Wasn't That A Party?

Yessssss... pour that Collective Arts' Ransack
The Universe IPA for me. A little more. Think
we can squeeze another ounce in there. Yeeesss

It was a great night that almost wasn't. When Nickel Brook and Collective Arts Breweries opened the doors of their collaborative Arts and Science Brewing by the lake in Hamilton on November 14th to the public twice, there were no shortage of willing participants. The afternoon session was a come-one-come-all affair with free admission while the evening session was the real bash - $20 a pop but rockin' loud big-time fun.

Now, that morning I texted my Nickel Brook compadre Tony Cox after reading that only 100 tickets were left and asked if he could set aside one for me and I'd pay when I got there. No problem, he said. Except there was one small glitch. Turns out tickets were gone. "Lemme see what I can do for you," he texted. Next thing I knew, I was on some kind of guest list. No idea what he did on his end but, well, Tony is the man! So hopping into a cab to head over that night (because my driver's licence is and continues to be a valued asset), it turns out my cab showed up exactly the same time in the same spot as Rib Eye Jack's Ale House's general manager Steve and its lovely beer technician Kylie's cab did. Very fortuitous for me, considerable less so for them. So we simply wandered towards the entrance. As it turns out, Rib Eye Steve was already on the guest list, which is no surprise but for one night, I was a Steve-Level VIP. That won't happen twice.

Nickel Brook Brewing owner John Romano, left,
and Rib Eye Jack's general manager Steve share a
laugh at the big Saturday night party. It was John's
second Open House of the day with one more to go.

Kylie, on the other hand, doesn't really need to be on a guest list. She shows up, people let her in because, well, she's Kylie. I am 100% convinced Kylie could simply wander into the Vatican at will.
Vatican Security Guard: I'm sorry, Miss, I don't see your name on the list.
The Pope (walking by): Hey, Kylie, what's up?
Vatican Security Guard: Your credentials totally check out. Please go in! Stop at the Gift Shop. I'll put you down for a free Pope T-shirt!

We weren't in there long before I spotted Amy from Nickel Brook at one of the serving counters. Now, Amy often fills my growlers at Nickel Brook and let's just say this. When I do my first pour out of an Amy-filled growler, I do so over the sink. It's beyond full. So I walked right up and asked her what they had. She happily got me a Headstock IPA and back I wandered to the pair who were enjoying some sour beer that I'd never drink. But they were laughing at the same time. Not that I'm not used to that or anything. It happens with alarming frequency but I was curious why. Steve laughed, "There were only two line-ups to the counter. But when you walked right up (to Amy), you created a third line-up. So we watched all these people start lining up behind you!"

All of the shiny silver vats at the brewery were lit up in
blue that night. Yes, I'm colour-blind. I know because I
asked. Otherwise, you would have heard me questioning
why they decided to go with purple. It's an odd colour.
This picture was posted by Matthew Gamble on Twitter.

Okay, I'd actually be more impressed with my Pied Piper-like abilities if it wasn't my only accomplishment of the night. (Face it... New Line-Up Man? Lamest super power ever.)

At some point, Kylie wandered off to do Kylie Things, leaving me and Steve to run rampant without supervision, wandering through areas we may or may not have been authorized to do so. Well, technically, I threw out rock, Steve threw out scissors so the adult burden was placed on his shoulders that I not get arrested. He succeeded very well. Being a bar manager no doubt helps. In fact, he made sure we both got back to Burlington safely by cab. If St Christopher is the patron saint of safe travel and St Jude is the saint of hopeless causes, Steve is St Dude, the patron saint of travelling hopeless causes. Realizing that me getting home safely on my own would be akin to watching a stoned gorilla trying to start a car with a breadstick, Steve sternly told me at one point, "Do not do that disappearing into the night without a word thing you do!" Hey, it's called "phantoming" and it's a real skill! I have taught actual tutorials to countless people over the years on this... okay, sure, mostly by simply disappearing into the night without a word but everyone's teaching methods are different.

Collective Arts Brewing co-founder Matt Johnston, left, wanders
through the Arts and Science Brewery with his VP of Operations
Jeff Tkachuk in this Matt Barnes photo for Canadian Business.
Besides being a really nice photo, the brewery guys are showing
their Safety First attitude by wearing steel-toed boots. You think
dropping a case of beer won't break your toe? Hah, think again...

But I'll tell you this for free. It was a great bash of which I remember a solid 93%. On RateBeer, that'd be a pretty solid score.

And both Nickel Brook co-founder John Romano and Collective Arts co-founder Matt Johnston were thrilled with the results - so much so, they added a third party on Sunday. Talking to CBC, John said on Sunday about Saturday's big bash, "There were 19 years old and there were 70 year olds. Last night, the love and the harmony and the beer flowing was unbelievable. You dream about this stuff happening (but) you don't think it's gong to happen."

Talking to the local CHCH-News, Johnston, a Hamilton native himself, was equally effusive. "We're a manufacturer, we brew beer. But we are also about creativity and that's exactly the blend Hamilton has going now." With a nod to his co-founder and artist Bob Russell, the brewery has cranked out over 400 different labels from individual artists in its short history - many of which have landed in my fridge on both their Rhyme and Reason Extra Pale Ale and Ransack The Universe IPA bottles, meaning if I framed my fridge, it'd be the classiest part of Donny's Bar and Grill. By far. "Why put the same boring labels on a bottle for the next 10 years?" he noted. Added Johnston, whose brewery gets the retail component out of the new Hamilton brewery (Nickel Brook's, much to my delight, remains around the corner in Burlington): "Craft beer lovers are experimental (and) that doesn't just go for beer. That goes for their taste in music and art so we wanted to fuse those together."

The Arts and Science Brewery in Hamilton proudly
hangs two banners. One brewery but two separate
brewers all under one roof. If the song, Ebony and
Ivory, were a brewery, that would be it. Hamilton is
about to become culturally richer with this addition.

Now lest any of you think, "Hey, how is this a big deal?" allow me to illuminate. As far as I can tell using the extensive tools of Google at my disposal, this is the first collaborative brewery in Canada. Ever. Yes, many have collaborated on beers but an actual brewery? Uncharted territory. Yes, Collective Arts did contract brew out of Nickel Brook's 15,000-square-foot Burlington brewery... but then there was a problem. The beers created for the fledgling company by the Nickel Brook brewers became so popular, particularly the Rhyme and Reason, the Burlington facility couldn't handle the demand for both breweries as Nickel Brook's products alone had long since hit their stride. In fact, I believe some of the overflow Collective Arts new brews had to be done out of Cool Brewing in Toronto. By pooling their resources - and in essence, rolling the financial dice - they now have a potential of 40,000 square feet of brewing equipment out of the old Lakeport facility in Hamilton, more than half of which is in actual use. On top of that, 10.000 square feet has been set aside for arts, music and other very cool non-brewing events. Really not seeing a downside here. Great beer, great music, great art, great times? Bring it! But is this all too big - can they do it? Of course they can and I have empirical historic evidence to back me up on this.

Great label but not a stellar IPA. I'm thinking this
is sort of halfway between a grapefruit radler
(which enjoy inexplicable success during the hot
days of Summer) and a regular IPA. As a beer on
its own merits, I did like it. But wasn't blown away

Did Genghis Khan complain he couldn't take over China because it was too damn big and too hard to pull off? No! And why was that? Because he was Genghis Khan, not Genghis Khan't.

Okay, moving away from perhaps the worst comparative analogy I had ever made in my life (with the exception of the handful of times I've compared people to Hitler... which is completely uncalled for, unduly harsh and incredibly unfair... in some cases, to Hitler), let's look at some brews I have happily consumed in the recent past because it's Beer O'Clock at Donny's Bar and Grill, baby!!!

Okay since Kylie was front and centre at the beginning of this, let's drag her screaming and kicking back into the forefront. Every once in a while, Kylie will bring a six-pack of mixed beers from her house to the bar for the purposes of redistribution to some of her regulars, such as myself. The situation is simply this: Kylie is gifted with so much beer from patrons that she simply can't drink it all. Even though she's one of the toughest nuts I know, she is also a wee lass and consumption of everything she receives would likely knock her on her pretty butt faster than Ronda Rousey went down to Holly Holm. (To the MMA organizers, I assume there will be the inevitable rematch... and soon, I hope?)

Despite their recent $1 billion deal with giant
Heineken, who now owns half the company,
there are fervent hopes that Lagunitas Brewing
will retain its hoppy presence and irreverent
cheeky monkey business ethos after the purchase

And, of course, since it's her favourite style, she is mostly gifted with IPAs (though she seems to be happily surfing the surging sour beer wave.) In fact, she gets so many IPAs that it's damn near impossible to gift either her or Rib Eye Steve (St Dude is also an IPA aficionado) with one they haven't previously tried. The last time I stopped in, I played against the odds and just gave them both strong ales, neither of which either of them had tried. But back to the Kylie Kraft Kollection and said redistribution of unique craft brews. You see, if something has languished a little too long in her fridge at home, she worries about its freshness and brings a small selection in to share. I tend to be the beneficiary of a couple of bottles if I happen in on the right day. Freshness is never too much of a concern for me as I have yet to be beaten by a "Best Before" date.

A couple of Kylie Kraft Kollection redistribution times ago, I scored a Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA, a beer I had tried and very much loved during a Las Vegas trip, as well as a Magic Hat Brewing (South Burlington, Vermont) Electric Peel Grapefruit IPA. Since I have reviewed (and raved over) the Torpedo, let's have a look at that Electric Peel. This is certainly an interesting little offering. At 6.2% and I'm gonna guess about 60 IBUs (international bitterness units), this is actually a little too heavy-handed with the grapefruit.

Holy crap! We have a definite winner here in
the Firestone (Walker) Double Jack Double
IPA. Staying power out the wazoo, it'll slap
you in the face and kick you where it hurts...

If I had to guess, I'd say Magic Hat was looking at the recent radler craze (half grapefruit juice, half beer) and decided to create an IPA that capitalized on that. What happened, though, was the creation of a beer with far too much fruitiness and not enough, uhh, beery goodness. It's a decent enough beer but not a strong IPA.

That said, I scored a couple of beauties in the last Kylie purge. When Lagunitas Brewing (Petaluma, California) recently sold half their brewery stake to international giant Heineken for a suspected $1 billion, there were, of course, immediate concerns over the potential of declining quality within the craft beer community. That, of course, remains to be seen but I have my doubts that anything will change and believe their beers will remain stellar. I think Heineken just wants a shiny craft jewel within their portfolio, much like Labatt's purchase of Mill Street Brewing up here in Canada. One thing is certain - the Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin IPA I got from Kylie is certainly top-notch! At 7.5% and 64.2 IBUs (first time I've ever seen a decimal point in an IBU), this little powerhouse is all pine on the nose with big splashes of citrus and pine on the tongue. Dynamite.

But the absolute best score from the Kylie Kraft Kollection? No doubt - the Firestone Walker Brewing (Paso Robles, California) Double Jack Double IPA.

My local Nickel Brook Brewing just added a sick selection
of T-Shirts to their retail outlet and they happen to have
both my and my co-worker Jay's favourite beers. To the
left are Jay-Dawg's choices - the Naughty Neighbour
American Pale Ale and Cause and Effect Blonde Ale while
to the right are my big guns, Bolshevik Bastard Imperial
Stout and the Headstock IPA. Just in time for Christmas!

Jeebus, Joseph and Mary, this one was the beer version of a body-snatcher. At 9.5% and 85 IBUs, this one throws all the bloody hops in the kettle - Columbus, Cascade, Warrior, Centennial, Amarillo and Simcoe are all in there at various stages during the bittering process, the late kettle addition and the final dry hopping. Huge tangerine and grapefruit on the nose, pine and citrus on the tongue, this one has a long linger in your mouth. The continued length a good IPA stays on your tongue before the next sip is something Rib Eye Steve taught me. Turns out I'm very trainable - I'm like a Pavlov's Don. Ring a bell and I'll salivate.

Okay, that's it for this round but coming up next, I have a mini-high-school reunion during which I drank a Streetsville bar out of craft beers, a look at some of the tasty beers Marie brought me back from Walkerville Brewery, a closer look at Okanagan Springs Brewing and much more. On top of that, a couple more Kylie brews - the Stone City Brewing (Kingston) 100 Pound Wet Hop IPA (in a separate piece on wet hopping), as well as their Grizzled Hipster Double IPA, which is, oddly, still in my fridge but frankly not for long. I predict it won't last through the day. In the meanwhile, I'm gonna go alter my Mom's Christmas seating chart and add "Syrian Refugee #1" and "Syrian Refugee #2" to it. Oh, they're not actually coming. I just wanna see my racist uncle's head explode. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...