Burlington Beer Fest goes two-for-two!

Talk about a Beer Fest win for this guy! I scored
a hug from Trish Watson, co-founder and "Beer
Goddess" of Ottawa's Turtle Island Brewing...

Think of the large rectangular room in the Waterfront Hotel that housed the Burlington Winter Craft Beer Festival on February 7 the same way you would think of a clock. When Beer Musketeer Glenn and I wandered in, we immediately turned left to scope out the vendors set up around the room.

Well, I didn't get past 1 o'clock because the first vendor, Mill Street Brewing, had a new Oatmeal Stout, they brought specially for the event. (Burlington's getting its beer cred, yo!) Some beers call your name gently... like the ones in the magical beer fridge at Donny's Bar and Grill. (The rest of you likely refer to it as your food fridge - to you I say just this. Stock up on non-perishables, you're taking up valuable beer space!) But then there are beers that scream your name and pull on your hair. A specialty Oatmeal Stout from the good folks at Mill Street? Yeah, totally a screamer. But we'll get back to that in a minute or 12, depending on your reading speed.

A lot of great, familiar names in the Ontario craft brewing circled that room - Flying Monkeys, Amsterdam, Muskoka, Beau's All-Natural, Cameron's, my hometown home boys, Nickel Brook... all the major players. But at 10 o'clock, I got the nicest surprise. I spotted the Turtle Island Brewing table, (wo-)manned by none other than the brewery's co-founder Trish Watson.

Beer Musketeer Glenn chatted up the couple manning the Beau's
All-Natural Brewing. He was a hophead, she was a malt fan. So
it made for some pretty fun conversation, talking with this pair...

I have met Trish exactly once - on July 19 last year at the inaugural Burlington Beer Festival. So I walked up and said, "Hi, Trish, I don't know if you rememb..." That's as far as I got. "Don! How are you?" she said, wide-eyed, rushing around the table to give me a big hug. That, in a nut-shell, gives you an idea of the Ontario craft breweries' sensibility. They not only truly appreciate their customers, sometimes they even remember you by your first name. (As well as Don, I would have also accepted Loud Guy From The Summer or Smells Like A Funky-Ass Barn Dude.) But not only did Trish remember my name, she quickly snagged my glass and filled it with their Ixcacao Triple Chocolate Stout, my all-time Turtle Island favourite.,, and it was a hefty, healthy pour.  And I came back later for their Melted Butter Ixcacao, in which the stout was mixed and warmed up with crockpot melted butter.

This time the Burlington Beer Festival organizers did us a huge
solid with proper glasses. These Winter Beer Fest glasses were
nearly 12 ounces and made for more than a few "healthy" pours!

Before I go any further, let me start with huge props for the organizers. When Beer Musketeer Cat and I did the inaugural Burlington Beer Festival back in July, we were given these four or five-ounce no-name plastic cups at the gate in Spencer Smith Park. They looked like something you'd put a boozy Jello Shot in. But on that soggy summer afternoon, Matty from Nickel Brook took care of that quickly by grabbing our little plastic cups, pitching them and handing us proper Nickel Brook 10-ounce plastic cups - my guys take good care of me. "Even your half-pours will be a better deal," he sagely advised. As it was pouring down rain and attendance was sketchy, there were not many half-pours that day. Equally possible, I may have double-downed chips at most booth. Not a concern at the Winter Craft Beer Fest as the folks gave us all the biggest glass I've had ever seen at any festival. Big ol' manly-men glasses for manly-men Fest-goers... as well as me and Glenn. Dangerous in my hands, yes, but a real boon for others! This glass beast has to be close to 12-ounces, which is phenomenal for any Fest. Also on the Saturday, the festival hours ran from 12 noon to 11 pm, also unheard of. Even the Toronto Festival of Beers, the province's largest, shut down by 8 pm on the Saturday (though the Friday night session, which opens at 4 pm, runs until 10 pm.) So the Burlington gang is going full-throttle with their Beer Fests!

When you see the colourful folks from Barrie's Flying Monkeys
Craft Brewery, you know you're at a good Beer Fest. If you see
actual flying monkeys, that can mean you've been over-served...

But before we even arrived, Glenn and I had some prep work to do. You see, Glenn had done another of his infamous USA border runs whereby he smuggles top-flight beer back into Canada but this time, he used a new technique. He put it all into his passenger seat in full view and was prepared to pay the duty. The Canadian Border Guard was mystified and assuming there had to be more in the trunk, inspected it but found nothing. Rather than point him over to the duty area, he shook his head, muttering about about sanity and waved him through. No duty, no nothing. Let's assume those rectally-inserted horseshoes made Glenn's drive to my place a little uncomfortable.

But the dude's a gamer as he brought me back some of my beloved Stone Ruination Double IPA, a Stone "Best Before" 02-14-15 IPA (not coincidentally my birthday) and a couple Green Flash West Coast Double IPA. That earned him a BBQ steak and french fry dinner at Donny's Bar and Grill which was liberally washed down with a growler of Nickel Brook's Headstock IPA and another Yankee find, a Firestone Walkers (Paso Robles, California) Double Jack IPA.

The Burlington Beer Festival was busy throughout
January, promoting its Winter Session at venues and bars
throughout the city, such as Shoeless Joe's on Brant St.

Glenn loved the extra-hoppy punch to the nose of the Headstock fresh from the growler and noted that one of the guys at his local 5 Paddles Brewing said Nickel Brook Brewmaster Ryan had a reputation within the craft industry of being a "hop genius." After the growler but before our departure, we decided to split that big bottle of Double Jack. Well, at 9.9%, that may have been a mistake (I believe the Math was: "Okay, we're splitting it. That's like 5% each"), especially after a growler, but hey, that was one damn delicious mistake. All tangerine and grapefruit on the nose, this double IPA finishes on the tongue with a long, bitter, piney taste. A freakin' bomb-blast!

As well, earlier in the day, high atop his perch in Wellington, New Zealand, Beer Musketeer Stevil St Evil cyber-walked me through how to use the Voice Recorder on my new Smart Phone. Despite the phone's Notepad app, Stevil noted, "It's easier than typing yourself notes once you're a few beers into the Fest." An excellent idea but one small problem. Let's assume your normal speaking voice is a volume of one. Well, when you start with a growler and Double Jack DIPA before you even leave, your volume is already at five. And each progressive recording throughout the night got louder and well, more filled with profanity. While everything I said was positive, I suspect the brewers would be somewhat amused (or maybe disturbed) to hear how their beers were described in my phone. More and more F-Bombs went into my descriptions as the evening wore on. Samuel L Jackson might as well have been recording it.

The chap at the Mill Street Brewery table said
that there were no plans to release this awesome
Old Fashioned Oatmeal Stout commercially yet.

So let's get to those, shall we? Mill Street Oatmeal Stout was "really nice. Smooth. Chocolate and oats on the nose, chocolate and coffee but no bitterness on the tongue." Okay, no swearing yet. Next up was the Turtle Island Ixcacao Triple Chocolate Stout was "exactly like I remember it. Chocolate and coffee on the nose, all bitter-sweet chocolate on the tongue." No swearing yet but I inexplicably refer to the beer as Ixpaxa. Next one, we veered off path. Glenn told me to pick his next beer so I marched him over to the Nickel Brook booth and he received the Maple Porter. So I held up the mic to him and said to describe it. "Hmmmm, well, let's see. Tasting chocolate and coffee. This is really good." Actually, there's also a presence (but not overpoweringly so) of maple as the brewery uses actual maple syrup rather than just maple flavouring. But still no swearing. Next up, I had the Flying Monkey's Division By Zero Imperial Nut Brown Ale, which clocks in at 11%. Okay, now the swearing begins so rather than use the actual wording, I will substitute the words "fluffy bunny" which should offend no one... unless you despise or were viciously attacked by a fluffy bunny as a child. "Holy fluffy bunny, this has a lot of kick. And I fluffy bunny doubled up!" I went on...

Our good brewing friends from South River's
Highlander Brew Company travelled down
Hwy 400 for three hours to attend the
Burlington Winter Craft Beer Festival but
I don't remember the cat joining them...

"Lessee, spice and nut on the nose, Toffee and fig on the tongue. Boozy warmth with the swallow." I next wandered over to the Bayside Brewing Company, simply because I hadn't heard of them before. Situated on the north shore of Lake Erie in the tiny village of Erieau between London and Windsor, they brew only four beers thus far. If I have their history correctly here, two couples, Ken Royal, Nancy Cowan, Frank Thompson and Josette deBrouwer took over the run-down Tilt'N Hilt'N Hotel and revamped it into a brewpub/brewery on the sunny shores of Rondeau Bay not long ago. They are growing slowly but steadily with the "support and encouragement of the (Erieau) villagers." Okay, so I tried their Brown Ale and described it thusly. "Much milder and a lot thinner than the Division By Zero. Some caramel on the nose, light maltiness on the tongue..." See, not a single swear word? But I replaced that with stupidity by declaring, "This is a really nice dark lager." Which, of course, it is not - it's an ale. I think the Division By Zero is what I like to call the Teeter Beer - the one that sends you over the edge from vaguely-knowledgeable Beer Geek to stupid-ass Frat Boy. And finally, I went back to Turtle Island because I had to try the hot butter infused Ixcacao which I was likely calling El Taxi Cabo by this point. I suspect my review was perhaps a little too vocal (let's assume volume 10) for the immediate crowd but it went like this: "Hot buttered double fluffy bunny chocolate beer. Holy fluffy bunny, this is fluffy bunny awesome!!!" Now I say I might have been a bit loud because at that point, a really nice man named Wayne suggested very politely to Glenn and me that, hey, you guys look like you could use a cab. We said, "Hey, capital fluffy bunny idea, Wayne!" and off we went into the Burlington night.

And so it was. Kudos to Stevil for the Vocal Recording idea... simply because it was hilarious to listen to the next day. And biggest Kudos of all the the organizers of the Burlington Winter Craft Beer Festival - you folks are putting us on the map!!! See you in July but I promise... without the growlers and the Double Jack IPAs first! I will start by speaking at volume one. Eject me at about volume seven. But guys and dolls, that's it, that all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain, as always...