The wild, wild world of beer

Ian Macdonald and his mother Pat are the co-founders of
Old Tomorrow Brewing. I suspect Pat has a better idea of
when Ian's birthday is. Me? I just totally fluked that one out

Every once in a while, I have to veer off the brew reviewing track and talk about random things in the Wonderful World Of Beer. (By every once in a while, I mean every single time.)

But let's look at a couple of events regarding recent columns here... and then some others from the beer world. As you may recall, my last one was about Old Tomorrow Brewing, centering on their three beers and co-founder Ian Macdonald. Now I interviewed Ian last Summer during the Burlington Beer Festival and then I transcribed that chat probably a day or two later with my morning coffee. And there the transcripts sat in my drafts folder for nine long months, waiting for the brewery to release more beers for me to review as they only had the Canadian Pale Ale out at that point. Well, when they released their third beer, the Track 85 Lagered Ale, last weekend, the time had come to finally use those dusty transcribes. So I wrote my piece on Macdonald and his brewery, posted it on Monday (April 18th) and then sent it onto the interwebs via Google+, Facebook and Twitter, just as I always do.

The boys at Block 3 Brewing in scenic
St. Jacobs, Ontario have a little advice for
you on the side of their Seige IPA. In case
you can't read it, it says, "Spending any
time reading a description about this beer
would be precious time wasted not
drinking it. Which is what you're doing
now! It's an IPA, just drink it!" These
four young brewers get right to the point.

What happened next, I did not expect. The brewery graciously thanked me on Twitter, noting that I had coincidentally published the piece on Ian's actual birthday! Holy crap... long odds. One-in-365, to be precise (or 366 this year, I guess.) "Wow, what a present. Thanks for a wicked review! You keep good notes, sir!" the brewery tweeted me. I'm pretty happy about this total fluke and if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy lottery tickets.

Okay, moving along, the column prior to that was about Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville Brewing and LandShark Lager, now brewed in Canada by Brick Brewing. When I tried the beer, I suggested that while it was a much cleaner version of Corona (which has always tasted oddly skunky to me), it wasn't my kettle of kippers but would probably find its market. This was, of course, after two Twitter buddies let me know the beer I had never even heard of was very well known in the United States. Hah, who knew? Well, apparently them and many many others. "I texted my Dad a picture of it," said coworker Jay-Dawg, as his father frequently vacations in Florida and is a big fan of the beer. More to the point, I suppose, would be who didn't know about this beer which was, of course, me and some monk in Malaysia.

But my cardinal sin in that column was suggesting that singer Jimmy Buffett had created a $100 million a year booze and restaurant empire, based on his single hit, Margaritaville. Well, that's when the spam hit the fan, as they say, (shut up, people say that), as a healthy handful of friends piped up, citing Jimmy's many other hits, again not one of which I recognized. Even Jay, who's a couple of decades younger than me, knew of other Buffett hits. I would be like the world's worst Parrot-Head.

LandShark Lager may have been just another pale
lager to me but it has some hardcore fans out there...

Fortunately, I had the whole LandShark thing sorted out a day or two before our Waterloo (Brick) Brewing rep Graham came into the store. Looking around, he asked if we had any LandShark come into our stock. Yeah, sure, I noted, it's right over here. But when we got to the shelf, there was only one six-pack left. And that's from the 48 six-packs we had just five days earlier. Fortunately, we got a whole bunch in the next day and while it's a carefully-guarded state secret, the beer will be prominently featured on one of our display end caps starting Monday (April 25) for $5 off a case, dropping it from $42 to a much more reasonable $37. But like I said, you didn't hear that from me.

Okay, what happens when BrewDog, a cheeky Scottish craft brewery located in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, exhorts its employees to be "more punk"? Well, in one case, an employee let his punk flag fly high and hard.

Graeme Wallace, left, a packing manager at Brewdog, is
awarded Employee of the Month after setting the best-
before date stamp to include a swear word. After it was
discovered, some 200,000 cans of Punk IPA had to be
recalled by the brewery but Graeme? Well, take a look.

Exasperated with management's often-repeated "more punk" mantra, Graeme Wallace, a packing manager, recalibrated the 'best before' stamp to include the phrase "Mother F***er Day" on the bottom of the can. And unlike me, Graeme didn't use asterisks. Some 200,000 cans of Punk IPA had to be recalled once the brewery got wind of the curse word beer. So I guess Graeme got into some serious trouble, eh? Well, no.

In a press release, a BrewDog spokesperson said, "At another company, someone responsible for a prank like this might have been given the heave-ho. At BrewDog, Graeme was awarded Employee Of The Month." Dude, that was a mother-f***ing epic win!

Okay, back to Canadian soil for a story on, well, Molson Canadian. Just like last year when the Stanley Cup playoffs began, the big boys have included a dandy little trinket into their cases of Canadian 24-cans and 28-bottles - a honest-to-gawd Stanley Cup ring. However, unlike last year, the brewery isn't gonna be caught flat-footed by the promotion's popularity and run out of the commemorative rings before the first round of the playoffs are done.

While wearing a Montreal Canadiens ring is likely to
leave a nasty stain on your hand, I would gladly wear a
Toronto Maple Leaf one. Some 20 Stanley Cup winning
teams are honoured on the rings available in the cases.

In an interview with the Winnipeg Sun last April, Andy Gervais, a Molson marketing manager, said he knew going in that the rings would be popular "but the overwhelming feedback from our customers and consumers blew us away." The brewing giant had about 400,000 rings made up for the promotion last year but were stunned when the entire allotment was gone less than two weeks into the playoffs. And there are some crazy stories that surfaced around those rings.

"There's one out of Winnipeg where a guy came into the store and bought 40 cases so he could try to get two complete sets." (My guess would be he got maybe one with a tons of repeats.) But these rings, made overseas, are the real deal - made of zinc and plated in either brass or nickle. And since they come free in the cases, many drinkers have been posting them on Craigslist or Kijiji for $20 to $50 a pop. Teams like Montreal and Toronto inch closer to $100. One seller with a complete set put the entire lot on Toronto's Kijiji for $1,100. When a Canadian-buying customer sporting a New Jersey Devils cap came into my store, I asked him if he got his Devils' ring yet. "No but I also want a Maple Leaf one," he grinned. Huh? Why? "Just so I can say I got a Stanley Cup ring before the Maple Leafs did." Cheeky bastard. Go work at BrewDog and leave us Leaf fans alone.

The news that Marek and his family would be
returning to their Czech Republic homeland later
this Summer caught everyone, including Steam
Whistle Brewing employees a little off guard...

Next up is a bitter-sweet announcement that caught not only Toronto craft beer lovers flat-footed but also employees and management of Steam Whistle Brewing itself. Last week, Brewmaster Marek Mikunda told his bosses that he and his family would be moving back to their beloved homeland, the Czech Republic, later this Summer. For many who love Canada's premier Czech-style pilsner (count me among them), after 11 years at Steam Whistles' helm, Marek was as iconic a figure within the brewery as, well, founders Cam Heaps and Greg Taylor themselves. After stints at both Labatt and Creemore Springs, Marek came to the brewery in 2005 but it was his youth in the Czech Republic that made him the perfect fit for the Roundhouse gang. In 1984 at the age of 15, Marek began his brewing apprenticeship in the Pilsen (Plzen) region of the Czech Republic. After graduating university in 1993, he joined the training program at the Pilsner Urquell brewery and eventually rose to become their Brewmaster for two years. Believe me when I say one of the biggest points of pride for many Steam Whistle employees is the fact that their Brewmaster was actually from and trained in the Plzen region. Over the years, Marek had lead his team to a gold at the Canadian Brewing Awards and five golds at the Ontario Brewing Awards.

I bought this T-Shirt and strangely, I got no kisses
or beer. This has got to be discrimination in some
form, I would suggest, against scuzzy smelly men.

Saying he will be missed is certainly understating it. Even though I have never met him, from the stories I had heard, he is a remarkable man and a much-beloved coworker. Godspeed to you and yours, good sir.

What goes around comes around, as they say. A few column back, I told the story of how I met Ryan, the hops-loving, astute young fellow who picks the beers for the LCBO at Dundas and Walker's Line in Burlington. Because he had brought literally hundreds of Great Lakes Brewing's Octopus Wants To Fight IPA into his store, I figured he deserved some accolades. And so before leaving, I returned from my car with a Smuttynose (Hampton, New Hampshire) Finestkind IPA for him as my Beer Store is the only one I know that stocks it. I guess he really liked it. Just yesterday, Jay chirped, "Hey, Donny, your LCBO bromance paid off. Some guy just came in and told me that the LCBO guy in Burlington sent him here to get some Finestkind." Well, how about that? Regardless of where we work, be it the Beer Store, the LCBO or the grocery store, the guys and gals who love good craft beer are one big family.

Okay, let's leave this one on a non-beer note but one that tickled my funny bone in the past week regardless. I was on Facebook when the news broke that Guns N Rose singer Axl Rose would now be fronting AC/DC, as well.

Did we have some fun at "Fat Axl" becoming the
new lead singer of AC/DC? Yes, I believe we did

That lead to someone crafting a hilarious meme of a very portly Axl Rose singing, "Black in Black... I need a snack" which I posted as soon as I stopped laughing. That lead my beer-writing buddy, Robert, aka Drunk Polkaroo, to happily note "Fat Axl makes me feel skinny!" Before long on the thread, Beer Bro Stevil St Evil took to simply calling him Faxl whereupon former journalism buddy, Sparky, decided to hashtag that even more simply as #faxl. Of course, I instantly got the meme generator out and created a few of my own, including, "She was a fast machine... She kept my kitchen clean", "I'm on the highway... to heart disease" and of course, "A whole lotta Rosie... but a much larger amount of dinner." Granted, Facebook being Facebook, an old college associate, who's apparently some sort of Faxl worshipper, chimed in that he didn't appreciate our humour. Really? Tough shit. And speaking of the overly-sensitive, I recently asked a guy to not park in our handicapped spot at the Beer Store. It may have been the wrong call. Given his response, he might have Tourette's Syndrome. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...