Rib Eye Jack's Beer Fest

My coworker and bro Jay-Dawg (the good looking
one on the left, not the skeevy hippie) had some very
good fortune this year as his birthday happened to
be the same day as Rib Eye Jack's annual Beer Fest

Birthdays are a funny thing. They can fall on a good day or conversely, a bad one. Suffice it to say, if your birthday is December 25th, such as my coworker Marie, it's gonna suck for you all your life. I would suggest the only worse day than that would be January 1st because, well, no one is gonna be in any kind of shape to help you celebrate it.

My birthday is February 14th and lemme tell you, that's a mixed bag at best. I mean, it's kinda my day, right? So I am pretty much the only guy I know who actually get gifts on Valentine's Day. But on the other hand, if I'm with somebody, well, it's probably wise to give her something too. Whoever said, "Giving is better than receiving" was a freak. Receiving rocks, especially when it's beer.

Now my coworker and good buddy, Jason, a.k.a. Jay "like the letter", happens to have his birthday on October 25th. Meh, a pretty nondescript day, I would ordinarily say. Except this year as it happened to fall on the same day as Rib Eye Jack's Ale House's Beer Fest.

The big man on the right is Jason, a Twitter buddy who I finally
met, as well as his wife Susan (in the stripes) and friend Daria.
I knew Jason was a huge Hamilton Tiger Cat fan but what I didn't
know about him was he is the size of the entire Ti-Cat front line!

It's kinda nice when the party is already planned for you, I say. So our little "party of six" descended on the bar, ready to rock out Jay-Dawg's b-day at this four-hour (noon to 4 pm) event. As well as me and Jay, there was his younger brother Jonny and his girlfriend, Alex, both former coworkers of mine, as well as fun-loving couple Steve and Sarah.

Now before I get too far into our beer-driven shenanigans, a quick word about the annual event. It was a mere $25 to get into the door but that money is earmarked for the Joseph Brant Hospital Foundation. Thus by drinking and eating excessively, we were actually doing noble charity work at the same time. And I will repeat that until I actually start believing it... so chew on that, Mother Teresa! And secondly, a raise of the five-ounce sample cups to Rib Eye Jack's GM, Steve, who busted his hump getting some outstanding craft brewers to this event. Among them were: Innocente Brewing (Waterloo), 20 Valley Brewing (St. Catharine's), Bayside Brewing (Erieau) Flying Monkeys and Barnstormer breweries (both from Barrie) Muskoka (Bracebridge), Great Lakes (Tarrana... sorry, Toronto) Creemore (Creemore Springs). Mill Street, Amsterdam and Steam Whistle (more Taranna), Big Rock (Calgary), Lake of the Woods (Kenora), Sleeman's and Okanagan Springs (Guelph and Guelph via BC), my home-boys Nickel Brook plus a distillery, mixing up rusty nails using Grant's Scotch and Drambuie. There were food stations scattered throughout - let's face it, this was gonna be a win-win day of pounding beer noble charity work on our behalf.

Andrew Hill's acoustic sets were the
background music of the day. At one point,
Alex was watching, turned to me and said,
"This guy is really good!" Indeed, he was.
Built-for-football Jason took this picture

Courtesy of the fine taxi service provided by Upstairs Amy and her son James, I arrived a little bit ahead of the rest my party of six, all of whom live in the same condo complex, literally five minutes up the road. But once they landed, it was game on. Jay had collected money for their tickets (which I had pre-purchased) and gave it to me when he came in. I instantly handed him back his ticket money because, let's face it, when else are you gonna get a birthday buddy fully fed and half in the bag for $25? I think I got off pretty easy there. (But at the same time, I was drinking too doing noble charity work so don't you judge me!)

But the purpose of events such as this, for me anyway, is to meet as many craft brewery people as possible. I met them all, in fact, so good on me. I'm pretty sure Jay and Jonny did, as well, chatting up everyone while Steve was probably on a first-name-basis with every food server there. If I had to guess, I'd say Steve probably weighs about 170 pounds and I personally saw him eat 50 pounds of food. But it was our ladies, Alex and Sarah, who were impressively out there, finding new discoveries. At one point, they came flying back to our portion of the bar, excited about a new beer from Sleeman's, their Dark Chocolate Lager. So of course, I wandered over to the Sleeman's-Okanagan Springs booth and tried it out. Talking to Chris at the table, he told me the beer would be included in their next seasonal mixed 12-pack.

Okay, Shayn from Innocente Brewery was
a great guy to talk to. As one of their sales
reps, he's the guy going into the LCBOs,
trying to convince them to carry some of
the Waterloo brewery's line. Being that I
consider both Innocente and Toronto's
Rainhard Brewing to be the best new
brewers in the province, it should be a
piece of cake. But it's long, hard work.

The beer tasted pretty good - the chocolate was prominent - but what impressed me even more was that Sleeman's is pushing harder to brew unique beers. They are considered, by most, to be one of the bigger breweries now so they could easily rest on their laurels. But they're now going beyond their safe zone and trying new things. They know their Original Draught and Cream Ale will still sell a crap-ton - they certainly do at Jay and my Beer Store - so I like that they've pushing themselves to the place where they're saying, "Don't rule us out, people." Also any time that any brewery tries to up the game on any lager? Big thumbs up from this guy.

Speaking of cream ales, there was a newcomer there - 20 Valley Brewing, out of St Catharine's. I asked the two nice ladies what they had brought this fine day and it was a cream ale. Not exactly my favourite style but you know I'm gonna try it, right? Actually, it had a nice little tang to it. I would drink this again. Talking to the ladies, I asked about the brewery, which I had to confess I had never heard of. "Oh, we're new," smiled one. "How new?" I asked. "Three weeks old," she answered. Whoa. That's new. Like baby giraffe can't even stand up on its wobbly legs yet new. They have no presence on either Google or RateBeer yet - they're that new. So I complimented them on the beer, which I thought was pretty solid and a guy off to the side with a beard said, "Thank you." Ahhh, there was a brewer in our midst. They lurk in the background, hiding in the shadows... like ninjas! Rib Eye Steve, who knows all and sees all, told me they contract out of a Niagara Falls brewpub called Taps.

Adam from Flying Monkeys showed us the coiled inner
cooling system of their draught dispenser. The brewery,
known for their hoppiness, went a different direction this
time and brought their Mythology Pilsner and Deep
Tracks Nut Brown Ale. Actually, both were pretty good

Okay, back to the beer in a minute but now a brief foray into the party of six shenanigans. At one point, Jay and I wandered out on the patio for a smoke. It was a nice Autumn day and there were probably a dozen of us out there, filling our lungs with carcinogens, Suddenly, Rib Eye Steve came flying out to tell us, "You can't do that!" I realized I was holding my beer and rushed in to give it to Cara, the pretty server (and total sweetheart) manning the greeter's booth. It wasn't until I came back outside that I realized the beer wasn't the issue. The patio is licensed. But I had forgotten that Ontario's stringent smoking laws don't allow you to smoke even on an open-air patio. I had basically run back inside the bar with both my cigarette and beer... and actually handed Cara the wrong thing - my beer. Actually taking a smoke into the restaurant? I didn't break the law. I shattered it. Not sure what Cara would have done with the cigarette, though. One possible defence: "Don't look at me!! Don just handed it to me." Steve looked at me and said slyly, "You should know better!"

These nice ladies working the Barnstormer booth were
Allie and Hannah, who brought their Cirrus Session
IPA (excellent) and their Polar Pumpkin Ale (nope,
not gonna try it even for free) to the Beer Fest that day

What can I say? I'm a fairly typical guy that way. I always know I'm wrong and in trouble. I'm just never certain why. Also, apparently, I'm still the first one to be singled out by the school principal. (Truth be told, if a cop drove by and saw us smokers on the patio, the bar could be hit with a pretty hefty fine.)

I also had the opportunity of introducing my motley crew to Wayne Brown, the co-organizer of the Burlington Beer Festival. (Leading Jonny to say, "Do you know everyone here?" No, dude... just most of them.) Both Jay and Steve, who attended the festival with me on the Saturday, had the opportunity to tell Wayne they hazily remembered it but had a blast. I know that feeling. When I learned Sarah coming, I asked Jay, "Was I still at the Beer Fest when she showed up (later in the evening)?" He wasn't sure himself. Like I said, a hazy night. I honestly wasn't sure if I had phantomed (the act of disappearing into the night without a word to anyone) before her arrival. After about 20 minutes, I finally manned up and asked, "Sarah, did we meet..." She finished my sentence with an amused smile, "... at the Burlington Beer Festival, yes. How are you, Donny?" And gave me a big hug. Okay then, mystery solved.

Yeah, you could go to a bar hoping to meet beautiful women.
Or you can just bring your own. That's probably easier. Here,
Alex and Sarah gesture to the many beers that Jonny spent a
solid 15 minutes scooping up when he heard the breweries
were ready to shut it down at 3:45 pm. That boy moves fast.

Of course, sibling rivalry reared its funny head at one point when Jonny was telling me that he reads this blog on a fairly regular occasion - that occasion probably being that he's on the porcelain throne and has nothing better to do. Jay looked at him and said flatly, "You know what surprises me about that? That you can read now. When did that happen?"

But here's the thing about having Jonny there, besides the fact he's a good friend and a great guy. He calls it like he sees it. Number One: "Wow, the waitresses here are all so pretty." (He may have said "hot.") This would be after meeting Cara, my lovely beer technician Kylie (totally dressed to the nines and pulling off that whole "Damn, girl!" thing), ball of fire Tiffany and 1940s pin-up look-alike Betty. Yup, they sure are. All of them. Tiffers gave me a cool gift for my boy David - Batman symbol lights that shine on the ground when you open the car door. David is gonna freak out. Number Two: "I can't believe all the great craft beer they have on tap. We have to come here more often." (My evil plan worked!)

Upon hearing that the breweries were starting to shut it
down at around 3:45, Jonny flew from table to table,
grabbing as many beer samples as he could for us.  That
tradition is called mine-sweeping and Jonny's good at it

This would be the plus side to bringing four newbies to my bar as Jay has been there a handful of times with me. All of them live within walking distance of the Tin Cup Sports Bar. A nice enough place but I suspect their last new beer was Miller Genuine Draft. You want good beer? You come to Donny's home away from home. And finally, he uttered Number Three towards the end and I think we were all feeling this one. "I bet I've had $70 worth of beer already." Well, I was there 15 minutes earlier so make that $80 for me. This beer slamming whole noble charity thing never stops, does it? We're totally givers.

Perhaps my favourite introduction of the day was when Nickel Brook owner John Romano wandered over to chat. I pointed out Jay and told John, "This gentleman is one of the biggest fans of your Naughty Neighbour (American Pale Ale.) He now drives directly to the brewery to get it." John happily gave Jay the big thumbs up and I think Jay was maybe a little pumped to meet an actual brewery owner. All of which forced Jonny to ask once again, "Seriously, is there anyone here you don't know?" (By the end of the day, nah, I pretty much knew everyone,)

Ooooh, sorry, Jonny, we have a new mine-sweeping
champion. Here we see Shona at her table, taking
the crown. I have cropped some out of the photo but
there were - no joke - 27 full sample cups on the table

Interestingly enough, Big Rock, the Calgary outfit that has had a strong presence in Ontario for years, brought some Lake of the Woods Brewing Sultana Gold, the blonde ale produced by the Kenora brewery. It was a decent enough beer - blonde ales are a little light for me but it was nice. But tempering that judgement was the fact that I know Kenora all too well. Working at the Kenora Daily Miner and News as a sports editor was my first journalism gig out of college. This is what I remember about that pulp-producing town. It was bloody cold, Like "penguins would do nicely here" cold. Temperatures of minus 40C (the exact same number in Fahrenheit for American readers) were not uncommon in the winter. And I mean, during the day. We actually plugged our cars in at night so the engine block wouldn't crack. I remember walking into work once (my plugged-in car wouldn't start) and it was so cold that the breath from my nose froze my mustache. And when I wiped my face, chunks of the mustache fell off. It actually hurt to breathe. Not surprisingly, I lasted maybe a half year before retreating back to Toronto. But I got Beer Bro Glenn a reporter job there and he happily lasted a few years. Apparently, Glenn likes to fish and the Lake of the Woods region is renowned for that sort of not-really-a-sport. Glad they have a new craft brewery now, though.

Mike, the server for Steam Whistle, holds up their
unfiltered pilsner, something only available for
Beer Festivals. And every time I have it, I said to
the server, "You have GOT to bottle this!" One
year, they made it using rye malts. Oh man, good!

Back to the birthday boy, it seems Jay and I have a lot in common. While I worked at a Mississauga Beer Store throughout the 1990s (beginning to end), I left for a few years. But I came back and Jay and I started working part-time on the exact same day in the same store in 2005. Our employee numbers (which he still remembers) were one digit apart. Then we both became full-timers on the same day in 2008. New employee numbers, again one digit apart. At that point, they split us up just as a teacher puts two misbehaving boys on the opposite sides of the classroom. But we had something else in common on Sunday. On Friday, Jay threw out his back. "I had to roll out of bed, it was so bad." He has no idea how. On Saturday, it happened to me as I was loading beer. I went home early and could barely get out of my car when I arrived. So we were a couple of wounded soldiers. Beer Bro Stevil St Evil, who had a history of back woes, offered up a handful of suggestions before realizing, "Oh man, are you gonna missed the Rib Eye Jack's Beer Fest?" Not. A. Chance! If I had to be wheeled in there on a goddamn gurney, I was going. Even though we didn't know each other was hurt, it seems Jay was of like mind. You know what fixes a bad back - four solid hours of charity work drinking countless craft beers. I'm no doctor. But I understand medication. So to Rib Eye Steve and the beautiful working ladies who helped made this happen, thanks for a great Sunday afternoon and a great birthday for Jay! You fixed my back. For four hours, anyway. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...