Of Babsocks and Label Legends...

Do you want to wear Team Canada coach Mike
Babcock on your dirty, smelly feet? Molson's is
given you that opportunity with a pair of Babsocks
in specially-marked 28-packs of Coors Light amd
Canadian, in time for the World Cup of Hockey!

It was a Tuesday like any other Tuesday. The Molson truck had arrived so Jay-Dawg and I were unloading the 10-skid delivery.

Jay was up on the truck, dropping skids two-by-two on the loading dock while I was on the ground with the hydraulic stacker, ready to pile them off to the side. For the record, during the Summer, we try to alternate being on the truck because it's roughly 1,000 degrees in there, give or take a few degrees. But you work up a pretty big sweat while doing very little in the way of actual physical exertion. So it's a lot like me trying to get up off the couch.

Suddenly, I heard Jay laughing and it was pretty big outburst. "Wait until you see what's in the Coors Light 28s!" he howled. I tried to spot it from the dock but it's kinda dark inside the truck trailer. I asked what it was and in between fits of laughter, Jay spat out, "Babsocks!"

Babsocks? What the hell are Babsocks? Within a minute, I would know. It's a pair of white socks with a Team Canada emblem on one sock and the visage of always-scowling Toronto Maple Leaf-Team Canada coach Mike Babcock on the other. I could not stop laughing. "This is so weird that it's awesome!" I told Jay. Once the laughter died down, Jay said what I was already thinking. "I need a pair of Babsocks!" Oh gawd yeah! Every hockey fan needs Babsocks.

This is what Mike Babcock looks like after a Leaf win.
This is his version of a smile. Okay, not really but I
did see him smile once. I was frightened to my very
core. His family Christmas Card must be something.

I instantly took a picture of them and sent a message to my Beer Writing Buddy Robert, aka Drunk Polkaroo. His response was instant. "Oh man, I want those so bad!"

Turns out that Babsocks are not a new thing. A year ago, when Babcock was hired by the Leafs, we Leaf fans were all thrilled. The league's best coach had landed here. The same guy who was at the helm of the bench as Canada took the gold at both the Vancouver and Sochi Olympics. But when the Leafs snagged him, a couple of Toronto buddies, Jake Mednick and Tom McCole, were so happy that they came up with the idea in the dressing room after a beer-league hockey game. Within months, they had their product with Babcock's face on Leaf blue-and-white socks and started selling them online at $20 a pop. They still can't keep up with the demand.

Someone at Molson's stumbled across the socks and created the Babsock promotion with Team Canada colours just in time for the World Cup of Hockey, starting September 17. After a Summer of speakers and phone chargers freebies, I suspect this will be the free-inside promotion that every guy remembers! The brewery has included a pair in over 400,000 cases of both Canadian and Coors Light. That's a whole lot of Babsocks!

While I always assumed I'd see Beer
Bro Glenn's face on a Missing Person
flyer, the folks at Manantler Brewing
put his smiling mug on a label for
their Legends Imperial Stout! Wow!

Now the fact is, even during my macro days, I stuck faithfully with Labatt Blue so will I grab a 28-pack of Canadian to get my Babsocks? Hell to the yeah! At the bottom of the fridge in Donny's Bar and Grill is the section known as Guest Beer. As it is most often raided by my friends Gordo and Amy, this works well as both are dedicated Canadian drinkers. They get free guest beer, I get my Babsocks. Works out perfect!

Now Babcock isn't the only local celebrity to have his face plastered on merchandise. Much to his surprise, Beer Bro Glenn ended up on a beer label, which frankly is an impressive step-up from hosiery. It seems that Manantler Brewing in Bowmanville, Ontario (about 20 minutes east of Glenn's Oshawa luxury loft) decided to honour a small handful of their faithful customers by putting their pretty faces on their 9% Legends Imperial Stout. Two brothers, a couple, another fellow and Glenn were on four different labels for the beer. Not looking to steal a buddy's thunder, I have held this for a couple of days until he posted his column. But I would have guessed he would be on a Wanted poster long before a beer label so I have to go there.

Posting a picture of all four labels on their Facebook site, Manantler said, "This bold, robust 9% Imperial Stout was inspired by the six (of many) Manantler regulars donning the label, who, in our eyes, are the real LEGENDS of Manantler. Without their relentless pursuit to quench their thirst with anything we make, we wouldn't be where we are. Thanks for continually trying to empty our fridge, for bringing everyone you know to the brewery, for making awesome BBQ sauce with our suds, for mentioning us in (almost) every blog you write, for taking pictures we couldn't capture in a million years but most of all, thank for being our friends. Cheers, this brew is for you!"

Beer Bro Glenn steered me towards this one, saying it was
the first Kolsch that he had really enjoyed! Good call, man

Well, holy crap! For the record, Glenn was the blog portion of all that. When he sent me a pic of the beer, I asked if it was for real. Sure was, he noted, adding he was now a bonafide legend. Asked how his mug didn't end up on an Imperial IPA since his blog is actually entitled IPA Tales, he noted, "I knew nothing about this until an hour ago." I have since suggested to Manantler that Glenn's face on a label will make it easier for me to find him when he inevitably goes missing at a Beer Fest. All I have to do now is hold the bottle up and ask people, "Seen this guy?" It could come in handy. A new kind of GPS - the Glenn Positioning System.

But this begs the question: since the Leafs-Team Canada coach is now on socks and Glenn is now on beer labels, what can I become famous for? While it was nice being the subject of that special episode of Hoarders, that hasn't exactly been a cash cow. However, it turns out I'm famous enough that every movie opens in a theatre near me! That's a powerful feeling...

The town of Blyth in Huron County, Ontario, has a
population of just 1,005 but soon a craft brewery
all to itself. That's just getting spoiled! And so you
know when you visit, it's pronounced Bly-Eth.

But even if I do become famous, don't worry - I'll never forget my friends. They'll always be a fond and nostalgic memory of people who aren't super famous like me. But someone once asked me if I could chose any celebrity, dead or alive, to have dinner with, who would it be? I chose Kim Kardashian... and dead.

Okay, this is supposed to a beer blog, not a treatise on the rich and famous, half of which Glenn now has locked down. And hey, why not kick off the Beer O'Clock portion of the day with a Kolsch that was highly recommended to me by Glenn. Wait... what? A Kolsch that Glenn liked? Yupper do! Turns out Glenn decided to give his throat something other than IPAs (and now Imperial Stouts) and stumbled across a brew called Absent Landlord Country Kolsch from Cowbell Brewing in tiny Blyth, Ontario. While their inaugural beer is being contract-brewed out of (I believe) Arts and Science Brewery in Hamilton, owners Stephen, David and Grant Sparling are presently building a 20,000-square-foot brewery, brew-pub and multi-use facility that will be open by Spring 2017. So what's the story on this tiny community that will soon have its own craft brewery?

"What Blyth NEEDS... is more Cowbell!!!"

Well, way back in 1851, the town was called Drummond. That is until a rich British dude named Henry Blyth bought the whole town in 1855 and renamed it Blyth. Despite the ownership, he never once made the voyage oversea to visit his namesake town hence the name, Absent Landlord. So what was it about this beer caused Glenn to praise his first ever Kolsch? For starters at just 18 IBUs (international bitterness units), it tastes much punchier than that number would indicate. A nice 5.3%, this pours a deep gold (good sign) and is lightly spicy and caramel on the nose with a hop slap of tartiness on the tongue. A fantastic first effort from a brewery just starting out. When I posted the beer's picture on Instagram, the brewery was quick to thank me and added, "Our next beer will be available in the coming weeks!" That's excellent because if my drinking adventures could use anything, it's more Cowbell.

Okay, let's go from a well-crafted lagered ale to an equally well-done west coast style lager. Wait, west coast lager?

Take a good look at the Local 7's West Coast Session Lager.
That's a lot cloudier than your traditional lager and that's
a good thing, believe me. I now wish I had bought more...

When you say the word lager, "west coast", which traditionally means hoppy, isn't usually associated with it. But this is no ordinary lager. This beer was released by a group of Toronto restaurants banded together under the name, the Local 7. (Some bastard, self-serving artists already laid claim to the name Group of Seven so the bars went a different route.) The Local 7 is made up of: The Auld Spot, Bar Hop, Bar Volo, Bryden's, C'est What, The Only Cafe and WVRST. Contract-brewed out of Sawdust City Brewing out of Gravenhurst with an assist from Sweetgrass Brewing (owned by the husband-wife team that also owns The Auld Spot). Okay, the 4.5% lager had some unexpected kick due to the use of Idaho 7, Sorachi Ace and Centennial hops in the mix. Tartly lemon on the nose, slyly fruity on the tongue, there is no way I would have guessed this was a lager if the can wasn't sitting there. And with that acknowledgement, let me add this is definitely one of the best lagers that I've had all year!

You know what? This explains a lot towards my
steadfast aversion to pumpkin ales.  However, in
fairness, Nickel Brook created a pumpkin porter
that was dynamite. Brewers, if you are falling trap
to this annual Autumn Rite of Passage, consider
putting pumpkin into heavier porters and stouts.

Before I move onto something else, the one thing I noticed when I snagged a can of West Coast Session Lager is that each of the Local 7 logos is used on different cans. As you can see, I grabbed the one with The Only Cafe mentioned on the snifter being held by the big cartoon birdie that I think is an eagle. Why? Well, because Fabian Skidmore runs The Only Cafe. Fabian is also head of Graphic Design at Great Lakes Brewing and as such, has created a slew of memorable labels with artist Garnett Gerry. So a Sawdust City, Sweetgrass and Local 7 lager has a Great Lakes connection. I tell you, the Ontario craft beer scene is so inter-connected, it's like a sudsy version of The Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon, the most deliciously-named of all actors.

Okay, let's finish this bad boy up with a pair of IPAs gifted to me by Rib Eye Jack's Ale House's awesome young Beer Technician Kylie, who generously gives me and others new beers after her many visits to America. I often call these offerings the Kylie Kraft Kollection or KKK for sho... actually, in retrospect, let's stick with the full name. It's cuter. This time around, I was gifted with a Racer 5 IPA made by Bear Republic Brewing in Healdsburg, California and a Hopothermia Double IPA from Alaskan Brewing out of Juneau, Alaska. If you visit the latter, please remember to wear your Babsocks. It's bloody cold.

Now here's a couple of American beauts, courtesy
of Rib Eye Jack's Beer Technician Kylie. I gotta
tell you, every time Kylie goes south to the USA,
I always cheer (inwardly, of course) because I
know some sweet-ass goodies are coming back!

Now before we begin, you may (and may not) remember a legal skirmish that Bear Republic had with Central City Brewing and Distillery out of Surrey, BC, back in 2010. The Healdsburg brewery felt Central City's Red Racer IPA, distributed right down the west coast, was too similarly named to their IPA and was causing confusion. The two side tussled for a couple of years before Central City conceded and renamed their beer Red Betty IPA but only for American distribution. It's still called Red Racer IPA up here and remains one of my coworker Jay-Dawg's favourites on tap at Rib Eye Jack's.

But onto the beers. Starting with the Racer 5 IPA. Okay, they went 4-C with this one, hop-bombing it with Chinook, Cascade, Columbus and Centennial bitter-makers. That combo gave this 7.5%, 75 IBU award-winner a shit-ton (to my American readers, that's Metric for "a lot") of tropical fruit on the nose, especially mango, while the pine and grapefruit kick in on the tongue. One of the better American IPAs I've had and believe me, brothers and sisters, I've had more than my fair share.

If you want some Red Racer IPA in the US, look for the
can of Central City's Red Betty Northwest IPA. Since
Bear Republic Brewing is definitely set in the southwest,
the two beers are now clearly distinguished from the other

Next on deck was the Hopothermia Double IPA, which was quite good but perhaps I shouldn't have tried it right after the Racer 5, which I preferred. That said, at 8.5% and 70 IBUs (a little on the low side for a Double IPA), there was some nice pineapple on the nose with a sly bit of pine and an odd bit of maltiness on the tongue. That said, Double and Imperial IPAs do need that boost of malts to hold the course steady. This was a solid beer.

That's it for this go-round so until next time, I shall bask in the warm glow of Glenn's Label Honours while I suck back suds, wearing my Babsocks. Still, I can't help but think there must be something that would grant me some fame, too. I mean, there is that one time I finished the New York Times' crossword puzzle in less than five minutes. The only thing marring that feat is that it took me hours to eat the rest of the newspaper. Oh well. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!! Until next time, I remain as always...