Hathaway's British Pub and Walkerville Brewery

Here's some captured iPhone shenanigans involving me and
Sandi at Hathaway's British Pub back in February. I am
happily pounding Nickel Brook Headstock IPA out of my
cherished 32-ounce Molson Canadian skate/boot mug.
Apparently, Sandi is trying to help me lose my hiccups.
Nothing in this photo suggests anything of that sort...

Apparently, the weather is finally getting nicer up here in Canada. My upstairs neighbour, Amy, who I worked with at the Beer Store back in the 1990s (she has since gone onto another Canadian institution, Tim Horton's head office), texted me at work last weekend and told me to pop up to the patio at Hathaway's British Pub when I got home. Copious fun and often blurry, slurry nights on their patio happened with alarming frequency last summer.

Regarding our country's biggest doughnut chain, here's a quick Tim Horton's aside for those living outside Canada:
"It's over there beside the Tim Horton's..."
~ Directions to anywhere in Canada

This was the first patio outing for 2014, meaning it might be finally turning warmer after The Winter From Hell. Now whereas Donny's Bar and Grill on the lower level of this sprawling, luxury complex we all inhabit is truly Canadian (though with an infusion of outstanding American IPAs), Hathaway's British Pub upstairs has a distinct U.K. flavour simply because Simon is a Brit and is, in fact, the Hathaway half of the now Married-With-Child couple.

I say if Magneto and Professor X can mend fences over a
cold brew, then the whole world can. Beers for every nation!
These guys give us hope for growing older and having fun

You see some years ago, Amy went to visit the U.K. and had the time of her life. She also returned to Canada with Simon as her carry-on. How she jammed the lanky lad into the over-head remains a mystery to this day. No doubt it was this sort of flexibility that explains why Amy found him so gosh-darn attractive to start with.

So on this particular evening when I popped up, the patio was buzzing with others, including the Hathaway's British Pub neighbours, Stacey and Matt, as well as Dan and Sandi from the Beer Store's Draft Services department. Draft Services, for the uninitiated, are the people who take care of consumer kegs and pumps, as well as installing and servicing the draft lines in any number of bars. They are akin to Roman Gods for bar-owners. You don't have to kneel but kissing their rings is not out of the question.

♫ I GOTTA ANOTHER CONFESSION TO
MAKE... I LOVE BEER!!! ♫ If Dave Grohl
loves beer then you should also love beer.
No peer pressure but if you don't, it's uncool

As for Stacey and Matt, this was the first time I met Matt but I had briefly met Stacey last summer at one of these Hathaway's British Pub patio events. Last year, while we were all chatting, someone said something funny and I started to laugh... loudly. Stacey looked right at me and said, "So that's where that laugh comes from!!" For the record, she and Matt live on the other side of the building, one floor up. And she recognized my laugh. From that distance. Either she has a remarkably keen ear or I am incredibly loud. Let's bet on the latter. After all, it was Amy who first dubbed me with the nickname "Happy Happy Loud Guy" way back in the 1990s when we worked together. Thankfully, due to the fact it's too cumbersome a nickname, it never really caught on and was discarded quickly. Sometimes, the universe gives you a gift and you just quietly say "Thank you..." Regardless, first brews of the year on the patio at Hathaway's British Pub means winter is finally gone and the patio fun is about to start... oh, happy, happy, loudness!!

Okay, beer time, kids. My co-worker Marie recently cleaned up huge at Caesar's Palace in Windsor and wandered down the street to Walkerville Brewery, which was originally built way back in 1885 by none other than Hiram Walker, the distiller who created the internationally-popular Canadian Club whiskey.

Walkerville Brewing Company in its 1998-2007 incarnation.
According to locals, the beers were plain and uninspired
during this run. That has clearly changed with new owners.

Like most small Canadian breweries, this one has long persevered over the years, opening and closing, bankruptcy and solvency, lasting through Prohibition and during that time, becoming a key bootlegger to neighbouring Detroit, which was hailed as the wettest city in the USA during the booze ban, partially due to Walkerville. The old Walkerville Brewery building was demolished in 1962 and after a long absence, was reopened in 1998, just as microbreweries and craft brewers were sprouting up across Ontario. It went bankrupt in 2007, shut its doors, only to reopen in September 2012. This little brewery's been up and down more often than the toilet seats at a mixed college kegger.

So armed with all that cashola courtesy of an extremely loose slot machine at Caesar's (she won big, and I mean big, off the same machine twice in two days - certainly a rarity), Marie wandered down the street with her fella, Ernie, had a nice meal and some tasty brews there.

The beer menu at the Walkerville Brewery. Marie, who is
exploring new and different beers, had the Milk Stout and
absolutely loved it. I like the looks of the Loophole Ale

But gawd love her, on the way out, she grabbed me a litre mini-growler of their Indie Pale Ale (yes, Indie) with a brewery glass and another litre of their Honest Lager for our former co-worker Louise who now toils at another store. Now when new owner Chris Ryan reopened the brewery in 2012 with brewmaster Nick Posloski in tow, the first battle they had to fight was the memory of the 1998-2007 version of Walkerville, which according to locals, brewed up some lousy and uninspired beers. Based on just one beer, the Indie Pale Ale, I would suggest they're headed in the right direction. At 6.3% and just 55 IBUs (international bitterness units), this won't club you over the head but is, nonetheless, a very solid, very tasty IPA. Pine on the nose, orange peel and grapefruit on the tongue, this is the exact halfway point between a session IPA and a hop-bomb.

"You liked it?" Marie asked. "Okay, next time, I'll get you a growler!" Ummm, where do I sign? And is this dependent on a loose slot machine? I also plan to send her back with the one-litre bottle to be filled with their Loophole Ale. I asked Louise, a Coors Light drinker, how the Honest Lager was and she raved "that was delicious! Really, really good!" Marie and I will bend The Weez to our wicked craft-filled ways. Resistance is futile.

Normal is, indeed, weird to my
friends at Flying Monkeys...

My friends at Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Barrie have continued on with their "The Matador" series of beers. Last year, it was a Double IPA, which I missed but *choking up a little*... that's okay. It only got 97 on RateBeer. *Sniff* Damn allergies. This year, The Matador Version 2.0 El Toro Bravo is a brash Imperial Dark Rye Ale. The 10.1% spice-bomb is charged with Hallertauer hops and Spanish Cedar wood-aged in barrels. Oh man, spicy, spicy and spicy... Hell, it's the Spice Girls of beer but, you know... actually good. Toffee on the nose, spice and rye on the tongue, this is an explosive ale and hey, only available at the Beer Store. It's also only available if you get to it before me. Good luck with that. Some days, you're the matador... some days, you're the bull. I'm whichever is faster. (Four legs... let's assume the bull.)

Some funny doings with my boys at Nickel Brook Brewery here in Burlington recently. Popped in one day a while back for growler refills and saw my main man, Tony, out front tending to the gardens. "You know what I'm doing?" he asked. "Yeah, weeding the garden as it's finally Spring," I replied. "Nope," he chuckled, "Planting a weed." Turns out a customer had given them a hop plant - not sure which hop - and Tony was giving it roots in a tiny back corner of the garden. I check on my little hop plant (I've adopted it - don't tell them) every time I go now. It's a sickly little weed-looking thing at the moment. But one day, it will be a mighty hop plant. Gonna put little chalk marks on the wall behind it as it grows. Because that's what you do for your children...

During the past long weekend, Great Lakes Brewery
asked Facebook readers to send in their pics of their long
weekend to win swag. Beer Musketeer Glenn sent in this
 shot of him with My Bitter Wife IPA with the caption  "She
may be bitter but I love her. All three of her" and got a
 "well played, sir" from the brewery. However, from Stevil
St Evil, he got "Wanna help me find my lost kitty?"
while I went with the obvious "Who likes candy?"

And I had a young new server at the brewery this past week, who I had never seen before but all the same, looked vaguely familiar. "How long have you been here?" I asked. "All my life," he smiled. Turned out it was owner John's son, Nick - the Nickel part of the brewery name while his sister, Brooke, completes it. Nick has just finished his first year at Wilfred Laurier University, where he's taking business and finance. "Gonna take this place over some day?" I asked. "I hope so," he smiled. Nice kid... and good for him.

Okay, so many beers I never got to including Hop City Big Mouth Pale Ale, Arch Brewery's Dinner Jacket O'Red IPA (which Beer Musketeers Cat and Glenn had here at Donny's Bar and Grill), Great Lakes' My Bitter Wife IPA you see here with Glenn, as well as Lake of Bays Brewery's Cujo Blond Ale, Left Field Brewery's Resin Bag IPA (a recommendation from Melissa, Toronto Craft Beer Queen), Hopus Strong Blonde Ale from Belgium (Beer Musketeer Cat's recommendation), two beers from Trafalgar Ales and Meads because Beer Musketeer Glenn asked me to give the Oakville brewery a second chance and the Okanagan Springs Craft Mixed Pack, which is now available at Beer Stores.

Okay, before I go off the clock, my buddy, Joe, sent me this awesome video, Mind Throwing A Beer My Way? which shows some pretty creative ways of giving a bro his beer. Note: use cheap beer, such as they did with Old Milwaukee because it ends up everywhere. Turns out this is their second outing... here's the first called: Hey, Pass Me A Beer!

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