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| Is there anything like a Sunday afternoon at Merit Brewing, located on James Street North in Hamilton? Well, since Beer Bro Glenn, back left, and myself, back right, didn't know, we were fortunate enough to get an invitation to do precisely that from Mister Drunk Polkaroo and Missus Polkaroo on September 4. Both this and a trip to Rust City Brewing!! |
Cottage days are dwindling down to a precious few weekends. Kids are back to school. College and university students are back at the books... that is, if they still use books.
Here's a quick question as a former college and university student: do they still make you buy $100-$200 books from which you will need the information on exactly one page? I'm not suggesting that was a scam but... holy shit, is that a goddamn scam!! I'm also not suggesting I smell collusion between the tiers of higher education and the publishing industry but something stinks worse than warm Bud Lite. I do remember, back in my day, refusing to buy those expensive textbooks. I relied on a completely different method of obtaining the necessary scholastic information. I cheated like hell. What can I say? I passed.
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| Say, it looks like I have been to Merit Brewing before as my faithful sidekick and son, David, is pointing out the new Hamilton landmark in this picture. These guys make great beers!!! |
Anyways, back to Labour Day Weekend. I needed to do something fun and relaxing. I had spent the entire month of August moving out of the Burlington complex that housed Donny's Bar and Grill into a new (but old and very familiar) locale about 25 kilometres (15 miles) to the east. After all that, I needed to cut loose and have some fun. Fortunately, others in my craft-beer-drenched circle were faced with remarkably similar situations.
Turns out that while my move is over and I look toward the last of my unpacking, my old college buddy, Beer Bro Glenn, is in the middle of doing what I was a month ago and is busying packing up his life for a new locale sometime by the end of this month. As the erudite Mr. T wisely espoused to us all in the past, "I pity dah fool." Moving ain't fun. But on the Labour Day weekend, Glenn had a rare Sunday off from his two jobs. In fact, rare Sunday off is a bit of a misnomer. I think he works every day but Christmas. So he's like the opposite of Santa Claus in, well, pretty much every way imaginable. Except the belly.
"I need a Lazy Sunday!" Glenn hollered at me in a text. (Glenn is the only guy I know who can send you a text and you just know he's yelling.) Okey dokey, then, I knew just the couple to enlist for that. So I reached out to Robert, aka Drunk Polkaroo, to see what his Labour Day weekend plans were for him and his lovely wife, Kat.
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| The same thugs (except Kat who's a sweetheart) but a new locale - this time, Rust City Brewing. While the brewing component won't start until next month, they still have a huge assortment of other breweries' beers, including tons of Bellwoods Brewing beverages. That was a tasty stop!! |
Turns out Polk himself was to the end of some crazy-ass 20-days-in-a-row stint at work and it looked like he'd be working until 5 pm on that Sunday but would have Labour Day Monday off. Time for a new plan? Well, no because, you see, his boss finally walked up to him and said bluntly if Polk dared to show his face at work on the Sunday, he would tie him to his car bumper and drag him all the way back home. Perhaps even tie him up naked before the ride. So basically, if even Polk's shadow was seen within a two mile radius of the store, his boss was gonna go full-tilt Game of Thrones on his ass.
And with that, the ball hockey nets were back in the middle of the road and it was "Game on!" for Sunday Fun Day. Since Glenn was driving down from Oshawa, it seems that Hamilton would be our drinking destination on that Sunday as the Polks know that turf all too well.
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| Shown here in a Hamilton Spectator photo taken by photographer Karon Liu, Merit Brewing co-founder Tej Sandhu holds up a flight of Merit's finest. Tej spent a great deal of time chatting beers with us because of his friendship with the Polkaroos! I will be looking more closely at Merit Brewing in this space very soon because, well, my beer fridge is jammed solid with their product. |
Our first stop was Merit Brewing at 107 James Street North, basically around the corner from Collective Arts Brewing, right on the lake. I know this because my son and I popped in there a few months ago to grab some goodies. Now was my chance to get even more. (I will deal with those in the very near future with a solo piece on Merit since my beer fridge is presently jammed with their brews.)
But I had a mission, so to speak. It seems like I might be the only IPA lover in Ontario who has never had a milkshake IPA. And I knew Merit had their Breakfast Fruit Loops Milkshake IPA on tap. Polk and Glenn were dumbfounded, wanting to know how it was possible I had somehow missed the Big Milkshake IPA Trend from the Summer of 2017. It wasn't intentional, I assured them. It was a busy Summer, I didn't have time to seek them out and I simply hadn't come across any. So I was eager to dip my tonsils into this latest brewing craze.
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| That's something like 60 pounds of Fruit Loops dumped into a brewing vat for the creation of Merit's Breakfast Fruit Loop Milkshake IPA. Bell City Brewing in Brantford has done similar beers with their Breakfast at Tiffany's Cap'n Crunch Amber Oat Ale and their Breakfast at Tiffany's 2 Cinnamon Toast Crunch Porter. Funky brews... |
At first, it was one of four beers on my paddle but after sampling it and being puzzled by the taste, I got a pint of it from the bar. I have never talked about "mouthfeel" in this space because I've always found it to be an unnecessary description. Beer feels like beer in my mouth. Lagers feel lighter, stouts feel heavier, some are more heavily-carbonated but to me, they always feel like beer.
This certainly didn't. My first-ever Milkshake IPA felt, well, very weird. There was a strange thickness or creaminess to it that I found jarring. Polk suggested the heavy use of lactose in the mix was responsible for their unusual texture. Since he and Glenn are enthusiastic Milkshake IPA pros, having enjoyed them all Summer while I am but a rookie, I will try some more as I see them just to give the style a fair shake (no pun intended) but at the moment, this is not a style to my liking. The whole notion of a beer feeling somehow foreign in my mouth was as odd to me as a pizza having the texture of a salad.
That said, the 6% IPA was pretty tasty, dry-hopped with Amarillo and Citra hops, not to mention the additional candied citrus of the Fruit Loops.
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| In this Yelp photo taken by one of the Rust City Brewing owners, the coffee house/brewery is seen at night. We were, of course, there during the day because we are not vampires. We are just happy Day Drinkers. And night drinkers. |
It was just the weird-ass texture that threw me for a Loop (okay, I lied - all puns are intended.) However, the other beers I had were great and like I said, I'll deal with them in the near future because I have to get them all out of my fridge for consumption purpose to free up room for other brewers. It seems only fair and frankly, I'm the man for the job.
But I loved the feel and ambiance of Merit Brewing. Long wooden benches, friendly staffers, a menu consisting of various sausages on a bun with fries. And oddly enough, when co-founder Tej Sandhu joined us at our table for a chat, the issue of their fries came up. Spotting my HopCat T-shirt that my buddy, Cheesey, got me when we visited the 130-tap craft beer bar in Detroit, Tej told us his experience at a HopCat in a different Michigan city was the inspiration for their own fries. "We tried to get them as close to those HopCat fries as we could," he noted. Truth to tell, with 130 different taps of craft beer, I had no idea that HopCat was renowned for its fries?? I might have to try them upon my return to Michigan. (Yeah, right... because I'm there for French Fries, not the beer.)
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| On the left, we have the Bellwoods Goblin Sauce Double IPA with Lupulin Powder. On the right, we have their Monogamy IPA with Vic Secret hops. But in the middle was our unlabeled mystery bottle. We drank it blind before we finally asked. Turns out it was the Monogamy APA with Mosaic hops. Glad I asked Polk after because I thought it was Cascade. |
From Merit, we were off to Rust City Brewing, quite literally around the corner at 27 King William Street. On the way, Polk mentioned that while they themselves won't be brewing until October, they nonetheless have the best selection in the city of other breweries' craft beer and their low mark-up was a helluva selling point.
"If a Bellwoods (Brewing) beer sells for $7 at their retail, Rust City sell it for $9," Polk said on the way. "They usually only go $2 or $3 over what they paid for the beer and they drive to the breweries to get the beer themselves." Truth to tell, when you factor in gas, it's almost cheaper to buy Bellwoods beers at Rust City than it is to take the drive into Toronto to buy them from the retail outlet. Except, of course, you can't take them home.
Despite being open since March, the brewing delay for owners Nancy and James Malcolm and Gabriel Spiegelshrift is that the City of Hamilton has strict zoning rules that prevent the creation of brew-pubs in the downtown core. However, after applying to City Hall for an amendment some time back, it looks like - fingers crossed - they'll be good to start brewing their own by next month.
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| Another Yelp picture by one of the owners shows the amount of space they allot to Bellwoods beers in their fridge. It's a brew bargain at Rust City. |
When we first arrived, I would have sworn we were in the wrong place. Along the left hand side is a huge coffee roastery section with a specialty selection. Like a number of smaller brewers (Craft Head Brewing in Windsor, for example), they specialize in both coffee and beer. And since those are my two favourite beverages - well, in actual fact, the only two beverages I ever drink, I could set up a cot in the back of Rust City and be set for life. How exciting for them, eh?
Well, our visit provided us with a unique opportunity as we noticed one of the Bellwoods bottles was unlabeled. So we grabbed their Goblin Sauce Imperial IPA (with Lupulin Powder), the Monogamy Double Dry-Hopped IPA with Vic Secret hops... and the unknown bottle. The bartender knew what the beer was but we did not and asked him to say nothing until we were done. Because that's how we roll. Foolheartedly and haphazardly into the unknown for decades now with no end in sight. Well, I shouldn't speak for the others. Maybe that's just how I roll. But I suspect, upon reading this, the others will all nod their heads and silently say, "Yeah, me too. But don't tell my Mom."
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| During their Grand Opening in May, Polkaroo posed with Merit head brewer Aaron Spinney who had left Sawdust City Brewing (Gravenhurst) to create this new venture in Hamilton with partners Tej Sandhu and Jesse Vallins. A runaway success since Day One! |
While Polk has enjoyed the Goblin Sauce in the past, I have not and lemme tell you... Bam, baby! The 8.5%, roughly 80 IBU (international bitterness unit) double dry-hopped Imperial IPA is loaded with fruity goodness on the nose with tangy mango, peach and berries on the tongue. The addition of Lupulin gives it that much more hop kick as Lupulin is the yellow powder that falls from the hop if you rolled it in your fingers. It contains all the essential oils and resin compounds from the hops. So it's basically super-charged hop gun-powder. Like I said... Bam!
I don't think I've had a Monogamy IPA (there are dozens of them at this point, each with different hops) that I haven't enjoyed from this brewery. And although the one brewed with Idaho 7 hops was my favourite, they've all been great. Vic Secret hops were actually unfamiliar to me but as it turns out they were first harvested in Australia in 2013. Maybe they're scarce around these parts. But the 6.4%, roughly 70 IBU IPA was more of the same - excellent - with pineapple on the nose and bitter pine on the tongue.
And that left the mystery bottle. We each drank some. Noses crinkled. It was nice, either a pale ale or IPA... but far too peppery.
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| Oh geezuz, it's that time of year where pumpkin is added to everything, including ales. Pass! I mean, to put it into teenage girl, I can't even!! |
We stumbled back to Merit after Rust City and were planning to go to Fairweather Brewing but I had to call an audible. I foolishly waited until our return to Merit to eat - damn, that sausage and those fries were pretty good! - and at that point, I had a pretty big glow on. I don't mind that (actually, I like that) but I always try to call time-out at that point so that doesn't turn into sloppy-ass drunk. No one needs to see that. But hey, that hopefully means a trip back into Hamilton to visit Fairweather with the Polkaroos and others!
And since we're talking Polk here, the voting for the Golden Tap Awards end today and I'm plugging my pal for Ontario Beer Writer of the Year in this space. Just get onto the link and Beer Writer is near the bottom. Call him Robert Arsenault or Drunk Polkaroo - everyone knows him by either. So vote here at: We Love Polk 2017!!!! But guys and dolls, I am a million miles behind with these due to my turbulent Summer so expect an onslaught of Brew Ha Ha columns coming your way now that I'm settled. Don't say you weren't warned!!! Until next time, I remain...
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