Ontario, BC dominate the CBAs

Usually you have to be pretty baked for a statue
to talk to you, much less respond on Twitter...

The damnedest thing happened to me after I posted my last blog about funky old Canadian stubby bottle labels on Twitter. An inanimate object talked to me... Tweeted me, actually.

After posting it on Google+ and then Facebook, I went onto Twitter to post it there, as well... so that, you know, movie stars and supermodels had access to it because, well, we all know what dreary lives they lead. Anything I can do to help them through the tedium of their day. (And yet, still no Time Magazine Man Of The Year honours... what up with that, Time? It's not like I'm asking for the Nobel Peace Prize here... though you gotta assume that would follow, right?)

So I wrote, "A pretty cool look at some old Canadian stubby beer bottle labels... and who the hell is Frank Ney?" followed by the link. (The late Frank Ney was the long-running Mayor of Nanaimo, BC, and was pictured on a beer bottle label back in the 1960s - the lead-off to the blog.)

Almost instantly I got Tweeted back: "Who the hell are you?" The Tweet was from - I kid you not - Statue of Frank Ney (Twitter handle - @FrankNeyStatue).

When Brewmaster Adrian Popowycz shifted
from Black Oak Brewery to Great Lakes Brewery
in June 2011, it was the beginning of something
big for GLB, the Canadian Brewery of the Year

Well, after busting a gut laughing, I applauded the statue on Twitter for its clever and thoroughly unexpected comeback. But the statue wasn't done with me just yet. It Tweeted again: "There's a Frank Ney's Beer Drinking Game, by the way. Here's the details..." with a link, attached to the account. It said: "The Frank Ney's Beer Drinking Game is all the ladies take a drink and then give Uncle Frank a big ol' smooch."

I am quite certain that never before in my life has a statue made me laugh quite so hard, twice in one afternoon. Well played, you crazy-ass, slightly-perverted statue, well played...

Okay, last Saturday at the Fredericton Convention Centre in New Brunswick, the 2014 Canadian Brewing Awards were handed out and man, did some of our Ontario brewers do well. With Ontario and British Columbia virtually deadlocked, snagging 41 and 40 awards respectively, it was the Beast From The East versus the Best Of The West.

Hands down, the single biggest winner of the day had to be Toronto's Great Lakes Brewery, which captured Brewery of the Year honours for the second straight year.

Great Lakes Brewery goes two-for-two at the CBAs...

The brewery swept the American Style India Pale Ale, possibly the most fiercely-contested category of the event, with gold to their Thrust! An IPA, silver to their Karma Citra IPA and bronze to their My Bitter Wife IPA, a big favourite of Beer Musketeer Glenn, who I'll wager is on the verge of abandoning his hometown 5 Paddles Brewing and adopting GLB as his home brewer in its stead. If it means sleeping on an old army cot among their vats, well, that's a sacrifice he'd be willing to make, zoning laws be damned. After all, Beer Musketeer Cat has Amsterdam Brewery as a neighbour, here in Burlington, I have Nickel Brook Brewery while down in New Zealand, Stevil St Evil has his boys at Garage Project around the corner. Back to the point, the three winning Great Lakes' IPAs notched 94, 99 and 95 respectively on RateBeer.

Every single time Glenn has one of
these, he babbles on about Carrie
Nation, a driving force behind the
Temperance movement to whom this
beer is attributed. It's why we caution
all brewers: please do not put too
much reading material on your labels
because Glenn insists on reading us
every single word you have written.

Truth to tell, I haven't had the Thrust! or KarmaCitra, simply because I've never seen them. The craft breweries release so many one-offs and special editions that you may miss a few. But I have had the My Bitter Wife IPA and concur with Glenn. Huge citrus and pine on the nose, caramel and hoppy bitterness on the tongue, this is a strong IPA, part of the brewery's ongoing Tank Ten series. I reviewed their Lake Effects IPA, also part of the Tank Ten run, here sometime before Christmas and was equally impressed. This brewery absolutely continues to knock it out of the park with their IPAs. I am also a huge fan of their hoppy, punchy Crazy Canuck Pale Ale which is a regularly and happily-imbibed session beer here at Donny's Bar and Grill.

A surprise bronze winner in the North American Style Lager was Guelph's F&M Brewery's StoneHammer Light, which I had recently as part of a StoneHammer Mix Pack, which also contained my beloved Coffee Oatmeal Stout (the beer that kept me alive during the frigid outdoor Winter Beer Festival at Steam Whistle), their Pilsner and Dark Ale. The surprise is simply that a light beer snagged a medal in the hotly-contested lager category. With its slightly fruity apple aroma and malty corn on the tongue, this is actually pretty good for a light beer, which I never drink. Except it was in the fridge and the empty was worth 10-cents so...

For an Amber/Red Ale, this is my favourite IPA

Another surprise winner - and one I know will make Cat very happy - was the gold for Amsterdam's Boneshaker IPA in the North American Style Amber/Red Ale category, rather than the IPA division. That category clearly has a lot of latitude but frankly, I don't care because I have enjoyed many a Boneshaker over the past year. Another big Amsterdam gold went to their Spring Bock in the Traditional German Style Bock. Cat, who is trapped as an instructor at Music Camp this week, overseeing hundreds of elementary and high school students somewhere up in the Ontario boondocks, may or may not have tripped and accidentally had one of these fall into her mouth up there. Accidents happen. We'll know when she returns.

Okay, a category that had all of Beer Musketeers crowing with delight was the Imperial India Pale Ale where Barrie's Flying Monkey's Shoulders of Giants took gold while my homeboys Nickel Brook's Immodest IIPA took silver. We were all hoping these would land one and two, regardless of order. A while back, I noted these were the two best Canadian IIPAs I had ever had - and it's personally satisfying to see that validated here with the appropriate hardware.

Nickel Brook Brewmaster Ryan Morrow
added a number of feathers to his cap at
the CBAs with two Pale Ale medals and
another in the Imperial IPA category. He
collected another silver in the American
Style Black Ale for Malevolent BIIPA.

And finally, another category that has both Glenn and myself thrilled - the North American Style Pale Ale - where Glenn's favorite Rhyme & Reason by contract brewer Collective Arts Brewing took gold and my Nickel Brook besties took silver for their Naughty Neighbour APA. I'm claiming victory for both of these - sorry, Glenn - as Nickel Brook Brewmaster Ryan has created both. Quite a weekend for this young superstar.

And finally, a raise of the frosty mug to Ole Yale Brewery out of Chilliwack, BC, who took Beer of the Year honours with thir Sasquatch Stout - a beer that I, of course, now dearly want to sample. Further to that, even though I've only seen fuzzy pictures of him, I believe Sasquatch exists and my reasoning is that I've seen plenty of fuzzy pictures of me and I know I exist. As you can see, you cannot refute my logic because it is flawless. *Takes a bow... promptly trips...* Also to all the breweries that won and the especially strong showing from BC, cheers to you all! Okay, I included it last time but here it is again - the link to all the winners at the Canadian Brewing Award right here at: Cheers To Canada's Best!!

Courtesy of Stevil St Evil's Photoshop wizardry,  Cat gets pied by the
students at her Summer Music Camp in God-Knows-Where, Ontario

Glenn, too, has a thing or two to say in his blog about the CBAs in which he declares this: Ontario Crowned King of the IPAs.

Next up, holy crap on a stick, we have some treats for y'all. Lake of Bay's Cujo Blonde Ale is on deck, as is Left Field Brewery's Resin Bag IPA. Also in the line-up, straight from Denmark, Kaaad Spring IPA, Beau's All Natural Brewing's Wag The Wolf Hopfenweisse, Amsterdam Brewery's Framboise, a raspberry-infused fruit beer... and finally, the most mysterious, the most devilish and clearly the most evil of the bunch, Muskoka Brewery's Legendary Oddity, which coyly only described itself as a "Strong Flavoured Beer." If you don't hear from me, send the cops to Muskoka Brewery. Or go there yourself and demand some answers... and then politely ask for beer. And promptly forget about me. I would... if it was you.

Okay, guys and dolls, that's another in the books so... that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain as always...