Nickel Brook's new Tap Room? So good...

If you ever see these four gentlemen in one place again, call the cops. I
mean, a larger selection of No-Good-Niks you will never find. Actually,
we all just got together to check out Nickel Brook's new Tap Room and
geezuz, it's pretty sweet. From left, you have Bill from @craftbeersblog,
a random homeless dude, Dan from @craftbeersblog and, of course, my
man, Steve from @SOBeerBoys. Hell, we had a great afternoon there...

It started, as so many things do, with a simple Twitter post.

I posted a picture of a Nickel Brook's Wicked Awesome IPA with a simple mention that I needed to get in the proper frame of mind to visit the brewery's brand spankin' new Tap Room the next day - two Sunday ago. So November... *looks at present date on laptop*... I dunno, 13 days ago.

Suddenly, a couple of Twitter buddies joined the conversation. Dan from @craftbeersblog wondered when I'd be there. He hadn't seen the new Tap Room so he was curious himself.

Next on deck was Steve from @SOBeerBoys, who was dropping his daughter off at a 1 pm sports (gymnastics, I think) practice near Mapleview Mall, five minutes away, who wondered if we'd still be there.

"Good afternoon, fellows. I'll be your entertainment
today." Nickel Brook owner John Romano came to
our table and regaled us with stories for at least an
hour. This is why we love our craft breweries. There
is always a personal touch. He's also a beer server!

Now before I tell you about our afternoon, let me bring you up to speed on the two separate blogs-social media accounts run by these gents. Craft Beers Blog is actually a group of seven or eight women and men, each of whom write beer blogs with an eye to their specialty. "So we have that person who loves sours, another who loves the dark beers and so on," Dan explained to me. So a multi-tiered, multi-viewpoint approach. Very democratic and pretty creative.

And then there's the Southern Ontario Beer Boys, a group of four very charitable fellows. You see, they run the Kans 4 Kids program, which collects beer cans from anyone wishing to donate and then channel all the proceeds directly to McMaster Children's Hospital. So they have taken a love of craft beer (or any beer - hell, Bud cans are also worth 10 cents) and turned it into something noble, which we all love to see. You can connect with them on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Great guys, great cause.

Okay, let me continue to write this blog, which offers just one opinion and contributes absolutely nothing to society whatsoever. We all agreed to meet up at Nickel Brook to check out their new digs.

Because he had eaten lunch (I hadn't), Dan was able to
enjoy this year's 11-05, the annual collaboration between
Nickel Brook's Ryan Morrow and Sawdust City's Sam
Corbeil, both of whom were born November 5th. This
year's version is a cherry-laced Belgian Quad that clocks
in at 11.05% ABV. Which is why I couldn't drink any...

Holy crap, what a change! I guess I haven't been there since Barrie Beer Bro Hago and I popped in during the Summer. For many years, they were my hometown homeys, right around the corner from me, until family matters intervened and I had to move back to Oakville last September.

But the east end of the Nickel Brook brewery not too long ago was a wine-making facility. Apparently, that has since shifted down Fairview Avenue to a strip-plaza, opening up a fair bit of space for this new Tap Room. And man, it's gorgeous! The shape is like two L's connected, one upside-down, with the top and bottom facing different directions. It zigs, goes long... and then it zags. (That is probably the shittiest room description I've ever given but in fairness, I've never had to describe many rooms. Most are square or rectangular.)

After happily greeting my favourite Tap Room Manager, Rob Nagy, Dan quickly introduced himself and the pair of us got down to the business of beer. The first question of the day? How much did we think this facelift cost? I threw out $300,000 as my guess and Dan said that sounded about right to him. We would soon find out that we weren't far off.

Okay, Nickel Brook posted this a week before the Grand
Opening. You have to kind of use your mind's eye for this
but unseen to the left is the bar with over 20 taps and a
seated space that juts to the west. At the top right of this
is another section that goes due east. (We are facing north
here.) You know what? It's easier to come and just enjoy.

You see, not long afterwards, a voice boomed behind me. "Oh no, you let him in? And on a Sunday?" It was John Romano, who co-owns Nickel Brook with his brother, Peter. And yes, the comment was completely aimed at me.

You see, John and I met in October 2013 when I landed in the brewery for the first time and John himself was behind the counter, filling growlers. After getting directions, I had come in for, of course, Headstock IPA (still in the six-pack bottle back then) but also Bolshevik Bastard Imperial Stout, which I had heard about but never tried. John sold me my first-ever growlers. (The empty jugs cost just $5 at the time.) He said words to the effect of, "The kegs I'm filling these growlers from come from the room right there. There is no fresher beer." Because I was still pretty new to the blog game, he explained the importance of getting beer, especially IPAs, as fresh as possible, the difference in taste... pretty much everything.

Finding out I worked at the Beer Store (perhaps a perceived "enemy" at that time), he smiled, arched an eyebrow and asked why I was there? I shrugged and mumbled, "I just think it's important to shop locally." Based on his reaction, 10 points for Gryffindor.

John himself got this board together for Dan and myself. It's billed as a
"curated menu of local cheese, charcuterie and bar snacks." Folks, it's
bread, cheese, meat, mustard and pickled veggies. As we say in English.

So I walked out of there with a new friend and very important contact. But it also meant lot of jocular teasing to come.

I'd walk in with my growlers. If John was with someone, he'd point me out and taunt, "You see that guy? He works at the Beer Store but comes here for his beer!"

Granted, I gave as good as I got. One summer, John's son, Nick, an university student, was working the growler station. So one day, I strolled in with my growlers, saw John 20 feet away with a client and basically yelled, "Hi, Nick! Once again, I'm here to pay your f**king university tuition!"

Another of Dan's great interior shots of the new look
Nickel Brook Tap Room. I told him that I would be
stealing these pics. He didn't seem all that concerned.
But the new Tap Room - 20 different taps plus retail!

(Got some looks - totally worth it. I could see John doing the laughter shake from behind. Nick had a small smile but you could totally see the "What's this dude's damage?" in his eyes.)

So anyway, back to the main story. After a while, Dan and I noticed a light drilling sound at the far end where John was set up. It almost sounded like a dremel, that little hand-held spinny, grindy tool you use to round corners on wood and steel. So I had to investigate. It was John with the world's smallest meat slicer, getting food trays ready.

Of course, I simply asked, flat-out... the new look? $300,000 or so? He smiled and said yeah, pretty much. Turns out a contractor had quoted him exactly that amount! (Damn, Dan and I are good!) But included in that was some bizarre consultation-supervision fee of $27,000, which, I guess meant the contractor paid himself first before the workers. (I don't really know.)

In the end, John figured out that a handful of brewery workers and personal friends could do it for much cheaper. So that's what they did. And lemme tell you this for free. For my money, it looks like professionals did the work.

John Romano working the smallest meat cutter in the
history of things that cut meat. He told me it was the
one he used at home and that he might had to get a
bigger one if they were cranking out meat and cheese
trays in the Tap Room. That would be a wise investment

"I knew how to do the (really nice wood) flooring and I knew how to do the wall tiling," he told me. (You can see the tile behind him in the pic of him at the meat-slicer.) In the end, the total bill after a few weeks of labour - $150,000 all in. Half price. The ultimate craft brewery DIY project. And it looks awesome.

But a quick side-story before I get back to the Boys Afternoon At The Tap Room. While my man, Charles, is still my Beer Store's inside Nickel Brook sales rep, meaning he calls us and sees what we need every weekend, we also have an outside travelling sales rep, who goes to all the customers - Beer Stores, LCBOs, bars, everywhere - to make sure things are running smoothly. Our present rep, whose name eludes me (I met her only once over a year ago), is off on maternity leave. Filling her shoes is the Golden Horseshoe rep, Meghan Bell. She popped into my store so instantly, we started talking about the Tap Room. Meghan casually mentioned that John brought in a special friend to assist. "He had this buddy who's really good at this stuff come down from somewhere way up north to help him and everyone else." (Thank you, Meghan. You da best.) Busted, Johnny. You brought in a Renovation Ringer! 

About a week before they opened but I want to draw your attention to
lights, which have been stylized to look like the Nickel Brook "atom"
logo. You see those rings on each? They've been collected from the many
bourbon-wine barrels that have come through the brewery. Brilliant!

(Actually, it's gonna be hard to chirp him on that. If you can get your own personal Mike Holmes in, you do it.)

Getting back to the story at hand, when I returned to Dan at the bar, he had been joined by Bill, also from Craft Beers Blog and before long, Steve from Southern Ontario Beer Boys caught up. One of us finally noted, hey, let's take a table over there, which we did. In the end, we were sitting right in front of John and his meat-slicing adventures.

So within minutes, John had come to greet our table. None of the other three had met him before. They were in for a treat. Now, despite the fact I warned him that we were a table of beer bloggers, John did what he always does - hit the "on" button while ignoring the "edit" button. And man, did we learn a thing of two.

Well, I'm not gonna stop into Nickel Brook and walk out empty-handed,
am I?  No. So I grabbed four-packs of Wicked Awesome IPA, Headstock
IPA, Lost In Orbit Session IPA and Immodest Imperial IPA, as well as a
hella sexy new IPA glass. Young Charles has been urging me to do so...

It seems the Romano's are sitting on a pretty sweet parcel of land. You see, they are just to the west of the Burlington GO Station. And what developers are trying to do is snatch up all the land around GO Stations to build high-rise condos. Condos within easy walking distance to the GO Train. Young couples will snap those up quickly, I suspect. So we found out from John what the lands adjacent to him went for. The brothers, who own the property, are figuratively sitting on a gold mine when it's time to pack up and move operations into their future St. Catharine's brewery.

As for the big move, no exact timeline yet but within the next year or two.

Their Cheeky Bastard Stout has been their big
Movember fund-raiser with 25 cents from each
can sold being pledged to the men's health
movement. I heard they were sitting at about
$1,000 so far so that's 4,000 cans sold this month.

We also inadvertently found out who's been contract-brewing their core line of beers while they sort out the new brewery issues. As you know, Collective Arts was doing it but that deal fell apart. And since the Drury Lane brewery is jammed, cranking out Funk Lab recipes, someone had to brew the core line-up - Headstock, Naughty Neighbour, Equilibrium ESB, Wicked Awesome, etc. So when John mentioned the core line-up being brewed elsewhere, Bill simply asked him by whom. And he told us.

Well, here's the thing. That's been the brewery's best-guarded secret for months. Even with all my contacts there, no one was budging on the name. As soon as John named them, I was like, "Uhhh, I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to know that." So John instantly swore us to secrecy. But, trust me, Nickel Brook's core line-up could not be in better hands.

In the end, John probably talked to us for about an hour. I can't even remember all the subjects now, other than to say it was all very informative and entertaining. And through that hour, John's phone kept buzzing. It was his parents as he had promised to be there by X o'clock. He is literally in the same boat as me - taking care of an elderly parent. Well, two, in his case. You do what you gotta do, eh?

Nickel Brook retail manager Rob Nagy mans the
drums with his band, The Saturnines, during the
Nickel Brook 2017 Oktoberfest fund-raiser. So
I'll see him tonight at the big Movember Party!

But before he left, we were talking about the potential condo development since it's already started on the east side of the GO Station so, it's only a matter of time. He pointed out that all these new condos around the GO stations have retail outlets on the first floors, mostly so condo owners could do a quick shop or grab a quick bite when they got home. So it's usually places such as Rabba's Fine Foods, Pizza Pizza, Subway and the like.

He wants to be part of that. He wants a Nickel Brook bar or retail outlet in there. Why? To thank the Burlington community for their years of support and more importantly, keep the brewery's connection to the area alive. "I think that'd be great," he told us. "A satellite place to wherever (we land). But still here in Burlington."

Granted, this is all crystal ball star-gazing at this point. Because they're still here!! And frankly, I have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

You see, Nickel Brook is holding their Great Movember Wrap-Up Party tonight from 6 to 9 pm at the new Tap Room. I made sure I had a day shift just to maximize my Nickel Brook Hairy Face Time! (So, you know... attend.)

You know who loves himself some Nickel Brook? Yupper do,
our man Drunk Polkaroo, shown here exploring last year's
Nickel Brook Mystery Pack. Like me, Polk voted for C, the
New England IPA, which became Wicked Awesome IPA
early this year. Frankly, it was the only choice and won with
ease. Although others got votes, as well. That disturbs me...

There'll be a Best Mov contest, a big Mov Shave-Off, before and after pics and, hey now, food by Dundas eatery Thirsty Cactus. Sounds great, right?

It would be but... well, I'm having Mov issues. You see that sweet stashe in my headshot up top? Thick, brown with distinguished flecks of gray? That was taken five years ago. And while the hair on my head is still the same colour, the stashe, well, it's all gray now. And I want it to show up in pictures, which it kinda won't.

I took my problem to my coworker, Trey, the King of Halloween Costumes, and explained I could go the Just For Men route and make it brown for the night. But I added it would be more fun if I could make it orange or blue. I could even win the contest! Trey, as always, had the answer. "Go to a dollar store. Find a make-up kit for little girls. It'll have mascara to colour your moustache. But it has to be for little girls because it's non-toxic!" Okay, one, how does he know this shit? And two, what the hell kind of toxicity is in adult women's mascara? So I'll see some of you folks tonight at the new Tap Room with my sweet blue stashe, courtesy of my Party Princess Make-Up Fun kit, which cost me $1.50. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am out of here. Trust me, pictures to follow. Until next time, I remain...