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...