Yeah, that's pretty typically male...")

Stout with a bitter-sweet aftertaste. Yum

Regardless, my Toronto craft beer expert and friend Mel sent me a cool video of specialty growlers being made after I told her of my purchase. Check it out here at: Super Cool Growler Video

Okay, moving on, when I was buying Sawdust City Brewing Co's Lone Pine IPA, which I reviewed a few blogs ago, I also snagged a bottle of their Long, Dark Voyage to Uranus Uranal Imperial Stout and decided to wait until a cold winter day to try it. Well, there's two feet of snow on my barbeque at the moment so the time was now... though technically, the time is always "now" at Donny's Bar and Grill. Okay, this is a stout of a different sort. At 8.5%, this also packs a walloping 85 IBUs, something of a rarity with the stouts I've had so far. That turns the sweet chocolate aroma into a bitter-sweet chocolate, mouth-puckering taste. Because of the high IBU, there's a hint of grapefruit along with the roasted maltiness. Very different and very cool. Hats off to Sawdust City Brewing on this bad boy. This is like taking what I love most in an IPA and creating a stout in the same vein. So win-win for this guy.

Lost Coast Brewery's 8-Ball Stout:
definitely a game winner...

And finally, let's travel to Eureka, California to sample a bottle of Lost Coast Brewery's 8-Ball Stout. In much the same vein but to a lesser degree, they've adding some hoppiness to this stout at 50 IBUs. At a relatively low 5.9%, the malts mask the alcohol easily and the aroma is one of - again - roasted malts, chocolate. The taste is as smooth as can be with hints of coffee and caramel. With a score of 98 on RateBeer, it also notched an identical 98 on style points, meaning staying true to the classic stout taste and brewing style. Grab yourself a bottle of this if you see it. You won't be disappointed.

Okay, up next, how is that Nickel Brook Old Kentucky Bastard Imperial Stout, not to mention the Muskoka Brewery's Winter Beard Double Chocolate Cranberry Imperial Stout, sitting patiently behind the bar at Donny's Bar and Grill? Plus a couple more outstanding IPAs and two that were less so. Coming soon: The Brew Ha Ha Christmas Wish List and the Best Of The Beers I Drank This Year.

I don't have a recent Stevil St Evil blog straight from New Zealand to link to so I will pass along his regards which would sound something like this: "As a Canadian ex-pat from the Petawawa area, have fun with all that snow. And by the way, it's Summer here... suckers!" However, my friend KC has always got a fresh batch of her blog Confessional of a Former Fat Girl, the most recent being the age-old argument: Sweet Vs Salty

Okay, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain...

Beer Store Christmas Party - gonna need a "session" beer

Why did the Toronto Maple Leafs logo on the Molson
Canadian aluminum bottle drive my co-worker Gord insane?

A few months ago, I had NO idea what a "session beer" was. The term cropped up since in a couple of New Zealand beer blogs that I follow religiously, beer being my religion and all. Hey, my religion doesn't start wars. Just bar fights. All hail the mighty peace-making hop. I'm not sure if it is strictly a NZ term or something I just wasn't familiar with like, you know, how long you have to be dating a woman before you loudly pass gas in front of her. (Note: Date #1 is the wrong answer. In a crowded restaurant is especially wrong. And then subtly pointing at her when others look... really, really, really wrong. Don't ask me how I know.)

Turns out a session beer is a beer at 5% or less, one you can drink with the boys while watching the hockey game... or in the case of New Zealand, their much-beloved All Blacks national rugby team. You see, the problem with the high-octane craft beers I drink these days, which run anywhere from 6% to more than 10% alcohol-by-volume, is that in the case of my beloved IPAs, you drink them at the same speed you drink a regular beer. Muskoka Brewery's Twice As Mad Tom IPA, a personal favourite, is 8.4%. You down that at regular beer drinking speed and you're gonna be out-cold by the second period or half-time, depending on the sport. And really, is there anything worse than having to call your bro's the next day and ask: "So... uh... who won? And where is my car? And my clothes? What exploded in my kitchen and why am I handcuffed to the fridge?" You know, that old story. We've all been there, right?

A painting of the 2012 Oakville Beer Store Christmas Party.
The Sheriff came in, guns a'blazin' and sorted us varmints out

But I need a session beer for Sunday night. That's the night when the six Beer Stores in Oakville get together for our annual Christmas Party. One year, we landed in a bar on their Karaoke Night. I'm not saying ears bled on that night. But I'm not saying they didn't. But I will say most bar patrons don't usually get their headaches until the following morning when the old hangover hits. I think we sent a few home with aching heads.

But the Beer Store Christmas Party is an endurance race, not a sprint. The beer is free-flowing so we tend to invoke the "spirit of Christmas" but mostly the "spirit" part. So I need a session beer. Something a lot lower alcohol so I can make it to the end and actually see who I can mock the following day. There's usually a few. But let's face it. All my 5%-or-less beers are gonna be made by craft brewers that are most unlikely to be found in a regular Oakville bar - the kind of bar that considers Stella Artois, Corona and Heineken to be the fancy stuff. But we'll get to my choices in a bit.

"Can you show us, using the dolls, where Don
started to lose control at the Christmas Party?"

First, I'll turn to my co-workers who, with the exception of Saga, only drink session beers as a matter of course... let's see what they're drinking. My fellow full-timer, Gordo, is a traditionalist, going with two of Canada's biggest-selling beers, Molson Canadian (5%) and Coors Light (4%). However, Gordo can stray away from Canada and is also a pretty big fan of Denmark's Carlsberg Light (4%). I'm not gonna suggest that his choice has anything to do with Copenhagen's relaxed laws on marijuana and prostitution but I work with the guy so... yeah, it's totally that. True Gordo Story From The Beer Store Archives: he and I are unloading the Molson delivery one night. As soon as we get the eight skids off the truck, he goes on dinner break and I start breaking down the load. I notice the Molson Canadian aluminum bottles have a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey logo on them. Being a Philadelphia Flyers fan, Gord really hates the Leafs but they're my all-time favourite team. So I intentionally leave that skid until he comes back... and wait... and wait. And finally, he sees it - on one of his favourite beers. And he goes postal! The swearing got pretty bad so I'm going to insert "fluffy bunny" in place of the expletives. "Why the fluffy bunny would they fluffy bunny put that on their fluffy bunny cans??? What the fluffy bunny were they fluffy bunny thinking?" And he continued to fluffy bunny on at length, like a grumpy old man who didn't get enough mayo on his sandwich at the deli. It was awesome! So basically, it was like every shift with Gordo... but a Tuesday. Well, a different Tuesday.

I love our Beer Store's Moosehead Christmas tree, which
boss Allison painstakingly constructed after downing
two cases of Moosehead. 'Tis a Tree of Love and Hope...

The ladies I work with all have their session beers so let's start with sweet young Katie, who is a Miller Genuine Draft (4.7%) girl all the way. Except for the three-carat diamond wedding ring and the life-time membership to the spa, she's going to be a relatively inexpensive trophy wife some day. Marie's beer is one of my original sessioners - Sleeman Original Draught (5%). I realized the need to keep session beers handy in the bottom of my fridge when Marie popped by one day to drop off some home-cured bacon and I had to scramble to find her a craft beer that wouldn't blow the top of her head off. Fortunately, I had one - which you'll read on my list. But now I keep Brick's Red Baron Blonde Lager (4.8%) in my fridge at all times for visitors. They all seem to really like it but let's face it - free beer at Donny's Bar and Grill will never be unappreciated.. Our boss, Allison, favours two - Moosehead Lager (5%) and Sapporo pale lager (5%), which is brewed here under licence by Sleeman's, which in turn is owned by Sapporo, a Japanese mega-brewery.

That leaves our resident Malt King, Saga, who, like Allison, has always been a fan of Moosehead but has now found a new favourite with the Coors Banquet (5%), now shipped here from the United States.

Now THIS is a session beer - 5% alcohol, 100% flavour!

To Americans, this is actually your regular yellow-label Coors but for some reason, they added the word "Banquet" to it when they shipped it here. Please explain to them we're not a fancy culture up here - hockey, maple syrup and women who will snowboard in bikinis - that's pretty much Canada.

My blog brothers, Glenn and Stevil, had some good choices. Glenn prefers Brava (4.9%), a cerveza-style beer, originally brewed by Lakeport, which is now owned by Labatt's, and was meant to be competition for Corona. One small problem. It's better than Corona - MUCH better. Plus it's not a twist-off cap - you need an opener. I will ALWAYS maintain that 'church-key' beers, as opposed to twist-off, are fresher.

Steam Whistle Pilsner: "They do one thing really well"

Stevil, who has spent the past 12 years in Craft Beer Heaven, a.k.a. Wellington, New Zealand, had to think back to his Canadian session beer days before coming up with a couple of his old favourites: Big Rock Traditional Ale (5%) out of Calgary and Okanagan Springs Pale Ale (5%) from B.C. These days, like me, he prefers the high-test craft stuff and honestly thinks the criteria for session beers should be raised to 6%. I suspect a on-line petition any day now. That petition would likely be supported by my Toronto craft beer expert Melissa, who couldn't even name a session beer when asked. She shrugged, "I'm a strong beer kind of gal." And that's why we're beer buddies.

Okay, now my session beers, one of which I'll need for the Beer Store Christmas Party tomorrow night before yet another Oakville bar is sacrificed like a virgin at an ancient Mayan Frat Party.

Amsterdam makes a lovely blonde lager

First up is Flying Monkey's Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale (5%), which to me is the younger brother to their Smashbomb Atomic IPA. Only 28 IBU (international bitterness units) and yet through the use of the Amarillo hop, it possesses a citrus/floral aroma and has a lighter version of that tangy quality I enjoy in a full-bodied  IPA. If a customer wants something a little hoppier than the mainstream Canadian beers, I steer them towards this. Why? You start with Robin and if you can handle Robin, then and only then, do you take on Batman (Smashbomb Atomic).

I'm a little surprised I've never mentioned Steam Whistle Premium Pilsner (5%) in this blog before. It's a very cool Canadian take on a Czech-style Pilsner. Light with a nice bite, my only concern with this beer is it's the only one they brew. A craft beer maker with just one beer? When I tell friends outside this country that, they all ask the same thing: "What does their brewmaster do all day? This has got to drive him crazy!" Indeed. He probably locks himself in a secret closet, concocting up super-cool IPAs and stouts for himself before heading back out to the brewery floor to maintain quality control.

"I'm Naughty... and Nice. Don't tell Santa..."

Amsterdam Natural Blonde Lager (5%), out of Toronto, is a great session beer and a perfect hot day patio beer (I said, watching the snow fall on my patio... *sigh*) Not in the least hoppy (14 IBU), it relies on the grainy aroma of malts for its nice, light taste.

And finally, a nod to my Burlington bros at Nickel Brook and their damn tasty Naughty Neighbour American Pale Ale (4.9%) - one of my favourites and soon to be arriving in my fridge via their 64-ounce (1.9 litre) growlers. I met owner John Romano at the brewery - helluva guy - more on that next blog. This scored a staggeringly high 93 on RateBeer and with its hints of tropical fruits, pines and malts in its aroma, this is, hands down, one of the best APAs I've ever had. And this was the beer Marie had at my place... and quite enjoyed!

"I'm the fat bastard who works one day a year and spends
the other 364 days of the year judging you! Ho freakin' ho"

That's all for this go-around but up next, we have both Nickel Brook's Bolshevik Bastard Imperial Stout and their Old Kentucky Bastard Imperial Stout (aged a year in a bourbon barrel so I will be sharing this with Saga as a Christmas treat), Sawdust City's Long Dark Voyage to Uranus Imperial Stout, Lost Coast Brewery's 8-Ball Stout and a Melissa-recommended (so I know it's gonna rock) Muskoka Winter Beard Double Chocolate Cranberry Stout. Tis the season of the stout.

Shout-outs: If you wanna see a humongous craft beer selection, watch Stevil St Evil's video, which I call: You Lucky Bastard! And my former co-worker KC kicks it old-school with her very funny Confessional of a Former Fat Girl blog. Today's thoughts? It's a Bacon Kind of Day! Okay, until next time, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! As always, I remain...

Mill St Tankhouse Ale: "friend-zoned" far too long

It's totally NOT stalking if I'm holding a
big-ass boom-box on your lawn at 6 a.m.
Oh.. and please forgive the trenchcoat...

Remember all those teen-comedies back in the 1980s where the female/male protagonist had the hots for either the hunky star quarterback or most-popular-girl-in-school even though their best friend of the opposite gender was clearly, to all of us in the audience, the right person for them???

The late producer-director-screenwriter John Hughes was a genius for this sort of script (not to mention non-teen comedies like "Uncle Buck" and "National Lampoon's Vacation") and any number of flicks ("Pretty in Pink", "16 Candles" or "Say Anything") played off this theme: the best friend being the right pick but sacrificing themselves in the Friend-Zone to help the ones they love. Awwww... you stupid misguided self-sacrificing suckers.

Turns out that happens in real life... or at least, my real life of being surrounded by aisles and aisles of beer and getting paid for it 40 hours a week. All this time, there's been a beer in front of me that I friend-zoned, never knowing how right it was... for my tastebuds.

Mill Street Tankhouse Ale: Where have you been all my
life? Oh. Right there in front of me. Hiding in plain sight.
If you weren't so tasty, I'd get a restraining order on you,
you stalker beer.  For gawd's sake, put on a trenchcoat!

Mill Street Brewery has been around since 2002 and is one of Toronto's premier brewpubs/craft brewers. Our store sells five of its products: Stock Ale, Belgian Wit, Organic Lager, Coffee Porter and Tankhouse Ale. In this blog, I recently looked at their Vanilla Porter, which was met with universal acclaim by both myself and my co-workers, Saga and Garth, who do not share my unholy love for hoppy IPA goodness. We also, much to all of our surprise, really enjoyed the Coffee Porter. In fact, it was the Coffee Porter and their Cobblestone Stout (also top-notch) that spring-boarded me towards tons of other new porters and stouts, all of which I have happily quaffed and written about. The Organic Lager outsells the others combined by a four-to-one margin for two reasons. #1) It's a nice light tasty lager and #2) you put the word "Organic" in a name and it clicks a "must-drink" switch in the minds of the countless hipsters, who can smugly say, "My beer's organic, man" before going back and pretending to look for jobs on their laptops when they actually playing Angry Birds because it's somehow "reflective of the socio-political imbalance in modern-day society, dude..." If I understand it correctly, you use a slingshot to shoot birds at pigs. Thus far, I haven't seen a lot of that going on in real life. The fact that birds come with wings actually seems to render the slingshot pointless.

I used to drink the cheap stuff until I became a Beer Geek

However, I had never tried their Tankhouse Ale, which has been sitting there in front of me for nearly a decade. Mostly because until this past June when I started this blog, I only drank lagers and pilseners and my discrimination was set to one criteria: what's the cheapest deal? That has since changed and for the sake of research, my fridge is always stocked hard with tasty craft stuff. Life's too short to drink cheap beer, as a wise man once said. (Which wise man? Well, you just read it here so... probably me.) So I had a Tankhouse Ale earlier in the week and was blown away. At 5.2%, this copper-coloured ale is powered by five different malts and Cascade hops. Though brewed as an American pale ale style, I'd suggest its lightly-spiced aroma suggests a slightly more complex dark ale with a light hop kick. It notched a nifty 93 on RateBeer and is deservedly their highest-ranked brew. It's been said this is actually their Brewmaster Joel Manning's long-time favourite beer and it's easy to see why.

Hey, I'm entitled to have a favourite and this Dark Lager is
mine. I have recommended this to countless customers...

Not long ago, the King Brewery's sales rep stopped into the store and I had a chance to talk to him about their Nobleton brewery. He was clearly proud of their dedication towards creating German-style beers here in Ontario. After writing about German beers a few blogs back, I figured it was clearly time to give their three beers in our store a taste-test as we sell their Vienna Lager, Pilsner and Dark Lager, all of them 4.8%. Their Vienna Lager, brewed under the eye of owner/brewmaster Philip DiFonzo, is a bold amber lager using Vienna malts and shows mainstream brewers how a lager SHOULD be brewed. I was also a big fan of their Pilsner with its Bohemian malts, Saaz hops and Czech yeast. But it was their Dark Lager that absolutely floored me. Using Dark Munich malt and Noble German hops, this is one of the few lagers that will give your tastebuds the same (but different) kind of kick that the hoppiest of IPAs do. It's a little heavy to drink all night but man, I always have some in the fridge here at Donny's Bar and Grill as a special treat after a long day. The King folks are missing my favourite German style of beer but we'll deal with that in my next Christmas Wish-List blog. Not saying what style. They'll have to... uh, wheat, I mean, wait for it.

Though their Summer Small Batch Mix-Pack was decent, they
totally nailed it with their Winter Small-Batch Mix-Pack...

These days, Brick Brewing out of Waterloo is best-known for its discount line of beers - the PC brands (don't worry, that stands for President's Choice, not politically correct - there is nothing politically correct about Canadians and their beers) and of course, their huge-selling Laker line. If Jim Brickman ever buys a yacht and doesn't called it "Laker Bought This", there is no justice. Granted, if I ever owned a yacht, I'd have to call it "Embezzled Money Bought This", drawing unnecessary attention to myself so maybe honesty isn't the best policy in the case of, well, naming yachts. But the brewery decided to create a Summer Small-Batch Brew mix-pack with tall-boy (473ml) cans with Waterloo Classic Pilsner, Waterloo Traditional IPA and Waterloo Jack Pine Belgian Ale. It was a good little mix-pack though I take issue with the IPA being called that - you don't smell hops, you smell hop. One hop. It's like an IPA with training wheels. It's a pale ale at best. But we'll deal with that on the Christmas Wish List.

I love Central City's Red Racer IPA. So how does their Pale
Ale, White Ale and Pilsner fare? They fare pretty damn well

But they definitely got it right with their Winter Small-Batch Brew Mix-Pack, including again, their Classic Pilsner but adding the seasonally-appropriate Waterloo Authentic Amber (6.8%) and Waterloo Union Mills Porter (7%). Why? Winter calls for heavier, higher-alcohol, warm-you-up beers and Brick did precisely that. The Amber uses Hallertou hops from Bavaria and five different malts while the Porter has nice hints of chocolate-roasted malts and both were tasty. For a medium-size brewery, this is a nice surprise, especially their use of high-test brews. Believe me, for a brewery this size, that is rare. Well done!

Let me explain how the hostage situation works in Canada...
It's very polite, eh? No hostages involved cuz we're hosers

Before they stocked out, I had a chance to try Central City's Red Racer Summer Sampler. Their Red Racer IPA is near the top of my list so how do their Pale Ale, White Ale and Pilsner fare? Pretty well, actually. The Pale Ale with its citrusy-melon aroma is nice surprise, making it a lightly-hopped pale ale that stands up well. Much like the Waterloo Amber, the Red Racer version uses a German-style Hallertou hop with German and Canadian malts. Fresh, clean... and a great palate cleanser. And the White Ale, a Belgium Wit-style... well, I knew this would get punished on RateBeer... and it was. That said, white (wheat) beers BELONG in a Summer Sampler and I, for one, thought this was pretty good. The usual hints of orange and coriander, yes, but certainly superior to other Canadian wheats I have had... except Howe Sound's King Heffy Imperial Wheat. No Canadian wheat is going to beat the Heffy. Ever. Hell, it beat out a number of German wheats! Kicked 'em right in the lederhosen.

Note to Rogue Ales: Now THAT'S a Canadian beerd!

To my friends at Rogue Ales in Newport, Oregon: a cautionary tale. Your Dead Guy Ale has been available in my city of Burlington, Ontario, Canada for a while now. Love it. But your Brutal IPA only recently became available. I tried it, I REALLY loved it. So I did what any rational man would do. Using the online product locater, I drove around and bought up every single 650ml bottle of Brutal IPA in Burlington. In essence, I have become the Burlington Cartel For Rogue Brutal IPA. You ever watch Breaking Bad? Yeah, you know what a cartel is. It's like the Mexican ones in Breaking Bad but being Canadian, much more polite. (Sorry about cornering your awesome IPA market, eh? No need for guns... let's watch some hockey, you hoser...) But here's the socio-economical conundrum you face now. On the social level, I have stopped other IPA lovers in Burlington from trying and enjoying your Brutal IPA by stockpiling it. On the economic side, while you were, in fact, a sold-right-out commodity up here (a real plus), demand now far exceeds the supply. Only you, Rogue Ales, can correct the market by sending more Brutal IPA here immediately. That's Burlington, Ontario, Canada. The city has zero Rogue Brutal IPA. Except my stockpile. And that's not gonna last forever. Also, I owe you an apology. I said I'd never try your Beard Beer or Voodoo Doughnut beer. Stevil St Evil, a Canadian ex-pat down there in New Zealand, said the Beard Beer was delicious. And his young Russian friend Alex, also in NZ, loved your Voodoo Doughnut beer and thought it kicked ass. (A little sweet for Stevil's tastes...) And she's, as mentioned, Russian. Not a culture that takes its booze lightly. Next time, I will try it before I critique it.

She's beautiful. She's sweet. Your parents love
her... But she's double-fisting Corona... with lime.
It'll never work, dude. Let her down easy, man...

Okay, next up... Session Beers: what's 5% or less but still tastes good? How is that Sawdust City Brewing's Long, Dark Voyage to Uranus Imperial Stout? Stop giggling! Oh... that was me. And the Lost Coast 8-Ball Stout? How is that? Will Rogue Ales response to my demands of more Brutal IPA? Why did my co-worker lose his shit when he saw a Toronto Maple Leaf logo on a Molson Canadian Aluminum Bottle? I went a whole blog WITHOUT mentioning some kick-ass IPAs... that's not gonna last. Plus a couple IPAs that were kinda... meh.

And shout-outs... as always. Okay, Stevil St Evil is worried, wondering what the hell happened to his brother in his last blog: Check it out here when Stevil wonders: My brother, Dave, used to have balls... where did they go? Meanwhile, my lovely young friend, Karolyn, continues to impress with her blog, Confessional of a Former Fat Girl where she wonders: Can I resist a burger fit for the gods???

And finally. a note of encouragement for my New Zealand friend, Neil. Keep going. Fish rocks. There's a millions of things you can do with seafood. I went three months. Beat my record. Because if you do, I'll do it again... and beat your record! Okay, folks, that's it... that's all... I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...

Which Canadian beer was among the 300 More Beers To Try Before You Die?

"I never said that... and you can quote me on that"

"Write drunk, edit sober..."
These words are famously attributed to Ernest Hemingway. One small problem. He never said that. "God bless the Internet and its uncanny ability to put never-spoken words in the mouths of famous people," as Abraham Lincoln also famously said. The quote is more likely to have come from Peter De Vries' 1964 novel, "Reuben Reuben", where the leading protagonist is based on notorious pisstank poet Dylan Thomas, who utters: "Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober."
In the case of a beer blog, it is unavoidable that on occasion, you will be wetting your whistle with tasty suds while happily tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard. Which is fine, of course. It's research, after all. But you can "over-research" at times (call that a "happy accident") so I will have to alter that initial statement thusly: "Write in whatever state you happen to be in at that moment. But never publish until you've read it again in the morning with a cuppa Joe."

"Winter ales are coming... to Brew Ha Ha... Perhaps
this Canuck nitwit will even stop with all the IPAs"

The reason? Well, lemme give you some scenarios here as to what happens when you revisit your beer blog the following morning with fresh bright eyes:
Scenario #1: "Whoa... where the hell was I going with this?" *delete, delete, delete*
Scenario #2: "This was a lot funnier last night. Somehow that short passage of time has turned comedic gold into Shakespearean-level tragedy." *delete, delete, delete*
And, of course, Scenario #3: "I'm not even sure this is in English. Somehow, that 10.7% porter gave me the ability to write in grammatically-incorrect Ukrainian." *delete, delete, delete*

How does Unibroue Grande Reserve 17
taste? Deliciously and bizarrely complex

That said, there are a number of other beer bloggers throughout the world that I follow regularly and at the top of the sudsy blog vat is New Zealand's Neil Miller, an erudite, witty and prolific beer writer/blogger. I don't always get his sports and political references because, well, he's on the other side of the world and 18 hours ahead of me so technically, he's writing from the future. Plus the man is a beer expert to the point of being a judge in beer competitions whereas I am merely a beer enthusiast... a beerginner, if you will. Anyway, when he wrote a blog about famed British beer author Roger Protz' recently-released book, "300 More Beers To Try Before You Die", my ears perked up, simply because there was a Canadian beer on that list. (Much to Neil's delight, there were eight Kiwi beers on Protz' list. New Zealand has a total population of 5 million and I swear to gawd, 578,000 of them must be craft brewers. Per capita, I swear that tiny island - islands, actually - has a bigger craft beer culture than even the United States.) And since Neil had a copy of Protz' tome in his hands, I asked him which Canadian beer made the cut. Turns out it was Quebec's notable Unibroue 17, now called Grande Reserve 17.

Cameron's Obsidian Imperial Porter: It's
rum-barrel-aged and, well, awesome

It took me over two months to actually find one simply because it's a limited edition seasonal. Turns out that Unibroue used to annually crank out a specialty beer named after their years of existence (Unibroue 15, Unibroue 16, etc) but stopped when they got to 17. Why? Because it's so damn tasty and was met with such public acclaim, they didn't bother to try and top it. And retiring it was certainly out of the question. Brewed in a Belgian strong ale style, this 10% offering, which won platinum awards three years running for "World's Best Dark Ale", will confuse the hell out of your taste-buds because it's so damn difficult to pin down what its flavour pods are. I couldn't put my finger on it and read 17 pages of RateBeer reviews to see what other drinkers found in this. The usual suspects came up: raisins, prunes, toffee, caramel... I was talking to another New Zealand comrade Stevil St Evil while I was drinking it, explaining that there was something in this but (you have to read this part in the hesitant speaking voice of Captain James T Kirk) I... wasn't... sure... what. Finally, after 17 pages of people basically disagreeing on what the flavour pods were, someone finally said "plum". Bingo! Unibroue continues to make the world's most complex and delicious beers, much to my delight. And for the record, a 99 on RateBeer and now, thanks to Protz, world-renown.

Finally! A Canadian wheat beer that
nearly matches the best German ones!

And speaking of delight, I stumbled onto two separate gold-mines from Cameron's Brewing in my hometown of Oakville. (The brewery is literally down the street from my Mom's house.) Our store sells four of their beers - Lager, Cream Ale, Auburn Ale and Dark 266 - and I'd suggest the auburn ale is the best of that list. But where this tiny brewery truly shines is in its single 650-ml bottle releases where it ventures off the beaten path and goes a little crazy. Their Rye Pale Ale is outstanding. I instantly detected grapefruit in its aroma although in all honesty, I almost always detect a hint of grapefruit when something is hoppier and at 6.6% and 80 IBUs (international bitterness units), this certainly qualifies as hoppy, which always makes me (quick vowel switch) happy. I'm a hoppy-happy kinda guy. For his part, my co-worker Saga almost always gets a hint of banana when a brew gets either hoppier or maltier. After that, it was onto their Obsidian Imperial Porter, which is rum barrel aged. The chocolate hints are the first thing you get from this malty sensation but it is so incredibly smooth that the high-octane 9.2% is basically masked. It walks a dangerous yet delicious turf, this one. These two notched respective score of 98 and 95 on RateBeer and I strongly urge you to try both... or simply pick the style you prefer. You know, if you wanna be a wuss... *coughs the name SAGA* (Just kidding, buddy... you're my amigo... can we switch shifts on Friday?)

Sawdust City's Lone Pine IPA, a feel-
good story from a tiny craft brewer

Since being bowled over by the German wheat beers a few blogs back which if you missed you can view here: Don Gets Bowled Over By German Wheat Beers A Few Blogs Back I have been actively seeking Canadian wheat beers of the same calibre. Saga suggested Rickard's White which is a nice summery beer but no, not even close. So when I stumbled onto Howe Sound King Heffy Imperial Hefeweizen out of British Columbia, I proceeded with caution. That turned out to be unwarranted. As Jesse Pinkman would say: this shit's the wheat bomb, yo! This time if Saga said he smelled bananas in the aroma, he would be spot-on. Coming in a distinctive 1-litre jug with one of those uber-cool (see the clever use of German there?) ceramic flip-tops, this wheat beer, brewed as a Weizen Bock is the closest that our country will come to the best German beer I ever tasted, a single bock wheat called Weihenstephaner Vitas. This is an outstanding wheat beer that, at 87 on RateBeer, outscored a number of the German wheats I tried (and loved). If you love wheats, you have to try the King Heffy which even at 7.7% is as smooth as Jean Luc Picard's head. (Oooh, two Star Trek references in one blog. My inner geek is showing...)

For all you do, this anything-but-Bud's for you...

And finally, a feel-good IPA story out of the tiny Sawdust City Brewing Company in Bracebridge, Ontario. The brewery made the tough decision to recall their October 25 batch of Lone Pine IPA, which had already been shipped out to LCBOs across the province. Why? They didn't think it was good enough. They thought it was good, mind you... but not good enough. Wow. For a craft brewer to take a full-body shot to their bottom-line like that? That had to hurt. To show support for the brewery, I "product-located" the beer and bought up the remaining stock of a fresh batch of Lone Pine. That's a considerably less magnanimous gesture when there was only two left on the shelf but hey, in the end, it was my pleasure. Aptly-named, there is some pine to the taste with - again - a hint of grapefruit in there. At 6.5% and 65 IBU, its medium hoppiness puts it close to the top with a solid 91 on RateBeer. Also in my fridge right now, a Sawdust City Long, Dark Voyage to Uranus Imperial Stout which, yes, I bought solely for the name because I am just that juvenile.

Next up: what Capital City Brewing did right with its Red Racer Summer Sampler. And what Brick Brewing also did right with its Waterloo Small Batch Winter Sampler... because this is Canada and we go from Summer to Winter in one day. And a couple of shout-outs. First on deck is Stevil St Evil who views across the Pacific Ocean to marvel at: The Crack-Addled AssHat That Is Rob Ford And then, of course, there's the lovely and very funny Karolyn who writes Confessional Of A Former Fat Girl near-daily. Here's today offering: Sweet! I have a hater!!! but do yourself a favour and click on past ones which are date-underlined. One clever lady. Oh, and to my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving Week. We had ours a month ago. Try the turkey, it was really good. Well, folk, that's it... I need a beer so I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...

From Germany to Oregon and back...

Is Rogue Dead Guy Ale a superior Maibock
to the German beers that are actually called
Maibocks? There's a skeleton on the label so
well, of course it is. It has a skeleton, people!

Where was I? No, seriously, where the hell was I??? Oh right, Brew Ha Ha! was visiting the beers of Germany... ein prosit, freaking outstanding wheat beers(!!! - that's right, three of those stick-dot punctuation thingeys), pretty ladies at Oktoberfest, damn solid pilsners and lagers... it's all coming back now... whatta fantastic trip...

Granted, I never left home. I like the way a beer blog works - it's like travelling the world... but you're at home in your underwear. Your Spider-Man underwear. (What? They're comfortable! And they have the maximum Comfort Level Of Holes For Men's Boxers - that's eight - one big hole at the waist with the elastic part, the two leg holes, the fly hole... and the four time-worn freebies for added ventilation...)

My sole complaint about the German beers: their Maibocks. Holsten made a helluva Festbock that I would drink anytime but the Holsten and Dab Maibocks were far too light-tasting. To me, they were barely distinguishable from the pilsners. That's not a bock. So where did I find a Maibock-style beer that was worth its weight in bratwurst and lederhosens? Rogue Brewery in Newport, Oregon.

Yeah, Rogue Beard Beer is NOT gonna happen with me.
Nope! Never! I strain enough beer through my Movember

Unwittingly, I bought a Rogue Dead Guy Ale and got a taste of what a Maibock-style beer SHOULD taste like. Truth to tell, I bought it for the name and label, not even knowing it was a Maibock-style - a skeleton crouching on a barrel of beer, holding a beer stein and wearing what appears to a religious hat of sorts on his bony skeleton head. How could I not buy it? Like many craft/microbrewery beers, it was a fluke of sorts. Created as a one-time thing for Day of the Dead Celebrations in Newport back in the early-1990s (just a couple of years into the brewery's existence), the beer took off with living and dead beer drinkers alike. The dead were less emphatic but still their enthusiasm was felt from beyond and Rogue kept producing it. Four different malts (two German), two different hops, it's smooth with a kick. This is one damn tasty maibock-style beer that calls itself an ale so it doesn't scare the living and dead beer drinkers of Newport. So naturally, I sought out other Rogue products and stumbled onto their Rogue Brutal IPA. Imagine that? Me finding a new IPA? What are the odds? (Las Vegas Note: The actual odds that he WON'T mention a new IPA he loves are 10,000-to-1...)

The Toppermost of the Hoppermost.
Shut up, that's a clever turn of phrase!

Shut up, Vegas! I thought your damn motto was that it "stayed there." Lying sacks o' crap. So yeah, Rogue Brutal IPA... if you love IPAs, grab one! Its IBU (international bitterness units) is a moderate 59 but it gets its kick from Oregon-grown Crystal hops - a triple hop with three separate strains. Another kick-ass IPA up there with Grand Rapids Founder's Centennial IPA, Barrie's Flying Monkey's Smashbomb Atomic IPA, Kelowna's Tree Brewing's Hop Head IPA and Surrey's Red Racer IPA - another top gun to add to the "toppermost of the hoppermost."

Brew Ha Ha! Sidenote: When The Beatles were playing their early live shows and honing their skills on the sleazy bar strip in Hamburg, Germany in 1960 and John Lennon saw the boys flagging, he yelled into the mic, "Where we goin', boys?" The answer they yelled back that was meant to perk them up when the booze and Percocets were wearing off: "To the toppermost of the poppermost!" Meaning the pop charts. Which, of course, they would in just three short years. And yes, I will acknowledge it's 27% less clever when I have to explain where I came up with "hoppermost"...  (Las Vegas Note: We'll pay even money that it's more like 77%)

Oh, will you shut the hell up, Vegas!!!!!!! Anyway, Brutal IPA scored 97 on RateBeer; Dead Guy snagged 92 - I would have said about 95, had I been voting. Two top-flight brews, both well-deserved marks, says this Spider-Man Underwear Beer Drinking Guy. Hey, at least I'm not naked. Usually.

♫ Whisper words of wisdom, let it Beer...

Two Rogue beers that I am not likely to try anytime soon, my brand new close and personal friends at Rogue Brewery who will say they've never heard of me but that's just a game we play. Okay, there's a Rogue Beard Beer, made from the yeast from... (just let me read this again... yeah, that's what I thought it said...) the yeast collected from brewmaster John Maier's beard. The fact that he looks like a lot like a young Fidel Castro doesn't bother me. I'm Canadian so I always kinda thought Castro was a cool dude. No beer embargoes here! No, it's the beard thing. That said, my buddy in New Zealand, Stevil St Evil just saw a crapload of Rogue beers land in his local pub, The Malthouse, and I sensed he was a little disappointed that Beard Beer wasn't among them. He's gonna have to wait because I have a pretty general idea of the export laws. Plants, animals, insects and nasty-ass yeast-filled follicle-beers are not allowed on trans-Pacific flights. (Las Vegas Note: Oh, now we're an export expert, are we? Five Rogue Brutal IPAs and you can't even say "export expert" five times fast, Beer Boy...)

Is this beer? Is it breakfast? A snack? Who knows?

The other Rogue beer that's not happening in Donny's Bar and Grill? This bright pink bottle that looks like Pepto-Bismo has been coming back in our empties at the Beer Store: Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate Peanut Butter and Banana Ale. I'm not saying Rogue brewmaster John Maier was blasted on 'shrooms when he concocted this one... (Las Vegas Note: we'll wager 6-to-1 he was)... but yeah, gonna pass. Hope my new best friends at Rogue (Las Vegas Note: they hate you, dude) don't mind if I stick with their top guns - Dead Guy Ale and the Brutal IPA. And Vegas, shut up. The guys at Rogue are bound to fly me out to Newport in a private jet to sample their other wares when they see this. (Las Vegas Note: Aaaaand the wagering opens to 999-to-one...)

Okay, screeching back to Ontario and bock beers here. At the Beer Store where I work, we have one customer who will wait until we have Creemore Springs urBock in stock and will grab 24 or 48 tall cans at once. That's not a cheap investment. The other four Creemore Springs beers (Premium Lager, Pilsener, Altbier and Kellerbier are the others) are good. Damn good, actually. So I asked him. Customers often point me to hidden treasures that are, in fact, right in front of my face. And this guy hoards it for a reason.

Creemore Springs urBock: as good as the German stuff

So I snagged an urBock which we get during select times of the year. Oh man, that's a tasty little treat. It got a bit of a bitch-slap on RateBeer (76) but it is, by far, the best Canadian bock I've ever had. This, people, is a bock that will stand against the best Europe has to offer. Dark, textured, earthy... oh yeah. Don't bother with the German stuff, except maybe Holsten Festbock. Start here with this. Stay here with this.

Okay, a few more recent Beer Store offerings. You want an amber ale to try? Start with the Tree Brewing's Thirsty Beaver Amber Ale. It got spanked on RateBeer but I'll tell you differently - this is a nice amber ale. Caramel malts, lightly hopped, I quite enjoyed it and would drink this any time. The same goes for Hop City's Barking Squirrel Lager. It starts crisp and malty like any good lager does but with 28 IBUs, it also has a little kick in the pants that most lagers don't have.

This squirrel looking dubiously at a hop
reminds me a little too much of my Beer
Store co-worker Saga. He denies modelling
for this cartoon squirrel. I have my doubts.

Like Thirsty Beaver, it also got bent over the car hood by RateBeer (both were high-30s) which is why I don't put ultimate stock in any beer rating system. Yes, I will clamour to get my hands on anything that's rated in the high-90s because you know it's a special treat. But some of the lower-ranked beers have to be tasted too because when you write a beer blog, well, that's happily called research. But Barking Squirrel won the Gold Medal for North American Style Amber Lager at the 2013 Canadian Brewing Awards. But the coolest thing about Hop City Brewing out of Brampton was that it was created by two brewmasters, John and Kevin, who started it as a labour of love. John first took a job at a brewery 20 years ago simply because his mother asked him not to (dude, I can so relate...) and Kevin happily admits the very first batch of Barking Squirrel was made in his kitchen. Also they both hate being called brewmaster, preferring just brewers, so there's something very unassumingly Canadian about that.

Another that was a pleasant surprise was the new Budweiser Crown brewed up here by Labatt's as an answer to some of the top-flight beers coming out of the craft beer industry. In the U.S., it's brewed by giant Anheuser Busch and goes by the name Bud Black Crown. I have had both and would give the nod to the Labatt's version brewed north of the 49th Parallel. At 6%, it's a strong lager with dark copper colours and slightly maltier tweaks. The Labatt's version has not been scored yet but I suspect it would land slightly higher than the 10 scored by Black Crown on RateBeer. Maybe a 15 or so. Lagers get creamed on RateBeer which actually makes Barking Squirrel's 38 all the more impressive. That's actually pretty high for a lager - the least-favoured beer style to the RateBeer dudes.

Made to honour Dallas Green who records music under the
name City and Colour when he's not being lead singer and
guitarist for Montreal's Grammy-winning group Arcade Fire.

Last on deck was a limited release - Flying Monkey's City and Colour Imperial Maple Wheat because well, if Flying Monkeys makes it, I'm gonna try it. It's that simple. At first, I nearly balked at the $13 price for a single bottle but when I did the Math - 750ml at 11.5% - I realize that was actually the same as five bottles of beer in one big-ass bottle. Okay, the overpowering maple flavour in this nearly knocked me out of my chair. (Las Vegas Note: we'll wager it was the 11.5%, you pussy.) Very tasty though a little too sweet for me. Some nice vanilla undertones if you can work past the maple. My co-worker Saga would absolutely love this one - he goes for the funky malty offbeat ones while I head in the hoppy direction. Made to honour Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green (that's him on the funky box there), this is the brewery's second limited edition nod to Canadian musicians, the first being the release of their Barenaked Ladies Chocolate Imperial Stout a few years back. Oh man, I wish I'd gotten my hands on one of those back then. I bet it was dynamite. RateBeer gave it a solid 99 while the Imperial Maple Wheat clocked in at a very respectable 80. Chocolate stout... lemme at it! With the Imperial Maple Wheat clearly being a dessert beer, I turned to the Beeroness, Jackie out of California who creates recipes using craft beer, to ask what this maple beer would work best in. I had been scoping out her dessert recipes and was stymied. Her answer was something that should have been obvious - her Vanilla Bean Smoked Porter French Toast recipe. Simply substitute the Porter with the Imperial Maple Wheat. Check it out right here: Beeroness French Toast (Las Vegas Note: Seems pretty obvious to us. Are you certain you're Canadian?)

Stevil St Evil and his fancy new Spiegelau IPA glasses

Okay, a few shout-outs. First to coworker Marie whose son Mark gave my son David some Marvel superhero drinking glasses as a gift recently. While David loves them, they also are the perfect size for the 473-500ml single cans I often buy. Had some Nickel Brook Headstock IPA out of the Iron Man glass yesterday. Is that a perfect IPA glass? Hellz no... but it's the coolest. The perfect IPA glass would come from the German company Spiegelau and is being modelled to the right by my beer drinking comrade, Stevil St Evil. To see Stevil's home movie on the new glass, which is funny due to both his cat Squeak's constant interference and the gratuitous use of the word "butt plug", check out his home video here: Stevil's Newest Toy If you're interested here in Canada, Sears sells them. And finally, my former Beer Store co-worker Karolyn, has started her own blog, Confessional of a Former Fat Girl. Click on that link and navigate through by clicking on the underlined dates. It is a very clever, highly amusing look at life after a 100 pound weight loss. I remember when she was still in school, KC had to write a treatment script for The Big Bang Theory and I was one of the select few she sent it to. Holy crap, she had me in stitches reading it. Lemme tell you else - with her long naturally red hair and always-smiling prettiness, this young lady, who was always one of my favourite co-workers, absolutely rocked a Black Widow costume this past Halloween.

Well, that's it, that's all... I am outta here! Until next time (which will be in a few days), I remain...