The fine art of Day Drinking...

How do you transition from coffee to beer?
Well, you need that stepping stone better
known as Mill Street Coffee Porter. Perfect!

Some things are not for the weak of heart - rollercoasters, sky-diving, bungee jumping, haunted house tours, visits from the mother-in-law, your lady saying, "I'm fine..."

The same could be said about Day Drinking with Stevil St Evil, the scourge of Wellington, New Zealand, a party-hearty no-good-nik of Boris Badenov proportions. (Yeah, if you're under 30 - or even 40 - you may have to Google that cartoon reference.)

Fortunately, when it comes to a challenge, especially one that involves the copious consumption of craft beer, my Scottish side goes all Braveheart ("You can take my life but you can't take my beer!!! I mean, freedom!!! But especially beer!!") while my Irish side probably already has a three beer head-start.

While Steve landed on a Tuesday night (chronicled with disturbing accuracy in my last blog), Wednesday would be a day of nothing to do and there's nothing a couple of guys like Steve and me enjoy more than a day with zero responsibilities. Eat, drink, chill - repeat as necessary. As you can see from above, we, of course, started the day with coffee (and lots of it) before transitioning to beer with Mill Street Brewing's Coffee Porter. "I love the light coffee in this," noted Steve when we began the festivities at 11 a.m. "This is a really nice start-your-day porter."

In addition to be one of the last few standing during our
Thursday night Humber College Journalism Reunion,
Amy would do both of us a pretty huge solid on Friday.

And from there, we continued on like the good soldiers we are. (Joint beer reviews coming below.) All day. In fact, we were out on my patio for so long, I'm surprised the Mennonites didn't come along and build a bar around us. When we decided to watch the Stanley Cup final hockey game between Chicago and Tampa Bay at 8 pm, I made the mistake of lying on the couch to watch. I was asleep within minutes. Steve was still awake, watching TV with his laptop on the Lazy-Boy when I woke up at 2 a.m. Casual beer was consumed because there is no "last call" at Donny's Bar and Grill until Steve finally nodded off at 5 a.m. I'm not entirely sure he's even human.

But Thursday night was the big one - a mini Humber College Journalism Reunion, featuring the pair of us, Beer Bro Glenn, the unflappable Steve Pecar, ginger-fro-ed Ann Cavanaugh, as well as the Beer Store contingent of Gordo, Amy and Sandi. Mr Pecar would bring a special guest - an apple pie the size of New Hampshire. My son and I had that for dessert for three consecutive days before it was gone. The burgers were left to me and my barbeque while Ann bought the fixin's for a salad - the food that my food already ate before becoming my food. That's how I eat my salads - secondhand via the cow.

Underdog Brewing's (Oshawa) All
Or Nothing Hopfenweisse was a big
hit during one of our Day Drinking
sessions. Steve declared it the best
Canadian wheat he had ever tried.

When meal-time came, Amy asked Ann if she could prepare the salad and goose it a little. Ann said have at it so Amy went to her place for some goat's cheese, pickled beets and then fried up some bacon to add. Now we're talkin' salad! In fact, if you add the bacon bits and forget the salad parts, that's still a damn good salad. Anyways, food was happily consumed (flame-broiled dead cow - always a hit), many, many outstanding beers went down and stories of the good old days at Humber many moons ago were recalled in all their gory glory. Only Glenn, who had done one of his infamous border runs for Stone Brewing products, Steve and Amy were still up for the count when I finally wandered to bed in the wee wee hours of the morning.

However, Amy did Steve and me a huge solid on Friday, knowing his flight to Vancouver was leaving at 8 pm. "Look, it's Steve's last day here. Why don't I take you guys to the airport so you can drink some beers during the day?" Offer... accepted!!!! (This is why I love my friends.) But Glenn has his own challenge on Friday. He ran part of the torch relay from the Pan-Am Games through Oshawa... the day after this big bash. We envisioned him, face-planted on the asphalt, writhing in pain and sputtering, "Damn you, Redmond and Cossaboom!" So, really, the same as college.

Look at our Beer Bro Glenn go! He was all bright-
eyed and bushy-tailed for his portion of the Pan-Am
Games' Torch Relay on the Friday after our huge
college bash. Didn't know the old fart had it in him!

Now don't get me wrong - he pulled off the 200-metre (a couple of football fields and a bit) run, carrying a flaming object without incident. I'm proud that my Beer Bro Glenn did the Torch Run because if it was me? I'd be lighting a smoke off the thing 50-metres in and asking the organizers, "There's a bar at the end of this arduous journey, right? I'm pretty sure that was my only request."

But Amy's Airport Limo offer meant Steve and I could also meander over to Rib Eye Jack's Ale House where he could finally meet my Beer Technician Kylie, allowing them to swap hophead stories. If you recall, Steve brought Kylie an Epic Hop Zombie, Garage Project's Death From Above and Panhead's The Vandal - all top-rated IPAs from New Zealand. Her favourite? Death From Above from Steve's local brewery. A spicy, muy caliente bit of IPA goodness. And since he brought my beer expert over some of the Kiwi classics, he was sent back to New Zealand with the motherlode of Canadian craft beers, plus assorted trinkets, for his beer expert, Neil Miller, New Zealand's Beer Writer of the Year. Because something, something... pay it forward. I wasn't really paying attention during that movie, to be honest. I think the kid saw dead people or something.

The Junction Craft Brewing's Engineer
IPA is an interesting beer. At first, it
comes off quite malty but eventually,
the hops do rise to the surface. I've only
had a couple of their beers and haven't
been blown away but truth to tell, I
ended up quite enjoying this offering. 

But as Mr T would say, "Enough jibber-jabber!", meaning it must be Beer O'Clock at Donny's Bar and Grill. As I did last time, these will be voice recorded musings from both Steve and myself, talking about some of the beers he had while here in the Great White North.

Okay, first up would be Great Lakes Brewing's Thrust! An IPA, which won gold at the Canadian Brewing Awards in 2014 and silver this year. Me: "Getting a really nice citrus, mango, fruity smell off this." Steve: "Oh, this is top notch. In the upper echelons of the best IPAs." Clearly a winner, especially for a Hop Ho like Steve. (I'm a hophead, Steve's a total slut.)

Now when we lived in Toronto, Steve and I both lived in the western Junction area of the city. At that time, it was a dry section, no licensed bars, nothing - nor had there been since the early-1900s even after Temperance was repealed in the Province in 1927 (a few years ahead of the USA). Granted, that didn't stop Steve and me but that has also changed in our absence as not only is it a wet community now but there's a small brewery right in the middle, Junction Craft Brewing. I've reviewed one of their beers before, the Conductor's Craft Ale, and liked it. Didn't knock me over but a solid entry. Their Engineer's IPA also was a bit of a puzzle at first. Me: "It smells hoppy on the nose but when you drink it, it's more malty than hoppy." Steve: "It needs more hops, less malt." Me: "Okay, it starts to grow on you. This is actually pretty interesting." Steve finally figured out what Junction was trying to do. "I think they've tried to mash together a malty British IPA style with a hoppy West Coast IPA because there's strong evidence of both in this. It's actually pretty decent. It's certainly different."

Despite being Hop Dudes, the Blacksmith
Smoked Porter from South River's Highlander
Brewing Company knocked us both for a loop...

On deck was the Highlander Brew Company's (South River, Ontario) Blacksmith Smoked Porter. I believe I've had this once before at a Beer Festival somewhere. But it was like I was tasting it again for the first time. Me: "Okay, getting the usual porter smells. Coffee, maybe licorice." Me, seconds later: "Oh my. Holy (bad word)... are you getting this taste?" Steve: "Oh yeah. I say top flight, world-class, really, really good porter. One of the best I've ever had. Really nice. Good job, boys." Me: "Oh, that's delicious." Steve: "That's absolutely beautiful." And with that, Steve went on Twitter and added Highlander, just so he could praise this beer to them. They thanked him accordingly. He had countless great Ontario craft beers during his time here, mostly IPAs, but this one? This will be the one he remembers. (Neil Miller, if you don't see this one? Steve drank it.)

The next one confused me a little because I thought it was made by Gigantic, out of Portland, the craft beer capitol of the world. Turns out it's a collaborative effort between them and Beau's All Natural Brewing in Vankleek Hills, Ontario. This would be the La Formidable American Belgo-IPA.

Is that a Transformer holding a gigantic beer? It may well
be. Because Transformers love the American-Belgo IPA

Now, American IPAs are notorious for being hoppy while due to the yeast used, Belgian IPAs are mostly spicy. So this beer compromised and was both hoppy and spicy! See? Matter met anti-matter. No one died. It's all good. Steve: "Top notch. Excellent blend of the styles." Me: "Hoppy, really nice and getting some spice on the tongue."

Then came the Underdog Brewing's (Oshawa) All or Nothing Hopfenweisse - a wheat beer that frankly is one of the best in this country. With three malts and four hops, this ain't your Daddy's wheat beer. Me: "All banana on the nose. Quick taste of bubble-gum that disappears very fast and then more banana." Steve: "Wow! This is really good. We have some top-flight wheats in New Zealand and this is as good or better than those." He takes another sip. "Yeah, this is outstanding. Some undercover hoppy goodness for a wheat."

This nice young lady from Trafalgar Brewing served me
some of their Mighty Oak Imperial Brown Ale at the
Launch Party for the Burlington Beer Festival a couple
of weeks back. Goddamn, that's a really tasty brown ale
and believe me, I don't say that phrase very often at all.

There's a couple more but we'll get to them next time. But hey, a little more than a month left until the Burlington Beer Festival. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I met co-organizer Wayne Brown at Rib Eye Jacks yesterday and he told me they were locking down Brewery #31 for the party. And get this. There are two cider booths and two Ontario wine booths there. I think that's cool. I don't drink wine but I understand some people in this city do. At least, that's what I've heard. Also, because Spencer Smith Park in Burlington is the size of 57 football fields, Wayne is trying to get an art component in there, which would be very cool. Stay tuned. Now I suggested to Wayne that we hold a "Win A Dream Date With Kylie" contest. He totally agreed that was a great contest. But Kylie had an even better idea. "How about we don't do that?" Okay, guys, sorry... maybe next year. Don't feel too badly, boys. She already knows way more about craft beer than you. It's not emasculating if you appreciate craft beer knowledge... which you should. (Steve: "Holy crap, she knows her stuff!") So go to: burlingtonbeerfest.com for the juicy details.

But gang, cashing my chips in. Next up, Block 3 Brewing out of tiny St. Jacobs. Ontario and what co-worker Marie brought me from them. Also that Goose (Island) IPA. Who makes it? Who doesn't? What's the dealio? But guys and doll, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!! Until next time, I remain...