New Russian and missing Malaysian readers

As far as Stevil St Evil and I can tell, this is
the premier, if not only, craft beer bar in
all of Malaysia - the Taps Beer Bar in Kuala
Lumpur. So we pinpointed this as the place
where Malaysians were reading this column

A funny thing happened over Christmas - well, two funny things, actually. The first was my Mom finally telling me there was no Santa Claus. I kind of had to feint shock over that revelation because I've known that for, like, at least the last 10 years... maybe even 15. To be frank, a lot of my conversations with my Mom take a lot of twisty turns in the road. I asked her a question this year and 27 minutes later, her answer eventually wound down with "... and that's how I picked the colour of my drapes." I wasn't sure what to say other than, "So you haven't seen where I put my scarf?"

But we all love our Moms and know no matter what they do or say, we will smile, nod and said, "Thanks, Mom." That's probably because in our teenage years, we were a pretty clear examples of why some animals eat their young. But she also asked me how many people have read this column. Good question. When I started this back in June 2013, Beer Bro Stevil St Evil, currently enjoying Summer in Wellington, New Zealand, basically created the whole thing for me - the header, the sign-off and well, how to actually do this. (So... blame him!) He was an old blog pro at that point. And he showed me how to track it - a tool that lets you see how many people have read it, what country they're from, their entry-point to it, things like that.

The actual taps at Taps Beer Bar in Kuala Lumpur. An
impressive array of foreign craft beers for thirsty folks.

Now understand, when I started this, I used to track this thing religiously. Since then, my religion changed a few times. I now track super-models in bikinis. Next week, it'll probably be roast beef sandwiches around the world. I was ADD long before it became a thing which is to say I have the Tyrion of attention spans (hint: really, really short.) I'll check every once in a while but usually, I'm thinking about the next one. Numbers are just numbers. My Mom will eagerly tell you that numbers didn't mean much to me in high school, either. So, back to the point (shut up, I have ADD!), she asked how many hits this column has received. I honestly didn't know so I pulled it up on my phone. The answer was well over 40,000 but this is when things took one of those interesting Mom turns.

If I visit Kuala Lumpur some day, I plan
on taking my picture on this very patio!

"What's that world map there?" she asked, looking at the tracker. "Oh, that tells me where the readers live," I told her. "It's always the big beer drinking countries leading the pack - Canada, the USA, Germany, the U.K., Australia." Looking at it, she noted, "And Russia, apparently." So I looked. She was right. In the last month, Russia readers have outnumbered my two biggest guns, Canada and the USA, topping their combined numbers. In the last week, they were nearly three times higher than the other two combined. I had no idea. Who are they? Why are they suddenly reading these words? What's their interest in North American craft beer? Beats me but that's very cool. I quickly sent out a PM to Alex, Stevil's lovely young Russian friend, also in Wellington, and asked if she could send me "Welcome, my friends", written in Russian. Gladly, she noted, sending back this: Добро пожаловать Now I am trusting Alex here. That could say, "I wear pretty pink party dresses" and I'd never know.

When I showed my coworker, Ethan Snow (the bastard son of Edward Stark, who knows nothing) that I had over 800 Russian hits in the past week, he laughed and had a theory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin raises a cold
beer with others in the Athletes' Village during
the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics! Zazdarovje!
That's "cheers" when you're toasting. I think.

"I bet some professor at the University of Moscow found your blog and is using it to teach his students about decadence and moral decay in Western society!" He was joking but it makes more sense than anything I can think of.

Now I'm telling this world tracker story because the last time I noticed an anomaly, it didn't end well. Because it's a weird and somewhat spooky story. Twilight Zone stuff. Back at the beginning of 2014 when I paid closer attention to the tracker, I suddenly found I had readers in Malaysia. Exactly 15 of them every blog. No more, no less, always 15. Struck me as a little odd so I passed that along to Stevil, the King of Google and said, "What do you make of this?" So he hunted around online and eventually found the one craft beer bar in Malaysia - Taps Beer Bar in Kuala Lumpur. "I bet some regulars there read it and other blogs to see what's happening with craft beers in North America. Probably tons of ex-patriots over there." Hmmm, yeah, makes sense. So every week, my 15 faithful Malaysians clicked on this thing. That is until March 8, 2014 when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur Airport headed for Beijing, China and disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean, never to be found.

Okay, right off the top, Stone City Ales'
Grizzled Hipster Double IPA has one of
the best names I've heard this year. They
just need some creative Kingston artist to
start popping out cool labels for their beers

As far as I know, that was the last time there was a Malaysian hit on this. I can break down my stats to the past week, the past day and even the past two hours so even if there were a few, I would have noticed. Nada. They just disappeared. I told Stevil. "Okay," he confessed at the time. "That's just weird. And creepy. You think maybe they were on some group excursion flight together and... well, you know?" But that's the thing. We don't know. It could be a coincidence. Maybe 15 readers in Malaysia all got sick of me at the same time on or around March 8, 2014. Hell, I've seen that exact thing happen when I've been in rooms with large groups of women. But *poof*, they were gone. So I told my Mom about the Malaysian mystery while I was explaining the geo-tracker. She laughed and I mean, really laughed. She's 86 but still, no one snaps you back to reality faster than your Mom. Also I started laughing because I made her laugh...

Okay, enough about the Malaysian Fifteen (yeah, I named them), let's talk beer. As mentioned before, young Kylie, the beer technician at Rib Eye Jack's Ale House in Burlington occasionally slides me a new beer from what I simply call Kylie's Kraft Kollection. Not long ago, one of them was a Stone City Ales (Kingston) Grizzled Hipster Double IPA. Okay, off the top (and again, as mentioned before) this brewery won silver and bronze at the 2015 Ontario Brewing Awards for North American IPA with their Green Goddess Imperial and Uncharted IPAs.

Royal City Brewing, the little brewery out
of Guelph that could, is smokin' with this
little ale. Not outstanding but pretty good

At that point, the brewery had been in existence for all of nine months. So they know their IPAs and clearly have had a handle on the tricky style from the get-go. This 8%, 90 IBU (international bitterness units) shows a lot of promise at first pour - decent half inch head, murky copper colour and the light tinge of fruit aroma on the nose. The taste for a double is not all that complicated - a little grapefruit, a little honey. This is a solid beer that masks the ABV beautifully (I would have thought it was a single had I not known) but my problem is simply this. I have been awash in outstanding double IPAs all year. Hell, I had a Heady Topper which is the frikkin' Holy Grail of North American Imperial/Double IPAs. So while this was good, I've been drowning my taste-buds in great lately. Still, I like this little brewery. Kylie gifted me with a one-litre (34 ounces) howler of their Single Handed Galaxy Pale Ale during the Summer that knocked my socks off so not every swing is gonna clear the fences. That said, the Grizzled Hipster is still more than good enough to try.

I felt very much same way about the Royal City Brewing's (Guelph) Smoked Honey Ale that I recent had at Rib Eye Jack's. Some sweet smokiness on the nose, the 6.2%, 32 IBU ale has some smoky caramel on the tongue but what I didn't get was honey (which could be good as I'm not a fan.) That said, my server, wee spitfire Cara, had a sample and did get the honey. But she said she consumes a lot of honey. I have some here at Donny's Bar and Grill but I am saving it in case Queen Elizabeth II ever pops by for a spot of tea. It could happen. A decent little ale.

My first beer from Custom Brewcrafters
out of Honeoye Falls, New York was the
Caged Alpha Monkey IPA. It was meh.

During one of his illicit Niagara Falls, New York Beer Runs, my Beer Bro Glenn had a Custom Brewcrafters' (Honeoye Falls, New York) Caged Alpha Monkey IPA in the grab-bag for me. According to their website, this 6.5%, 65 IBU ale uses Falconer's Flight, Apollo, Chinook and Experimental 05256 hops in the mix. I recognize the first three. The last one is a bit of a head-scratcher, though. That said, I got zero aroma off this. Like nothing. It was weird. Like Malaysian Fifteen weird. No aroma. It was much better on the tongue, a bit bready but with sly hints of pine. But still, I dunno... meh. Glenn had also brought me a Stone Brewing Enjoy By 10.31.15 (Halloween) IPA that was kick-ass so life has a way of levelling out.

I felt the same way - once again - about the BrewDog Punk IPA. I had read a million things about this Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland brewery and all of them were centred on how outrageous and rebellious these dudes were. Glenn and I both bought it at the same time and I put my review on hold, knowing that was Glenn's father hometown so I wanted to leave first crack to him, right? Eventually, about a month ago, Glenn got off the crapper and wrote it up. He came to pretty much the same conclusion as me. This wasn't what either of us expected. Their commercial description says they used Chinook, Ahtanum, Amarillo, Cascade, Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin hops.

Okay, Smuttynose made far better use of the
Amarillo hops in this IPA. I really enjoyed this
Finestkind IPA. Will definitely buy more of it.

So with that kind of hop ammo (Amarillo, for gawd's sake), how did this beer end up being just 5.6% and 45 IBU?? That's the Pale Ale Zone, not IPA turf. (While my Scottish side feels pretty let down, my Irish side is laughing its ass off and yelling, "Ya dress-wearin' wankers!") It had a little bit of fruitiness on the nose but was cloyingly sweet and only lightly bitter on the tongue. This is a pale ale. Maybe. Still Stevil assures us both that these guys do make some dynamite beers so we haven't heard the last of BrewDog, I suspect.

Okay, I waited quite a while for Smuttynose Finestkind IPA to land at my Beer Store. While I thought the Hampton, New Hampshire beer was being held back by the LCBO, it turned out that wasn't the case. Rib Eye Jack's GM Steve explained to me that any beer landing on Canadian shelves must be thoroughly tested by the LCBO's labs under the mandate of the Alcohol and Gaming Commision of Ontario (AGCO). Why? Well, simply to make sure the ingredients are what the brewers claim, that the ABV is correct, basically that the beer (or wine or spirit) is what it claims to be. That's why sometimes you will see a little sticker placed over the ABV with single bottle offerings coming from the brewers. That's usually a correction and rather than reprint the entire label, they just sticker the correct ABV on top.

Stevil St Evil's reenactment of my
greeting him at Toronto's Pearson
Airport. Except that's not me. And
that's not the Japanese sign I was
holding up to first greet him as the
wayfaring traveler he was. Other
than that, he got the booze taxi part
bang on. I drove while he drank...

So I can't hang its delay on the LCBO. They're just doing their due diligence under orders of the AGCO. My bad.

So how was it? Okay, I really enjoyed this one. Balancing the citrusy hop flavour of the Simcoe and Santiams hops with the bitterness of Amarillo, this 6.9%, 65 IBU brew-pop brings a lot of citrus to the nose while walloping the tongue with a healthy dollop of grapefruit bitterness. A truly solid east coast American IPA. I will be having more of this. Hell, I did last night.

Okay, that wraps up this edition but I will be back, likely January 1st if I'm not too hungover, with my Best of 2015 list. You'll laugh, you'll cry and if it's itchy, you will scratch your ass. Also lots of news about the Burlington Winter Beer Festival coming January 29 and 30 to the Holiday Inn. And I'll probably spend the first two months of 2016, catching up on 2015 beers. I thank my new Russian readers and sincerely hope the Malaysian Fifteen simply got bored of me. But before you go, have you ever wondered what it's like to spend nearly a week at Donny's Bar and Grill? Stevil St Evil did precisely that back in late-May, early-June and, well, he survived to tell the tale. And I lived to read the exploits of his visit. If you wanna know his side of the story, it's right here in his column that's probably not called: Don Redmond Is The Most Interesting Man On Earth But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...