Beast of the East - Go Forth to the North

You see this beautiful young lady? That's my niece,
Genny. And when she recently flew in from Halifax,
she came bearing a gift from Unfiltered Brewing's
brewmaster Greg Nash. Yes, she beer-muled a two-
litre growler of his outstanding Twelve Years To
Zion Double IPA. Holy Early Christmas to me!!!

Today, I shall tell you the story of two directions. This will be very different than the story of One Direction, a British-Irish boy band, which from 2011 to 2015 actually had two directions - way up and then way, way down. I don't know any of their songs but gosh, I miss 'em already. I think the cute one left. Or maybe it was the bad boy. Perhaps the one with asthma? I really don't know.

But since I am a little more multi-directional than One Direction, I will be going in Two Directions. I will be looking east and then coming back to look north. Take that, Zayn Malik! (Relax, I Googled it. Oh sorry, he's from One Direction - I probably should have explained that first.)

Okay, my sister, Carly, has four kids and all of them went to post-secondary in Halifax at Dalhousie University. But today, we're gonna talk about her eldest, my beautiful niece, Genny. After she graduated as a nurse, she stayed in Halifax and last October, she married her long-time beau, Rory. That wedding and my visit to four Halifax craft breweries that weekend was the subject of two blogs a year ago. Of the four breweries, each chosen for a different reason, one was a Bucket List destination - Unfiltered Brewing at 6041 North Street. That's because their brewmaster, Greg Nash, has a reputation of being the Hop Hellion of the Eastern Seaboard.

When his birthday came around on October 9, Unfiltered's Greg
Nash got a post from me on Facebook using this photo. I turned it
into a meme that simply said up top, "Hello, my name is Greg
Nash..." concluding at the bottom "... and I'm here to annihilate
your taste buds!" It got a lot of attention as more than 50 of his
Facebook friends hit it with "likes" and their personal greetings.

In the end, I had three of Nash's creations - his Double Orange Double IPA, the Twelve Steps to Zion Imperial IPA and his Riddle of Steel IPA, three beers ranging in ABVs from 7% to 8%. But - and this tells the larger story - the IBUs (international bitterness units) in the beers were a solid 70 for the Riddle but 100-plus for the other two. So malts are pretty much an afterthought in Greg's world. They're in there due to necessity and for balance only. 

As it turns out, Genny and Greg know each other. She was a waitress and he was the brewmaster of a brew-pub they both worked at while Genny was still in university. When I went to Halifax a year ago for her wedding and Genny found out we had visited Unfiltered Brewing, she was succinct. "I love Greg Nash. He's a genius!" she told me. And of that brewpub, all she noted was that it was "poorly managed" and that Greg was "under-utilized and under-appreciated." Hey, for all I know, that brewpub may have been the reason Greg struck out to co-create Unfiltered and if so, thank you, Poorly-Managed Brewpub!!! You have done us all a great service just by being shitty!

When I visited Unfiltered Brewing last October, you could
only get their beers in one-litre or two-litre growlers. But as
you can see, a canning machine has been added to their
operation in the last month. That may have made it easier
 for Genny to be my beer mule but hey, I'm damn happy
that she landed in Toronto with ANY Unfiltered product!

But Greg remembered there was a connection between Genny and myself when she visited Unfiltered just before flying to Toronto last month but he couldn't remember exactly what. So he asked. When she told him I was her uncle (she probably said her favourite), he handed her a 1.9 litre (64 ounce) growler of Twelve Steps to Zion Imperial IPA for me with his regards. Holy Snappin' Arseholes, Margaret, ain't that a fine how-do-you-do? According to Genny, his assessment of me was simply: "He's f--king funny." If providing a few laughs gets me one of Canada's best IPAs, just call me Jerry Goddamn Seinfeld. What a fantastic gesture!

The beer was exactly as I remembered. At 8% and 100-plus IBUs, it was pine and peach and citrus on the nose and just as fruit-filled and punchy as hell on the tongue. Just one helluva fantastic beer. What can I say? The dude knows his shit. And my niece saw that genius in Nash several years before I did... which is pretty damn cool. I graciously and gratefully thank you, Mr Nash. Quite frankly, your gift made my 2017. As Hawkeye Pierce would say, "You, sir, are finestkind."

The display at an LCBO of the Northern Ontario Mixed Six
Pack, which was, at first, a tricky thing to purchase for our pal,
Drunk Polkaroo. Three LCBO employees descended on his six
pack, which he quite literally had in his hands but could not
figure out how to ring it through. Charles from Nickel Brook
and I had far better luck the same day at our Oakville LCBO.

Okay, now it's time to shift our gaze to the north and by that, I mean Northern Ontario. You see, there are six craft breweries in Northern Ontario and they are starting to make waves in the southern portion of the province where myself and most of my beer brothers and sisters reside, as well as 90% of the Province's population. They are: Highlander Brew Co. in South River (home of the shenanigans from many a Boys Weekends), Stack Brewing in Sudbury, New Ontario Brewing out of North Bay, Lake of the Woods Brewing in Kenora, Sleeping Giant Brewing out of Thunder Bay and finally, Manitoulin Brewing on Manitoulin Island. For the record, Manitoulin has the best catch-phrase of the bunch on their cans - "You're On Island Time Now." That gives Northern Ontario a pretty cool sort of Caribbean feel. That's not true in the least but hey, I liked it. Anyway, these six created the Northern Ontario Brewers Alliance and recently released the Northern Ontario Mixed Six Pack - a box with one of each of their beers in a 473-ml (16 ounce) can. I point this out only because the majority (if not, all) of these breweries didn't even have canning capabilities this time last year. Things change quickly in the Ontario craft beer scene!

The only glass I own from the Northern Ontario Brewers'
Alliance is the Highlander Brew Co. glass. So all of their
beers were poured into this one just so they could, I dunno,
represent. But this is Manitoulin Brewing's Bridal Veil Pale
Ale, which I have enjoyed before as it's a plucky little brew.

Individually, the brewers decided which ones they would submit to the pack. "So, Johnny, let's tell the people in the studio audience what's in this pack!!!"

As mentioned last time, Highlander selected its Rye Road Pale Ale. Manitoulin puts its Bridal Veil Pale Ale in the sixer. New Ontario contributed its Bear Runner Blonde Ale. Sleeping Giant submitted its Northern Logger Golden Ale (actually, a Kolsch - get it? Logger Ale? Lagered ale?) Stack included its Panache Session IPA while lastly, Lake of the Woods passed along its Forgotten Lake Blueberry Ale.

But this story started in a wacky way even before we all got our hands on the six-pack because one of us couldn't. As a matter of fact, our man Drunk Polkaroo actually had it in his hands and three different clerks at his LCBO couldn't figure out how to ring it through as it was not scanning. Definitely not a diss as both Polk and I are in retail and man, shit like that is frustrating! But every bar code has 10 corresponding numbers below and if you plunk those numbers in, it should ring through.

This was a really nice Session IPA from Stack Brewing in
Sudbury. Originally called Panache Pale Ale, I think the
brewery thought that saying Session IPA actually carried
a little more... what's the word again... oh yeah, panache!

Maybe they tried and that didn't work, either?

Regardless, the Polk situation kicked off about three days of Twitter chatter around the Northern Ontario Sixer that was as all over the place. Charles from Nickel Brook jumped on to say the Oak Park LCBO at Trafalgar and Dundas in Oakville was able to sell him one a few hours later. So I jetted over to it when my shift was over. The clerk has the same issues as Polk's had - it wouldn't scan - but she also had a paper list on her cash that she looked at, then popped in some numbers and *bam* sold for $19 even! (At $3.17 per can, this was a damn good deal.)

Charles later mentioned that he thought he might have had the Lake of the Woods' Forgotten Lake Blueberry Ale a year ago and he found at that time, the blueberries in the brew were a little "lacking." But he added, hey, going into it with an open mind. Within minutes - not joking - Lake of the Woods was on the thread, noting, "Hey everybody! Well, we brew our Forgotten Lake Ale WITH blueberries - not syrup or concentrate or juice - it's a beer designed to taste like a beer brewed with blueberries, not a beer FORCED to taste LIKE blueberries artificially. Hope you enjoy!"

New Ontario Brewing's Bear Runner Blonde Ale was a
nice, mild addition to the six-pack but they are pretty
willing to up the stakes for Northern Ontario Mixer, Part
Two, telling us that the next one will be dark. Very dark!!

Well, Shazam! Think a macro would jump into a conversation that quickly or at all if you had a concern about one of their products? Actually, never mind macros - think any corporation would do that?? Yeah, me neither.

As a craft brewery employee and a Prud'homme Level 2 Beer Specialist, Charles was thrilled with the response. "That makes sense as to why there's a subtle blueberry taste and not an overwhelming blueberry flavour. Cheers!"

Because the brewery jumped in so quickly (and effectively), it got its kudos from me, too, as I thanked them and added, "All of us seriously dig knowing how the brewers concocted their latest brew! We are curious craft lovers!" Now later, after some private messaging, I would discover the Lake of the Woods Twitter person talking to us was actually president and CEO Taras Manzie so that lead into a whole other conversation that's on deck for the next blog. But man, he was on that conversation instantly. And he thanked us for thanking him!

Marketing Meeting at Sleeping Giant: "Okay, folks, how
do we let the public know that we're a Northern Ontario
brewery?" asks the owner. Bob, the accountant, raises
his hand. "How about a lumberjack riding some kind of
bear-moose on the label?" Damn, Bob, you're a genius!

"We love beer and love beer drinkers. Happy to jump in, any questions anytime! This Northern Sixer is a lot of fun. Look for more in the future!"

Okay, two things there. Number one, a brewery owner was so prompt and chatty with us. That's pretty awesome, gang. And two, folks, Taras told us the Northern brewers aren't done with these Alliance Mix-Sixers just yet!

And that came up later. Admittedly, the Northern Six went pretty easy on us this time with milder styles but Paul on Twitter (@onepageeveryday), who had already enjoyed four of the six beers prior to this mixed pack release, addressed that by noting, "I was hoping for more dark malty offerings but I do love the idea of six far-away brewers combining force to get their stuff down here."

Holy Barney Stinson in a sharp suit, can you say "Challenge... Accepted?" Stack Brewing jumped into that fray quickly, suggesting, "We have a national gold (medal winning) Black IPA. Maybe next time?" (That would be their 6.6% Black Rock, which took gold at the 2016 Canadian Brewing Awards.)

When Paul on Twitter suggested the next Northern
Mixer pack go a little darker in hue, Stack jumped
into the fray to say perhaps an award-winning
Black IPA might be suitable? To brewery owner
Shawn Mailloux, I say abso-freakin-lutely, man!!

Minutes later, my main man, Brewmaster Brian Wilson (once again - no, not that one) at Highlander was in the Twitter mix, exclaiming, "Exactly! Don't be afraid of the dark. I'll hold your hand." (Brian's an awesome dude... but no. I will drink his beer, though. And maybe write him a sonnet or something.)

And just minutes after that, New Ontario jumped into the fray and asked, "Are we having a 'How dark can you go? The return of the darkest ale' contest? If so, let's brew!" Paul, I think you started something here... something really good!!

And the conversation continued on with new members jumping in. Graeme (@needmy caffeine) was happy with the six-pack. "I am liking this alliance thing. Please keep doing it and let's hope other breweries catch on and do the same."

One of the blurbs on the packaging make me chuckle so of course, I shared it. "I should point out that because it's the Northern Alliance Mix-Six, the box declares it 'Stump-Approved' meaning 'Pull up a stump and have a few around the campfire.' But here I am, drinking it in the house like a goddamn savage."

In a Robin Burridge story for the Manitoulin Expositor, the
three Manitoulin Brewing partners, Blair Hagman, Joet Dhatt
and Nishin Meawasige pose with their vats. The brewery just
officially opened for business this past June. When my man,
Hago, visited them in 2016, they were still operating out of a
garage. They have come a long way very quickly, I would say.

Fortunately, our favourite Sudbury resident, Gravy Boat Captain (@GravyBoatCpt) jumped in to put my mind at ease. "No, in the north, stumps are our indoor furniture. Also, in the Winter-time, campfire is code for the oven on with the door open." Truth to tell, I've never even asked him his real name simply because it's never gonna be as good as Gravy Boat Captain.

When I asked him what his choice would be for Stack's next entry in Northern Brewers Mix-Six, Part Two, he suggested either their Hawaiian Uppercut Belgian Sour Pale Ale or perhaps their Les Portes De L'enfer Biere De Garde (Farmhouse Strong Ale.) While Les Portes has won three medals - two golds and a bronze - at the Ontario and Canadian Brewing Awards, I still like the sound of that Black Rock Black IPA. Yeah, let's stick with that.

Okay, I looked at Highlander's Rye Road Pale Ale in the last outing, so let's look at the others in this go-around. Let's start with the Manitoulin Brewing's Bridal Veil Pale Ale.

Sleeping Giant co-owner and head brewer Kyle
Mulligan holds up my favourite brew of theirs, the
Beaver Duck American Pale Ale, which won gold
at the 2016 Ontario Brewing Awards. A tasty beer.

Okay, this provided a nice balance to the Rye Road, which was largely malt-driven. Since Bridal Veil Falls is an actual landmark in the Village of Kegawong on the island, they honour it with this nicely Cascade hopped 5% pale ale. Lightly citrus and grapefruit on the tongue, this is a little less hoppy than I like my pale ales but it pretty much hits the middle ground between the west coast and the caramel-driven British style. Balanced and decent.

The New Ontario Bear Runner Blonde Ale is, well, a blonde ale, which is a mild style that can often lure macro drinkers to the craft world. I don't drink many of them, much preferring the heavier or the hoppier brews, but for its style, I did enjoy it. At just 4.5%, it's nice to have lighter fare now and again. It almost had a wheat beer feel to it. Total patio beer.

The Sleeping Giant Northern Logger Golden Ale (which, as previously discussed is actually a Kolsch) is another easy-drinking ale. At 4.9%, there's some graininess on the nose, a light touch of fruit on the tongue. Also another good cross-over beer.

Excuse me, sign, but if you can buy craft beer
then you are, in fact, buying happiness. It's not
"almost" the same thing. It IS the same thing!!
Other than that... uh, nice penmanship there?

Which brings us to the Stack Brewing's Panache Session IPA. My affection for all things hoppy may be showing here but this was one of the package's stand-outs. At 4.5% and just 30 IBUs (international bitterness units), this packed a little more punch than its numbers indicate. Citra, Simcoe and Rakau hops are the driving force behind this lighter fare and give it some really nice citrus, melon and pine on the nose with more pine on the tongue. This is an excellent session IPA. Good choice for Stack!

But wait, what about that Lake of the Woods Forgotten Lake Blueberry Ale? Oh, my friends, that's being saved for next time. You see, Beer Bro Glenn and I both started our Journalism careers in Kenora way back in the mid-1980s and I had a chance to catch up with brewery owner Taras Manzie to see what's shaking these days in that quiet northern town. That's a blog unto itself. (Also, he seems like a great guy.)

But I'm leaving the final words on the next Northern Brewer Alliance Mix-Six to Paul, who requested of them, and I quote: "Malt, malt, chocolate malt. Dark and chewy." We really loved this Mix-Six but now it's time for you northern brewers to kick our southern asses with something dark and dirty. Bring out the black magic, you magnificent Northern Brewing Bastards! We can take it. And if not, that's on us! But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...