When the name change hit the cyberwaves on January 6, outrage was tweeted left, right and centre... and then left and right again because of Welcome to the Twitter Generation reasons.
Not sure I saw even one positive response. That can be expected of any change so I shrugged it off because I don't think I've ever called it anything except "The Amphitheatre." And given that's a five-syllable word and I am notoriously lazy, I'm genuinely surprised I didn't shorten it to "The Amp" or something similarly imbecilic. I'm not a man of many words... that is unless you're stuck reading this.
But the general complaint seemed the be that they were taking a very Canadian name and giving it an American name by switching it to Budweiser. I get that. Even though Bud is brewed up here by Labatt, the name is identifiable as American to most. I would suggest the two best-known beers in the world are Bud and Heineken.
However, since Twitter is not a fact-based but rather an opinion-based social media platform, the fury rained down hard with dozens declaring they would never call it the Budweiser Stage and would remain loyal to calling it the Molson Amphitheatre forever. I absolutely get that. The SkyDome, where the Toronto Blue Jays strut their stuff, was renamed the Rogers Centre in 2005 when cellular mega-giant Rogers Communications bought the team. To this day, if someone says "Rogers Centre" to me, my brain still has to translate that back to me as "oh right, he means the SkyDome." Old habits die hard. I still don't understand temperatures until I convert them from Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head.
As to the outrage, anything hashtagged dies quickly. Molson's isn't totally Canadian anymore as they merged with the Colorado-based Coors back in 2005. While it was called a "merger of equals" at that time, since Coors as a corporation was worth $5 billion at the time and Molson's was worth $506 million, it's kind of a Chihuahua and Great Dane sharing the same doghouse scenario. The bigger dog has more sleeping space, thus higher doghouse proprietary ownership. And 10 years earlier than that, Labatt was bought by Belgian mega-conglomerate Interbrew, now AB-InBev. While Anheuser-Busch is huge, the Bud name may be as much Belgium's property as it is America's. Except all of us still associate it with America. And NFL football, baby!! Including last night's Super Bowl, featuring the most insane comeback yet.
You wanna say your car is Canadian? Well, it better have gull-wing doors because only the Bricklin can make that claim. And there's not many of those around anymore... |
Don't get me wrong. Up here, our two big macro-breweries are staffed by Canadians brewing Canadian-soil beer; the product is transported by Canadian drivers and ultimately sold by Canadians to other Canadians. Hell, I'm one of the vendors myself. But the ownership? Yeah, it's outside the Land of Maple Syrup. Still, unless you're driving a Bricklin, which was manufactured for exactly one year (1975-76) in a New Brunswick plant, your car, whether made here or not (it likely was), was manufactured by a company owned outside of Canada. That's just corporate reality in 2017 (or 2005... or 1995.) So really, call that concert venue on the lake anything you want. If we like the band, we'll still go. If the Foo Fighters played there, they could call it the Diarrhea Stage. We'd still line up.
But since we're talking about Canadian and American things which maybe aren't so much anymore, let's talk about some Canadian and American craft beers which are precisely that. Alphabetically, America's up first so let's start in Escondido, California with some of Stone Brewing's Delicious IPA. Now I was more than a little spooked to read that this beer was "gluten-reduced." All I know about gluten is that it's grains, such as wheat, barley (malts) and rye, all of which are commonly used in brewing. But I do know this. If a doctor said I couldn't eat foods with gluten and handed me a list that included bread, cereal, pasta, cakes, cookies, pastries and 99.999% of all the beers in the world, I'd probably look at him and ask, "Are you sure it's not just a stroke?"
So I went to Stone's website to see if gluten-reduced meant gluten-free. Basically, I wanted to know if you suffer from Celiac, is this beer gonna tear the snot out of your small intestine?
The best gluten-free beer I've had up until now tasted like a Beck's. So okay, it did taste like beer... just not flavourful beer. But this? Huge pine and resin on the nose with notes of mango, pineapple and more pine on the tongue. At 7.7% and 80 IBU (international bitterness units), this is definitely the best gluten-reduced or gluten-free beer I've ever had. Once again, Stone proves it can brew no wrong.
Okay, this Canadian offering comes with a bit of a back story. Previously, my watering hole, Rib Eye Jack's Ale House had a biweekly Cask Night on Thursdays. Recently, GM Steve decided to forego the casks and now, every Thursday there's a set rotating tap attached to a 20-litre (5.3 gallon) keg and every week, it's a new beer.
This was really quite nice. Not a ton of aroma on the 6.5%, 60 IBU beer, maybe the tiniest bit of pine, it kicked up nicely on the tongue with some citrus and melon. Not insanely-hoppy with a sly touch of malt but still, a very impressive first IPA. I pick up my son in London on Sundays when I have him for the week and am thinking this would be an excellent side-adventure for us. Alas, they don't open until noon. I'm usually scheduled to arrive a couple of hours earlier than that. And while it has been released into the LCBOs in six-packs of 355-ml (12 ounce) cans, unfortunately so far, only the four London liquor stores carry them. And in puritanical Ontario, LCBOs don't open until noon on Sundays so we can all go to church first. Uh-huh. Not sure what the province expects me to do until then but... oh, right, pick up my son. (Guys, please pray for my safe journey between Poker games on your phones during the service.)
Now my London buddy, Big Al (a Toronto transplant with his wife and two kids some 20 years ago), said their Anderson Craft Ales' Amber was a great example of that all-malt-at-first, then slowly-come-the-hops beers. I seriously love those beers that add a new dimension halfway through the glass. But my ex's and my rendezvous point for the
Okay, back to the brewing bros and lace ladies in the US of A with this next one - Oskar Blues (Longmont, Colorado) IPA.
My former coworker Marie is feeling a tad neglected these as she has given me a healthy handful of beers that I haven't had a chance to review here yet. Well, buck up, little camper, you're not forgotten because here's those two fine offerings you gave me from Forked River Brewing in London. (Hmmm, maybe two brewery visits next time? I mean, it's London - how far apart could they possibly be? Also, I'm there, anyway. Twice the shiny vats for David.)
Okay, this Ballast Point Brewing Grunion Pale Ale was definitely a gift from Beer Bro Glenn. Every Ballast Point beer I have received from Glenn has been totally excellent in its own right. |
But this 6.7% Flanders Red, aged in a red wine barrel for a year, is the sourest sour I ever soured. Oh my lawdie, it give you some serious pucker face. I got cherries and plum on both the nose and tongue. A heapin' ton of sour. Wow. Plus $1 from every bottle sold went to the Soldier On program, which assists Canadian soldiers suffering from either physical or mental ailments so a damn good cause. Both beers were only available at the retail outlet (I believe) so thankfully, Marie got me these to enjoy. Two great beers but that Flanders Red really impressed!
Back to America one more time and this time, I know I got this beer from Glenn - the Ballast Point Brewing's Grunion Pale Ale. Now moving back to breweries being bought up, something I touched on at the beginning, in late 2015, Ballast Point was bought for $1 billion (that's not a typo) by Constellation Brands, the company that distributes Mexican beers Corona and Modello in America. As far as I know, it's an arm's-length distance agreement whereby Ballast Point, founded in 1996, simply keeps cranking out good craft brews. But the $1 billion price tag is the answer to why some craft brewers are getting snapped up as that's some damn serious cheddar. But that's the business side of things and I'm here talking beer so let's look at that Grunion Pale Ale.
For starters, a grunion is a small, silver fish found only off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean whereas Ballast Point in San Diego is found only on land but also on the coast of California. I do know that no grunions were used in the brewing process. The 5.5%, 35 IBU (it tastes a little hoppier than that) ale has some light melon and orange on the nose with some very light bitterness and tropical fruit on the tongue. I wouldn't pay $1 billion for one but then I'm not an international conglomerate. I'm just a guy... sitting in front of a beer... saying lovingly, "This is SO on! You're going down!" I hold a different level of financial power altogether. One that's decidedly low.
Okay, there you have it. Three American beers, three Canadian beers. Hell, I'm practically a diplomat minus the actual diplomacy part. Meh, I'll work on that.
I was asked why I'm always converting litres and millilitres into ounces or gallons (in brackets afterwards) and kilometres into miles for the benefit of American readers. The answer is quite simple. More Americans read this than any other country, including Canada. (Thanks, gang - I like your beers!) But more importantly, there are two types of countries in this world. They are those countries who use the Metric System so 99% of the world, except America and two countries I couldn't find on a map. And then, there are those countries who have successfully landed on the moon... so just the one country last time I checked. They shouldn't have to do the Math. They did the damn Moon. Hell, I can't even relate to millilitres or litres so why should Americans? I'll happily do the conversions for them. Google does all the work for me anyway and the Yanks invented that, too.
But since the Internet has come up in a round-about way, a word of caution for you all. I recently clicked on a YouTube link that warned, "Viewer discretion is advised as some might find the following disturbing." It turned out to be grainy footage of me cheering and clapping as I watched Batman vs Superman. I can't believe someone posted that. Pretty humiliating. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...
No comments:
Post a Comment