The Dragon Queen and Dark Weekends...

Diana Rowland bills herself on Twitter as "Former
cop, former morgue tech. Now I write stories about
cops, morgues, demons and zombies." People
Magazine shortened that to "Sci-Fi Writer" in the
write-up they did about her. But she's pretty cool.

Well, another Christmas is in the books and like many of you I suspect, I'm kinda glad it's over. I mean, yeah, it's great getting together with family (or not... for a handful of you) and certainly, we all love the spirit of Christmas (or don't... for a handful of you.) But working in retail, I am thrilled that the Christmas music at work will finally cease and desist. It can be grating. But hey, that's a wrap on Christmas 2018, right? Well, not so fast, kiddies. There's one more Christmas tale to tell. Sorry but I think you'll like this one. It has dragons!!!

Your see, there's this nice lady named Diana Rowland, who lives in the quiet suburban enclave of Mandeville, Louisiana. Well, I presume she's nice but I know for sure she's fun and the kind of neighbour I would like. That's because for the past four years, she had put up these three inflatable dragons as her Christmas display. Very colourful, she puts seasonal scarves and Christmas hats on them. Very cool, an attraction for families taking pictures and, well, just plain creative and different.

So she's basically The Dragon Queen of Mandeville. Now when most of us think Dragon Queen, naturally we think of the character Daenerys Targaryen from the show, Games of Thrones, the only person ever who could eat a Hot Pocket straight out of the microwave and be just fine.

This was Diana Rowland's Christmas dragon display that fanned the ire
of one neighbour, who sent her a very passive-aggressive note about it.
Not too surprisingly, when the word spread, people jumped on the
Dragon Bandwagon, offering support and even money. Crazy and fun.

So Diana has happily been doing this display since 2015 and everyone loves it. That is until this year. This year, she got an anonymous letter from a neighbour who was not on board.

It read: "Your dragon display is only marginally acceptable at Halloween. It is totally inappropriate at Christmas. It makes your neighbors wonder if you are involved in a demonic cult. Please consider removing the dragons. May God bless you and help you to know the true meaning of Christmas."

Wow, the passive-aggressive is practically oozing off that note. Whatta drag he or she must be at parties. So natch, Diana posted the note to the Internet where the reaction was instantaneous and pretty frikkin hilarious.

When a neighbour asked Diana Rowland to remove her dragon display
and get onboard with the "true meaning of Christmas," there was only
one thing she could do. Add two more dragons. I mean, clearly what
the neighbour meant was "More dragons!" right? That's gotta be it.

One fellow suggested that the issue was probably that while she had set up the three Dragon wise men, there was no Dragon Baby Jesus or Dragon Mary or Joseph. "It is an incomplete dragon nativity." Another seem confounded in that "Everyone knows that Christmas is about celebrating Dragon Jesus."

In the end, Diana did the only thing she could - the right thing. She added two more dragons! She had no intention of letting the neighbour she called Judgy McJudgeFace slow her down.

But something else happened during all of this seasonal fun. She got so much support that people were willing to set up GoFundMe accounts or make donations. As great a dragon ride as it was, that's where she drew the line.

Dragon complaints? Well, Diana, if I were you, I would bring in a
professional when it comes to dragon complaints. I heard of this
lady from Westeros named Daenerys who has some experience...

Instead of sending her cash, she suggested that people donate that cash to local food banks, shelters or program for underprivileged kids. And that is the true meaning of Christmas!!! I hope whoever that idiot neighbour was, they were paying close attention.

And since we're already dabbling in the Dark Arts, (okay, not really black magic because who the hell wouldn't want a dragon?) let's go back a few weeks to an event I called Donny's Dark Weekend.

While that sounds somewhat ominous, it started quite innocently. You see, everyone's beer buddy Drunk Polkaroo went online and said it was high time to clean out his beer fridge. Now, Polk's beer fridge is your typical Canadian one. Big old beast in his garage. The one that most wives no longer want in the kitchen but guys, reluctant to part ways with a working appliance, re-purpose as their own special fridge. For beer!

That bottle looks pretty big but actually it's just 473-ml
(16 ounces) of chocolate-chocolate goodness. I always get
a few of these every year, dating back to the time they
were in big ol' 650-ml (22 ounce) bottles. Believe me, at
10%, Flying Monkeys' The Chocolate Manifesto Triple
Chocolate Milk Stout has enough richness for even the
biggest of cocoa cravings. Definitely a real holiday treat.

A sacred sanctuary that may show a few signs of rust but if done right, is usually plastered with beer stickers and magnetic church keys.

And after Polk said that, I remember thinking, "Actually clean out the beer fridge? What a unique and innovative concept actually cleaning something is! I should do that, too."

Now my fridge is a little different than Polk's. When I moved to Oakville in 2017, I went online to Kijiji and what-have-you to find a cheap used fridge to throw in the basement as my beer fridge. Some were far more than I needed and thus outrageously priced. I needed a beer fridge, not a gleaming silver man-beast machine that makes ice before your very eyes. After hitting appliance places, looking for a cheap, working beer fridge, I was finally told by an employee, "Seriously, just go to Home Depot and get a bar fridge." So I did. It's a beauty. Glass door, very big, holds 172 pop cans, according to the box. So I took a shelf out and made it three levels, instead of four.

What a treat these two were. Clifford Brewing's
(Hamilton) Porter, centre, is a straight-up coffee,
chocolate treat. No bells, no whistles, just a well-
made porter. Oskar Blues Brewing (Longmont,
Colorado) Hotbox Coffee Porter takes the usual
route but amps the coffee up to 11. This could
wake you up at 7 am and keep you going all day.

Bottom two shelves, cans only. Top shelf, everything else.

And it's up on a platform right beside my desk in the Batcave, meaning if I turn to the left, there's the beer. I barely have to reach, much less bend over. Yes, I even drink beer in the laziest manner possible. I am nothing if not true to myself.

Now the bottom shelf is for cans of IPAs, which I often buy in 12s or 24s, due to the price breaks at the Beer Store and the breweries themselves. The middle shelf? All other styles in cans which I pick through now and again, mostly just to post on Twitter to prove I drink more than just IPAs. Oh, also on the middle shelf, overflow IPAs. But the top shelf? That's mostly bottles (and some cans) that need a lot more space. So while I was cleaning out my fridge (which, of course, I assume means drinking its contents to free up space), I concentrated on the top shelf - 95% of which were porters, stouts and dark ales. The black magic shelf that is often neglected because I don't mind if dark beers wait a while longer. For whatever reason, I consider them somehow impervious to time.

Railway City Brewing continues to impress me
and prove there should always be space in my
fridge for their offerings. Their Twice Checked
Chocolate Cherry Porter, available in their
Christmas gift pack, was a tasty little beauty.

So let's look at a few at the beauties that got cleaned out on Donny's Dark Weekend, which, due to high-ABV levels, was extended to the following weekend, as well. It was kind of a running theme. The only running you'll ever see me do.

Okay, if you've never had Flying Monkeys' (Barrie) The Chocolate Manifesto Triple Chocolate Milk Stout, I have only one question: "Is crack that much fun? Really?" Now we all assume that in a good stout, chocolate will be an underlying flavour. In this, it is not. It is ALL the flavours!! Back in the day, it came in these big-ass 750-ml (25 ounce) bottles and believe me, if you drank a whole bottle by yourself as I did on several occasions, trust me, you could feel it. But in that "I've lost all sensation in my lower extremities" way. Since that time, they scaled it down to 473-ml (16 ounce) bottles for the benefit of nitwits like me who may need to use those legs at some point in the day. At 10%, they use raw cocoa nibs, cocoa powder and chocolate malts to create the biggest, tastiest chocolate bomb that's ever detonated in your mouth. (Insert crass Kardashian joke here.)

When All or Nothing Brewing took over the
Trafalgar Ale and Meads a couple of years
back, the Black Creek Rifleman's Ration
Brown Ale went from okay to outstanding.

I think the only Clifford Brewing (Hamilton) beer I've ever had in the past was their Pinball Wizard American Pale Ale, which is a must-try if you haven't. So when I spotted their Porter at the LCBO, I snagged one, knowing it was one of Lady Polkaroo's two favourite brews, along with the Muddy York Porter. Like her hubby, she has exceptional taste when it comes to the ways of the dark elixirs. This is a straight-up, no-nonsense classic porter. No fruit and funky flavouring bells and whistles in this. Because when you're good - and this 5.9% goblet of goodness certainly is - you don't need 'em. Great call, Kat, on a great beer.

Leaving Canada, if only for a second, at the same time I spotted Oskar Blues Brewing (Longmont, Colorado) Hotbox Coffee Porter during the same LCBO outing. (Yo, Oak Park in Oakville, zup?) Okay, when you pour a porter, you expect some coffee and some chocolate, right? But much like the Chocolate Manifesto did with cocoa, this does with coffee. Holy crap, this 6.5% ebony jewel has the caffeine bean cranked up to 11, a la Spinal Tap. After Stone Brewing, these guys are my favourite American brewery.

♫♫♫ I've come to drink with you again. With dark vision
slowly creeping. And chocolate malts fairly seeping. And
the tastes that were planted on my tongue. Still remain.
With the richness of dark beers... ♫♫♫ (Thunderous
applause) Thank you, Ontario, you're a great crowd!

I gotta tell ya, Railway City Brewing out of St Thomas is becoming The Little Engine That Could these days. While we may never (or may someday) hold them up with the same reverence that we bestow upon Great Lakes or Collective Arts, this little caboose is slowly and steadily working themselves in the collective conscious of Ontario craft beer lovers. I grabbed their Christmas collection, primarily to get the glass because I'm a huge fan of their Express India Session Lager and dammit if the other two offerings didn't impress me as well, particularly their Twice Checked Chocolate Cherry Porter. A nice medium weight 5.2% beer, it advertises exactly two flavours - chocolate and cherry. It delivers both of those in equal measure, neither outpowering the other. A little coal-crushed gem. And I should add I had their Festive Cranberry Lager with Christmas dinner instead of cranberry sauce (which is gross) and it washed down the turkey, taters and corn beautifully. Nice job on that gift pack, gang!

The Brock St Brewing (Whitby) Blayne's Tank 5 Series
Chocolate Milk Stout, a gift from young Carpenter of the
Year Josh, was not enjoyed on Donny's Dark Weekend,
Parts 1 and 2 but prior to that, just after (and during)
the Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion. I loved this beer.
Smooth, chocolate and deeply malty, a 5.2% winner...

Okay, with this last beer, I cannot say I wasn't told in advance to expect significant improvement from the previous times I had it. We're talking about Black Creek Brewing's (Oakville now - soon Oshawa) Rifleman's Ration Brown Ale, produced for the brewery by All or Nothing Brewhouse, helmed by brothers Eric and Jeff Dornan.

So who gave me a glimpse that the beer gone up a notch or five after the Dornans purchased Trafalgar Ales and Meads? That would be authors Robin LeBlanc and Jordan St John in their Ontario Craft Beer Guide, Volume 2. In their tome, they noted, "With All Or Nothing's purchase of Trafalgar in June 2006... the beers brewed in Oakville have since undergone a dramatic improvement in quality and consistency as equipment has been updated and methods made more refined. This is excellent news for drinkers of Black Creek Historic Brewery who, for whatever reasons, can't visit the historic brewery and have grown fond of such beers as the Rifleman's Ration, the Pumpkin Ale and their famous Porter." Lemme tell you, I visited the brewery several time when it was owned by Mike Arnold (great guy) but the equipment? Jesus H. Christ.

When my boy, David, and I visited Great
Lakes Brewing earlier this week, some poor
guy named Chad was up on a metal ladder,
shivering his ass off, changing their sign to
this new message. So from GLB, David and
myself... HOPPY NEW YEAR TO US ALL!

There was literally duct tape holding parts together. And, to be honest, not the cleanest of environments.

So when I was visiting Eric, who've I've known since the pair started All of Nothing in 2014, about their move back to Oshawa in 2019, I was blown away by the little brewery. Night and day from what it was. So I grabbed the updated version of Rifleman's Ration Brown Ale to see if there was a marked improvement.

Holy shit, what a difference! They took a brown ale that I thought was okay - or more accurately, probably the best of a weak lot - and turned it into something sensational. A brown ale that I truly and thoroughly enjoyed. At 5.1%, there was bits of chocolate and coffee in the aroma and the medium-bodied, malt-heavy brew went down beautifully. There are only a small handful of Brown Ales that you'll hear me praise - Anderson Craft Ales in London makes a beauty, as well - but this is now among them.

And the name, Rifleman's Ration? Well, back in the early-1800s, Canadian soldiers were paid in beer. Beers made pretty much like this but not nearly as good. War is Hell.

Well, Scooby Doo Gang, that's a wrap on 2018 but I will be back, ahem, next year (hopefully tomorrow) as I run down the Best Beers of 2018. When I looked back and was pulling it together? Holy crap, Ontario craft brewers have got it all going on! But that's it, that's all and I am (briefly) out of here. Until next time, I remain...

The Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion, Part 2

My first ever viewing of the famous Sawdust City
Brewing facility. I'll just let you drink this in for a
quick moment, the same as I did on December 8th.
Ignore that skinny dude, bottom right. That's my
parole officer. He likes to check up on me. Bastard.

When we last left off in the Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion 2018 (Part One), seven brave and noble craft beer lovers advanced upon the barren and untamed Northern Ontario terrain to seek out new beers, new worlds and new civilizations... to boldly go where no Brew Crue has gone before.

Armed with little more than our wits, such as they are, a sober driver named Dan and a big-ass rented-for-the-occasion GMC Yukon XL, the brave soldiers, known as Hago, Donny, Joe, Josh, Paul, Candice and my Uncle Glenn, sought out new Craft Beer Life in northern (sort of - northern to us) Ontario. Okay, it was Barrie and kinda just above Barrie. We're not talking the Arctic Circle here. Seriously, maybe an hour away from us tops. Actually, it was pretty much the same as the GTA, except with a little more snow.

Okay, so recently, I chronicled our adventures at the first two breweries - Barnstormer Brewing and Distilling in Barrie and Muskoka Brewing in Bracebridge. Now it's time to walk you through the final three. Let's start with Destination #3 - Sawdust City Brewing in Gravenhurst. And, as mentioned before, Hago organized this so he gets the credit. All the credit. Remember that, officers, when you're writing up the inevitable citations...

I often tease my Uncle Glenn about his age (79) but I
gotta be honest, he still has the vigour and enthusiasm
of a 66-year-old. Anyway, here he is standing in front
of the humourously-oversized yellow Muskoka chair
out in front of Gravenhurst's Sawdust City Brewing.

Now, if you've ever been to Sawdust City, obviously the first thing you notice is that humongous, bright yellow (it's so yellow that even I can tell it's yellow) Muskoka chair out front. Despite being covered in snow, the two of our youngest members, Josh and Candice, were up there in seconds. I would have gone up myself but I looked at Hago's military schedule for the day and realized we didn't have two hours to kill, waiting for me to break my neck trying. Gravity is no longer my friend so I would have had to rent a crane or something. But it is very cool. I believe it was young Kaitlyn behind the bar that told me it was the world's largest Muskoka chair.

As with the previous two breweries, Sawdust City had employed the use of a guardian watching over us to make sure we don't wreck anything important friendly and fun tour guide there to teach us about the brewery and we pretty much lucked out with Adam. I said we lucked out, not that he did. Anyway, most of us know him better as @SawdustCityAdam on Twitter so he's already something of a social media celebrity, although he readily admits he does not play one in real life. But he hosts the brewery's Trivia Nights and other events there so there you go, he's a local Man About Gravenhurst.

Where Durham's Carpenter of the Year, Josh, is involved,
there's always wood. Oh, dammit... PHRASING!!! So Adam
took us on a full tour of the place, including the basement,
which had literally dozens of barrels there. aging their beer.
Anyway, this is Josh's calendar shot. I'm his agent. Call me.

Once inside, I was immediately blown away by the size of their retail fridge. It ran the length of the front room with a huge selection of choices. It is, easily, the biggest retail fridge I've ever seen in a craft brewery. At this point, I'm thinking northern Ontario (again, not that far north) is a little like Texas. Big-ass chairs, big-ass fridges, big-ass everythang. It's all bigger in northern Ontario.

After that, the 18-tap bar, which looked to be also about 25-30 feet long, was also pretty gnarly. Somewhere in my travels I was told it was crafted out of a 100-year-old pine tree... that simply gave up one day and fell over. Being as I was ordering their Lone Pine IPA (what else?), I gave it a little knock and said, "Good job, my tree friend." Hey man, he sacrificed himself to become something better. A long bar in a great brewery.

Adam collected us all up together, which, at this point, was somewhat akin to herding up feral cats, and gave us all the VIP Tour. (I recall from last year, by the time we hit the third craft brewery, we scatter like buckshot coming out of a sawed-off shotgun.)

Adam from Sawdust City Brewing holds up two corked
and caged beers. There have no labels and no one at the
brewery is 100% sure what they are. Our only clues?
They taste good and they're clear, as in golden. Hmmm.

He walked us through the place, told us safe-to-tell secrets and eventually took us down to the basement. They were - no joke - dozens of barrels filled with beer. Closing in on 50 or more. They were everywhere. A Barrel-Filled Basement, if you will. A Cellar of Sinfully Good. A Lower Level of... uhhh, yeah, I got nothin'.

But when we got back upstairs, Adam had a special surprise for us. Two unlabeled bottles from the deepest recesses of the brewery. Single bottles, corked and caged, of who knows what? It seems head brewer Sam Corbeil had told him to pass them along to us. According to Adam, even the brewers aren't sure what the beers are, other than "they taste good." We do know they're golden so rule out stouts, porters, dark ales, etc. They're corked and caged, which tells me likely barrel-aged. Brewers are far less likely to barrel-age a lager, pilsner, blonde ale or Kolsch, I would think, because that's almost pointless. But here's the thing. There were seven of us and only two bottles. I knocked on Uncle Glenn's door to wake him up early in the morning and when he hit the washroom, I swiped the bottle from his room. Hago got the other. Not sure how but that'll probably be a cool "Heads-up, I snagged one, too" story. He's military. He knows evasive manoeuvres and skull-duggery.

If you don't love Redline's Kaitlyn K, then you don't
like boxes of puppies, the very first snowfall or great
Ontario craft beer. Still not convinced? OK, try this
on for size. She's a damn good hockey player to boot.

Regardless, I will crack that puppy this weekend and give you my best guess. My money is seriously on a Saison. Could be a Belgian. We'll see.

But back to the business at hand, Adam, you were awesome. You gave us the history of the place, the lay of the land and a real sense of the fun that goes on there. Fantastic Craft Beer Ambassador, my man. We had a great time! I'm back this summer, for sure because I promised Lake of Bays Brewing I'd go there, too, so you're on the way.

And that brings us back onto Highway 11 and south to Destination #4 - our good friends at Redline Brewhouse in Barrie. Which brings us to an extra-special good friend, Kaitlyn K. While I only met Kaitlyn in April 2017 when my boy, David and I went to visit Hago for the first time, I had known her for years prior. You see, way back in the day, she was my inside sales rep for Flying Monkeys. And when craft brewery reps called, my coworkers, including my manager, used to simply say, "Hold on" and pass the phone to me. So Kaitlyn and I are old phone buddies from probably 2014 or so. But as you can see, she shifted to Redline a year and a half ago and was on hand to greet us at the brewery.

As you can see, Kaitlyn had a couple of brewers on
hand to discuss the beer with the Barrie Brew Crue
with Candice and Uncle Glenn shown here. This
brewer had to speak up so Glenn could hear him.

And man, was she ready. We didn't even have to walk through the front door. Hago did some kind of super-secret knock on the back door and the next thing you know, Kaitlyn is letting us in. The VIP Back Entrance deal. She had a little taster table set up with all sorts of goodies on it - barrel-aged specialty saisons, their fantastic Double Clutch Double IPA, a couple of Clutch Pale Ale off-shoots and their Leather Interior Brown Ale. I don't drink a lot of brown ales but that Leather Interior with the addition of both vanilla and almonds. Lemme tell you this for free... it was bloody tasty. Probably one of the best brown ales I've ever had though in truth, it's a brown ale with a few modern-day tweaks. This ain't your Grand-Pappy's brown ale.

And she had brewers on hand, waiting to talk to us - I think, two or three of them, actually. I should have cracked open that Sawdust City Mystery Beer and asked them, "Okay, what is this? Make me look like a damn craft beer genius here!"

Now, apparently, Hago and Kaitlyn had this all set up well in advance so man, it was a pretty sweet set-up. I think a few of the Brew Crue, notably Joe and Josh, were a little blown away by the VIP Treatment we were getting at the breweries.

With a Leather Interior Brown Ale (with vanilla and
almonds) in my hand, an environment where I am
surrounded by mash-tuns and fermenting vats, it
would appear I found the true Mothership when we
landed at Redline Brewhouse on December 8th. And
Cameron's Brewing? I showed my hometown love...

Truth to tell, so was I. Even though I've been writing this for over five years now, I'm still a bit surprised, almost taken aback even, when a brewery puts in that extra effort. It's not that I don't appreciate it because I very much do. It's more that I don't expect it. I mean, to me, just showing up at a craft brewery, especially new ones to me (Sawdust City and Muskoka), is the adventure and the fun in and of itself. The extra bells and whistles thrown towards the Barrie Brew Crue by all the breweries over the course of the day? I'm not sure what to say other than man, you guys rock.

Well, except my Uncle Glenn, who just kept saying over and over, "Why don't any of your fancy breweries sell Export?" Ahhh, my sweet uncle. You can take him out of the nursing home but you're damn lucky if they take him back. Even as we were eating dinner, Josh looked around Redline, amazed at the set-up, the ambiance, the beer and the VIP treatment and noted, "This is my favourite stop of the day."

So Kaitlyn, even though you are a Boston Bruins fan (which is just wrong) and your damn Bruins spanked my Leafs 6-3 on that very night, everything you did for us was wonderful and we all appreciate it so much.

Josh posted this selfie of he and Hago after tasting the
18.4% barrel-aged Invictus Imperial Stout during the
Brew Crue's stop at Flying Monkeys Brewing on our
swing through Barrie, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst.
Hago's face pretty much says it all - strong medicine!

Yes, you may follow the teachings of the Evil Empire Dark Side (again, the stupid Bruins) but even the best of us have that one fatal flaw. That face-licking nitwit Brad Marchand is yours. (Seriously, dafuq is that?) Still, that is but a slight gray smudge on your shiny silver soul. I know I will be back up to visit Hago this Summer and we hope to see you again. You are always the best of company and a good friend.

Now after our Redline stop, driver Dan dropped us off at the Four Points Sheraton, where we were all staying, for a little rest before our final stop - Ontario craft beer legend, Flying Monkeys Brewing. 

Alas, three of us wouldn't make the final leg of our five-brewery whistle-stop day as Joe, Paul and myself called it a day. I mean, we'd been drinking since 12 noon and it was about 9 pm at this point.

It's like that scene in DC's movie, The Dark Knight, where District Attorney Harvey Dent (Two Face) says to Bruce Wayne (Batman), "Either you go to sleep a hero or you drink long enough to become the villain." I'm paraphrasing. It was something like that except I think he may have been talking about heroes and villains in a different context, minus the drinking.

This is the beer that killed the four remaining warriors
from the Barrie Brew Crue - Flying Monkeys' Invictus
Russian Imperial Bourbon-Barrel-Aged Stout. Again,
picture courtesy of Josh, this one was the final nail to it.

What I was unaware of at that point is that Flying Monkeys owners Andrea and Peter Chiodo were waiting for us. Had I known that, I would have had a quick shower and been back in the game. I've talked to Andrea dozens of time in private messages and she's helped me out with countless blogs but I've never actually met either her or Peter. And I gotta be honest, that would have been great. Think about it. I have spoken at length over how we were spoiled with attention on this outing. But brewery owners waiting until 9:30 on a Saturday night to join us? Oh, you don't think 9:30 pm on a Saturday is late? Own a business for, oh say, even a year and then get back to me. You'll be begging for sleep, hotshot.

So I was pretty impressed when I heard that the next day. And more than a little gutted, I'll admit. And when Andrea reached out to me on Twitter, well, as sweet as she was, all I could think was, opportunity missed.

The last known shot of the Barrie Brew Crue, once
again, courtesy of Josh. I was on the highway home at
this point and Candice was sleeping off that Invictus.
A great day with a great crew and great breweries!!

"Dude, you didn't make it to the bitter end," she tweeted. "We waited here for ya... but no worries. (Hago and the others) managed to help us finish a bottle of Invictus to end the night. We loved meeting the gang! But we missed you..."

Well... damn. That seriously bums me out. However, it just means another trip to Barrie to visit Hago and get it right this time! If this trip was any indication, our soldier friend knows how to organize a field trip. And when we talked afterwards, it sounded like he had an okay time. "It was such a great day, man! We had a freaking blast! It was everything I thought it would be! I had so much fun! I can't wait to do the next one! I like the idea of Niagara!" So, okay, he was good with it, I guess. After all, he was in charge...

And with that, I had Josh promise me he'd get Uncle Glenn safely back to the nursing home. Apparently, there was some initial resistance on their part but Josh found a side-door open and pushed him back in. Thanks, brother, he's a good, though somewhat addled, uncle. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's a wrap on the Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion 2018 so that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...

The Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion, Part 1

Here they are, live and in colour, the participants of the 2018
Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion. From left, back row, that's
Hago, Josh, Joe, Candice and Paul while up front is me and
Glenn. Once again, it was a quiet, dignified affair where beers
were slowly sipped and everyone maintained their composure.
Yeah, just shitting ya. It was loud and crazy and stupid and...

Everyone has a specific skill set. With some people, yes, it is difficult to imagine what it could possibly be but the fact is we're all good at something. Could be big, could be small, could be vague, it doesn't matter. It's your skill.

With an eye to that, let's look quickly back to a year ago when I organized the Whitby Craft Brewery Invasion for seven of us. I basically told everyone, "Let's meet at Buster Rhino's Southern BBQ (in Oshawa) at 11 am. We'll eat, jump into the limo (that I had arranged), head to the future site of Brock St Brewing at, like, noon and then go to Brock St, 5 Paddles, Little Beasts and Town Brewing. So... drinking, fun, yay!" 

So there you get a sense of my organizational skills. We start at this time, we go to these four different places one after the other and then... hey, we done! Maybe not a strength. A loosey-goosey approach at best. I have that "just let it flow" sensibility. Keep this shit organic and as always, the Universe will decide how the dice eventually roll. Truth to tell, in the end, it worked out pretty damn well.

This is Alex, the second-in-command brewer at
Barnstormer Brewing and Distilling up there in
Barrie. Mark had the good fortune of greeting us
when we landed there. Why? Because the first in
command, head brewer Matt, said, "They're all
yours, dude!!" Rank, it seems, has its privilege.

But in fairness to my congratulatory self-assessment - a rented limo, four craft breweries, copious amounts of drinking, well, that's tough to screw up. In fact, you really can't.

So this year, it was decided the same Core Seven - myself, Hago, Glenn, Paul, Josh, Joe and Candice - would do Barrie. It has three craft breweries with others nearby. BUT I left all the organizing to Hago. He lives 10 minutes outside of Barrie in Angus and knows the turf all too well. I bankroll the fun (with some help from foreign investors) and he organizes it. Pretty much a winning formula.

But here's the thing. Hago, a close friend very much loved by my son, David, is a military man. Has been for a little more than a couple of decades now. Done the overseas stints, including Afghanistan just after 9-11, with the Royal Canadian Air Force. In his world, you can't "just let it flow." His world is a little more precise. Regimented, if you will.

So he told me that he was hoping to take the game outside Barrie if we could. I mean, we'd be visiting Redline Brewhouse, Barnstormer Brewing and Distilling and, of course, Flying Monkeys Brewing in Barrie. He wanted to add Muskoka Brewing in Bracebridge and Sawdust City Brewing in Gravenhurst.

That's me, my older Uncle Glenn (the family shame)
and my younger bro Josh in our sweet ride that went
from brewery to brewery in Barrie, Bracebridge and
Gravenhurst on Saturday, December 8 - a year less a
day after the Whitby Craft Brewery Invasion. That's
a Brock St. Chocolate Milk Stout we are sharing and,
yes, my Ugly Mov is blue. The beer was damn tasty!

My response? "Go nuts, brother." And that's precisely what he did... in a very military way. So we soon all had Hago's itinerary in our hands (via social media). It read:
"2018 Barrie Craft Beer Invasion:
1130-1300 - Barnstormer Beer
1400-1545 - Muskoka Brewery
1600-1700 - Sawdust City Beer
1845-2045 - Redline Brewhouse
2200 - Flying Monkeys Brewery"

I laughed because I thought, besides Hago, I was likely the only other who knows military time. Our beer store schedule has to be entered into the computer that way and then it quickly converts to civilian time. I've had to explain it dozens of times to younger coworkers trying to write a schedule.

Hago walked me through it privately. He wanted to start with lunch at Barnstormer because he felt they had the strongest food component and you need to pad your stomach for a day like this. This is true. After all, they started a few years back as Barnstormer Brewing and Pizzeria. Their stone-baked pizza is legendary. The next two stops were out of town so we could come back to Barrie where we were all registered at the Four Points Sheraton hotel. End the fun and games closer to home. Makes sense. But this gives you a sense of his organizing skills.

It's the damnedest thing. Barnstormer does NOT sell this
sexy-ass IPA glass in its retail but they do use it in their
restaurant. So how did it end up in Oakville with me?
Clearly, someone stuck it in my parka pocket without my
knowledge. This I swear to you, Barnstormer, I will find
the culprit and punish him accordingly. By Odin's beard!

He had breaks built in, traveling time, the whole nine yards (hey, there's an Air Force reference right there.) Hago leaves nothing to chance, much less the Universe.

So we all met at our hotel at 11 am, everyone coming from different directions. We all did the greet-and-hug and waited for our ride to show up. It did - a humongous black GMC Yukon XL with Hago in the passenger seat and our driver for the day, Dan, behind the wheel. Dan is an Air Force buddy of Hago's, who apparently has the patience to deal with seven drunk people in a confined space.

I settled up quickly with Dan, figuring if I paid him upfront, he couldn't back down halfway through the trip after he realized how annoying we can be. Without tipping my hand as to the foreign investors, I paid Dan in rubles, explaining that given the political reality south of the Canadian border, they would probably be considered American currency soon enough. But this isn't about politics. It's about five stellar Ontario craft breweries! Moving along, then...

Young Josh, Durham's Carpenter of the Year, took this
picture after we landed at Barnstormer. As you can see,
the weather in Barrie tends to be on the snowy side...

So as I earlier noted, Barnstormer Brewery and Distilling (they make booze, too) was Destination #1. Once inside, we were greeted by Alex, the number two brewer there behind head brewer Matt Polowyk. Being as he had to deal with us, I told Alex I would promote him in this space as the new head brewer. He had a huge table/booth set aside and happily hung with us the entire time to answer any and all questions.

He explained to Joe what "barnstorming" actually was. After World War One ended, the American government found itself with a surplus of Curtiss JN-4 biplanes (double-winged). While they cost the government $5,000 per to build during the war, they were selling them off as cheaply as $200. So former military pilots and even civilians were snatching them up and subsequently ended up doing aerial tricks with them. "They would take you up in the plane," Alex explained, "and show you all the land around your area. But often, they would pretend they were going to dive-bomb your barn before pulling up." Hence, barnstorming. My question for Alex may have been a little tougher, mind you.

Glenn and Hago, who organized the 2018 Barrie Craft
Brewery Invasion, share a laugh at Barnstormer where
we had our lunch (read: padded our stomachs for the
oncoming deluge of tasty craft beer we'd be knocking
back over the course of the afternoon and evening.) 

You see, back in January, after an extensive Q&A with marketing manager Brad Ariss (who has since moved onto other things), I wrote a piece about how their 1940s pin-up girl logo Barnstormer Betty, deemed by some as sexist, was being phased out. While the logo has been effectively changed across the board to the cool aviation one you see on my glass above and Alex's hoodie below, Betty is still visible around the restaurant walls. Not over-abundantly so but definitely not retired, either. (In all honesty, I should point out that when Barnstormer retweeted my piece, a number of locals and other fans defended Betty, calling her harmless nostalgia rather than sexist imagery.)

That's still the plan, Alex told me, but the logo swap was the biggest concern and was dealt with nearly immediately. After all, it adorns all their merchandise, meaning Barnstormer Betty glasses, for instance, (I have one) are now collector's items. Redesigning the cans is taking more time, he noted. The thing is Betty was (still is) only on a few of their cans to start with but... one of them is their biggest seller, Flight Delay IPA. I suspect the Flight Delay redesigns Brad sent me have fallen to the wayside so we'll see.

Barnstormer brewer Alex and our own Josh pose for a
picture during our stop. Alex was pretty much the most
gracious and entertaining host our group could have
possibly asked for. A quick smile and TONS of little,
funny stories, he had us all smiling at the same time. 

That said, the logo is the face of the brewery you put out there - it's on all their sales reps' cards, after all - and that has the cool aviation theme. The cans... perhaps there's still a ways to go.

But Alex is a brewer and all of those concerns are decisions for the higher-ups to make so I very much applaud him for gamely tackling it - he really is an upfront, friendly dude. And he made sure our stay was both fun and memorable.

While someone else took our food order and the place was doing a pretty brisk business, Alex had to step up and be our drinks waiter. Something very much outside his usual routine, I suspect. But man, he stepped up. He wisely only took a few orders at a time - a couple of flight paddles were involved - but pulled it all off beautifully. (Looking back, I hope we didn't come off as the same kind of demanding, self-entitled pricks I hate as customers at the Beer Store because... ouch.)

But after we were finished eating and padding our stomachs for our afternoon drink-fest, Alex came back with a special treat - a beautifully smoked, deep, rich barrel-aged stout from the deepest, darkest recesses of the brewery. Holy cannoli, that was some tasty. And very warming. Alex, huge thank you from all of us. You kick-started our day perfectly!

Here the Barrie Brew Crue lands at Muskoka Brewing in
Bracebridge last Saturday. At this point in our journey, we
are still pretty well-behaved as the drinking had just begun.

Okay, from Barnstormer, we hopped on Highway 11 North, destination Bracebridge to visit our friends at Muskoka Brewing. Turns out we could not have landed on a better day as the brewery was hosting its annual Winter Village, whereby dozens of local artisans set up throughout the brewery with their crafts, home-made food and any number of potential Christmas gifts. I gotta tell you, it made wandering through the brewery just that much more festive and cozy. Gave the day a real sense of the community up there, which, in turn, as visitors (tourists even) gave us an idea of what living there is like. Neighbourly certain comes to mind, as does warmth on a very chilly day.

We all scattered in different directions once inside - well, after I got my Mad Tom IPA first, of course. Eventually, after stopping at pretty much every booth in there and talking to as many people as I could (some of them were small local businesses, others simply individuals with a skill), I eventually found the Barrie Brew Crue in a corner near the brewery's booth.

The camera around Hago's neck actually belongs to Muskoka's
Digital Marketing Specialist, Sarah Girdwood, the lady on the
left. After hearing that Hago taught a Photography course at
CFB Borden outside Barrie, she lent him her camera and said
come back with three pictures. I saw them. One was the typical
artsy-fartsy photo but two were great portrait shots of Sarah.

At a nearby table was Sarah Girdwood, the brewery's Digital Marketing Specialist. So Sarah, as such, is also the social media person for the brewery.

When I started chatting with her, she mentioned that she had originally started at Lake of Bays Brewing, just up the highway in Baysville.

"Oh yeah?" I told her, "(Lake of Bays sales rep) Tim Glazin is a buddy of mine through the Beer Store."

She laughed and replied, "We used to call him Grlazin' Donuts." Gotta be a play on his last name because believe me, Tim is a regular size dude, more into classic cars than doughnuts. That said, I'll bet he's somewhat proficient at spinning donuts in the snow with a classic ride.

But since I had Sarah caught at her booth, I turned on the voice recorder in my phone and tried to pin her down on a long-time Muskoka Brewing mystery. I asked her point-blank, "Are you the person who writes the comments in the Mad Tom Twitter account?"

Sarah made sure no one in the Barrie Brew Crue
walked out empty-handed, gifting us all with a
Muskoka Winter Survival Pack, a new glass and
an Ebb & Flow Session Sour, which had just been
released. Always cool to get a brand-new beer!!

You see, the @MuskokaMadTom Twitter account is famous (infamous, some might say) for its snarly, belligerent and blunt responses to Ontario craft beer drinkers. Always in capital letters, too, so you, of course, get that sense of both being yelled at and scolded. He's a cantankerous old fart, that Mad Tom - the original "You kids get off my damn lawn!" guy. So naturally on Twitter, Hago and I poke the Mad Tom Twitter bear as much as possible with a sharp, pointy stick.

Sarah hummed and hawed at first before finally noting with a big smile, "I cannot reveal that at this time for secrecy issues. If he knew I revealed his identity, he would beat me with a stick." (It always comes down to a stick up there in northern Ontario.)

After short deliberations, Hago and I decided that, no, Sarah was far too hospitable to be Mad Tom. That was soon verified after I posted the question on Twitter. Mad Tom himself was quick to reply: "JUST WHAT I NEED, AN IMPOSTER. THE CLOSEST I'D GET TO YOU BUFFOONS IS NEVER. CAN'T WAIT TO BURN YOUR STUPID ARTICLE." Well, okey dokey, then. I mean, it's online but if you want to light your smartphone or laptop on fire, then go right ahead. And if someone could video that?

As I am the only smoker - correction: make that cigarette smoker - in the
Barrie Brew Crue, I found myself outside for smoke breaks. Fortunately,
Muskoka Brewery knows how to keep us smokers warm with their cozy
fire-pits. Something about this just says, hey man, you're up north now!

After reading that, Glenn replied, "Yeah, no way that can be Sarah. She's going to LOVE our stupid articles."

Anyways, much like Alex at Barnstormer, we wanna give Sarah huge props for being such a great host at Sawdust City and keeping us entertained. (Amazing how easy that is when you have beer on hand.)

Next up in Part Two, hopefully tomorrow as I'm starting it now but also day-drinking, is our continuing journey to Sawdust City Brewing in Gravenhurst, then back to Barrie for Redline Brewhouse and finally the nightcap at industry legend, Flying Monkeys Brewing. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until tomorrow, I remain...

Could my blue Lemmy beat a Selleck?

True, I had perfected the Lemmy From Motorhead 'stashe but that was
not enough to eclipse Jake, who notched the Tom Selleck in one month?
Even little girl play make-up aiding my cause is not gonna beat a Selleck.

Well, November ended with a Movember bang as I scored six free beers plus a ball cap from my friends at Nickel Brook Brewing in Burlington.

Granted, they just don't hand beers and ball caps out. You gotta earn them. And I did. Well, being single, not bothering to shave comes far too easily to me so effort wasn't really a key factor here. When serious effort is involved, I expect others to step up. Not really my forte. That said, if you need something done that involves zero effort, hey, I'm your guy.

So anyway, that's what I did. Through the month of November, I simply didn't shave. And then on November 29, I shaved off everything on my face that didn't look like a cheezy heavy metal biker moustache.

My costume/make-up artist Trey collected a couple of cans of Nickel
Brook's finest after guiding me to a second place finish in the brewery's
Best Mov Contest. He looked at the Immodest Imperial IPA I brought
him brewery-fresh and quipped, "Oh good, you're trying to kill me."

I imagine it's the same process sculptors go through. Get a big rock and chisel off all the stuff that doesn't look like an ancient Roman dude stepping naked out of ice-cold water.

But I had an issue with my impending stache so I took it up with my coworker, Trey, who is basically the King of Halloween. How good is he? One year, he went as Azazel from the movie, X-Men: First Class. Since it's possible you're not familiar with that Oscar calibre superhero movie, allow me to describe the character. He's bright red. Head to toe. Oh yeah, he's dressed in a sharp Brooks Bros type suit and has a big-ass devil's tail that can grab or even choke you. If you care about his power, he's a teleporter, meaning if you take a swing at him, *poof* he'll disappear into thin air and then instantly appear behind you to clobber you on the back of your skull.

My bro, Charles, looks a little panic-stricken as he has his
Mov shaved at the Nickel Brook Movember Wrap-Up
Party. Charles, my inside sales rep, didn't place in the
Stashe Contest but was happy to be rid of the face-hair!

How good was his Azazel? His picture was our screensaver in the office for months afterwards. He frikkin nailed it. Bright red and all. Used actual theatre make-up. Like I said, he's good.

So anyway, as Nickel Brook's Movember Wrap-Up Party fast approached, I said to the Costume King that I was worried about my stache. Yes, it was ugly and hairy but also far too gray. "I bet if it was orange or blue, I could win this thing!" I said confidently. I suggested that I could use either the orange or blue highlighter in the office to touch it up.

At this point, I imagine Trey could see being stuck having to look at me at work for a month with orange or blue all around my mouth and offered an alternative solution. He suggested going to the dollar store, buying a little girl's make-up kit and using the eye shadow on my stashe. (I mistakenly called it "mascara" on Twitter and Facebook but it turns out that's the eyelash one. I needed the eyelid one, which is actually what I bought. I just called it the wrong thing.) So I did. There's a dollar store in our mall and I found a Pretty Princess Make-Up Fun kit there. Set me back $1.50. One of their more expensive mark-ups, I assume.

Rick got his entry "Wolverine" shaved off at the end
of the Movember festivities. I think the issue here is
the same one I had. Gray is distinguished and all but
it doesn't show well. Rick had one of the best staches
there but didn't place. Next time, use girl's make-up!

So the night of the big Mov Party, I cracked open the Pretty Princess kit and used the brush to colour my stache. Honestly, I couldn't see anything at first. But being colour-blind, subtle shade changes elude me. So I kept going until all the baby blue eye-shadow was gone. I could see it pretty well then. That sucker was bright pale blue.

What it also did was add like five pounds of gunk to my stashe, making it look huge. So much so that when I walked into Nickel Brook, guys were asking, "Did you grow that in a month?" That is actually the subject of some debate at work. I honestly maintain I did. The others there, so used to seeing me scruffy as shit so often, are less sure. I'm sticking by my possible lie memory of the events as they occurred.

In the end, the contest judges, Jerry and his three-man crew from Village Cigar Co. in Burlington, would ask us each to say what the name of our stashe was. I had already taken care of that. When I came in, I spotted Charles, my inside sales rep and Matt, the brewery's marketing manager at the bar. I introduced them to my Lemmy From Motorhead stashe and added, "If you can name more than five Motorhead songs, then you're actually in Motorhead."

Now Nickel Brook marketing manager Matthew
Gibson may not be rocking the Mov but dammit, you
can't beat him at the Zoolander Contest. That good
looking bastard. He makes us all look like wannabes.

In the end, slightly more than a dozen of us went up to the stage area for the big Mov-Off. I was liking my chances... until I spotted Jake. That bastard had grown the perfect Tom Selleck in one month. Any guy will tell you a Tom Selleck trumps Lemmy From Motorhead. Hell, in a Moustache Contest, a Selleck trumps everything. It's the perfect stache.

So we all paraded past the judges, one by one. Meat market? More like a meat-head market. One of the judges asked me, "Is yours blue because you're a Leaf fan?" As I was opening my mouth to answer, two of them barked, "Just say yes!" So I just said, "Auston Matthews forever!" Beats explaining the Pretty Princess Make-Up Fun kit by a mile. But the last judge was so uncertain I had grown it in one month that he started feeling the rest of my chin and neck for stubble. Being as I had just shaved the night before, there wasn't much to feel. Some rough edges, maybe. The doubt was strong in this judge. And with good reason. While I am able to grow a solid ugly-ass goatee, a full beard? Nope. Too many patchy spots. But that was fine. I knew placing would be the best I could do on this day. So after the judges ran us all through the hoops, we all retreated to our tables (or in my case, the bar) and awaited their deliberations.

Hey, man, I didn't win but I got second place and walked
out with a free sixer of Nickel Brook's core line-up. I think
any craft beer lover will call that a win. Oh yeah, I also
won a Movember ball-cap which is now in the big box of
other ball-caps I don't wear. Not that I don't appreciate it.

Eventually, Nickel Brook marketing manager Matt got up and grabbed the mic. He announced the third place winner. Not me. Holy shit, could I actually win this damn thing? Next he said, "With some help from special effects..." Okay, well then, that would be me. Jake, of course, won. As he should have.

So I texted Trey, still at work, and said, "I came second!" I was pretty proud and I figured, given his expert input, he would be, too. He was. I got his text back. "You were first runner-up." (Man, I tell ya, this dude takes his costumes seriously.)

But on my way home, I popped into the Beer Store before it closed for the evening to slide a couple of thank you beers Trey's way. At the cash was our stellar part-timer, Armen, who didn't even recognize me. "There's a character in the Game Of Thrones books who has a blue beard," he told me afterwards. "I thought you were him." To that, I will just say... George RR Martin, I am ready for my blood-drenched battle-ax-swinging close-up!

Me and my Nickel Brook inside salesman Charles share a big cheers at
the brewery's Movember Wrap-Up Party. It was a great night of fun at
the end of a great month of fund-raising for men's health issues. I know
the brewery itself raised over $4,000 through sales of Cheeky Bastard
Stout because 25 cents of every can went to the cause. In fact, between
the Cheeky Bastard sales ($2,500) and corporate sponsorship from the
community, Nickel Brook raised over $4,000 during Movember. Nice!

Both Armen and Trey were actually stunned I lost until I explained the winner had a Selleck. Okay yeah, they both acknowledged. You don't beat that.

But gang, I'm still getting chirped on my Mov. You see, Barrie Beer Bro Hago, thinks it's Photoshop. He does not believe a stache this glorious is even possible. But here's the thing. I'm seeing my favourite Canadian soldier boy today at our big Barrie Craft Brewery Invasion. It's the same Group of Seven that took over Whitby craft breweries last year. So I kept Lemmy for another week and bought another Pretty Princess Make-Up Fun kit to go Code Blue on this ugly-ass bastard again. Because he can't call "photoshop" if he's taking the pictures. You know you'll be reading about today real soon. We're hitting Redline, Flying Monkeys, Barnstormer, Muskoka and Sawdust City. One day. Five breweries. No one standing by the end. Not even joking. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Thank you to Nickel Brook for such a fun night. Until next time, I remain...