World's best IPA coming to Huntsville?

Behind Lake of Bays owner Darren Smith, addressing our
group and asking us (me, specifically) not to jump on the
furniture, are his two social media mavens, Emma, left and
Jackie, right. Now these two ladies have a riot with our group
of Beer Warriors on Twitter, especially before we all arrived.

Before I jump into the fun that 13 of us all had at our Lake of Bays' IPA Brew Day at the Huntsville Brewhouse on April 13, a couple of shout-outs to the Baysville brewery squadron.

At the top of the list has to be Darren Smith, the owner of Lake of Bays. Now in his early-30s, he started the brewery in 2010, meaning he was... *stops cold, counts on fingers*... in his early-20s when he started the whole shootin' match up. In fact, he was still completing his Economics degree at McGill University when he decided he wanted to open a brewery. A property became available in Baysville at that exact moment and *bam* he became the youngest craft brewery owner in Ontario. Hell, nine years later, he may still be. Now despite fighting off a cold, Darren hung with us all day, answering any questions we had - and we had plenty so more on that in a bit. Having the King in your courtyard at your disposal all day long? Priceless. For everything else, such as the copious amount of beer we all bought on our way out, there's MasterCard. (Las Vegas, credit cards and craft beer will be the ruin of me yet. Oh hell, throw in Huntsville, too.)

Brewer Andrew Walsh walks Hamilton cartoonist David,
Sudbury homebrewer Danny and "That Canadian Beer
Guy" Curtis through the steps of brewing our IPA. Now
because Andrew is used to walking that space alone, he
brought us into the brewing area just four at a time. 

Next on the Praise Deck is Rob Walcot, the brewery's Director of Sales, who acted as the Headmaster to our group of unruly hooligans (again - mostly just me) throughout the proceedings. We had come from as far away as Sudbury, Ottawa and Hamilton for this event and Rob kept us in focus (and as a Focus Group!) all day. Great guy. Lots of praise thrown in his direction from the group-at-large.

Of course, there's my LoB sales rep, Tim Glazin, who got the ball rolling on this day by arranging the meeting between Ron and myself. Now if you know Tim, he loves his classic cars and he missed a big car show just to hang with us. That, my friends, is not only a big deal, it's likely unprecedented in this man's life.

Okay, you can't make a beer without a brewer and on this day, we had on our team one of the best around - Andrew Walsh. You see, Andrew is responsible for the experimental batches that come out of Huntsville Brewhouse. If the beer meets with public acclaim at the brewhouse, the recipe is shuttled down to Baysville where it becomes part of their regular line-up. And as we saw with Starboard NEIPA, they are not afraid to tinker with and improve a released beer.

Barrie Beer Bro Hago, right, could sense that Shwa Beer Bro
Glenn was starting to slow down as he raked the spent grain out
of the mash-tun so he jumped in with a Bro Hug. We had to
carry four of these barrels - only half-filled - up to the sidewalk
and lemme tell you, they weigh a ton. Brewing is hard work!!!

And finally, a quick nod to two young ladies, Jackie and Emma, the brewery's social media squad, who were having as much fun with this event prior to our arrival as we were. I singled them out for praise while there and as it happens, their boss, Rob, just happened to be standing there when I did. A happy coincidence (well, if you believe that there actually are coincidences.) Ladies, we have so much Twitter fun with you on a daily basis and your ability to keep up with and outwit our motley collection of goofballs is admirable. (*Looking back at our gang's various tweets*) Okay, so it's not much of a challenge, not at all really, but still...

Okay, quick recap. So 13 of us all drive to Huntsville Brewhouse to make an IPA. I just explained the brewery side. Our side was: Graeme (who needs his caffeine), Curtis (That Canadian Beer Guy), Ottawa Matty, Ottawa Joel, homebrewer Sudbury Danny, Paul and Kristal (Hamilton Craft Beer Couple), their friends, Paul and Colleen, Hamilton cartoonist (and my co-pilot on the trip) David, Barrie Soldier Boy Hago, Beer Bro Glenn and myself.

This photo, which I think was taken by Sudbury
Danny, gives you a pretty good idea of the limited
space we were working with in Huntsville. It's not
surprising that we went in four or five at a time.

So we go through all the big introductions and a healthy handful of "Quiet, Donny!" moments. (I call it enthusiasm. Others use different words.) Then brewer Andrew explained that he and I have talked previously, we agreed we're going to do a west coast IPA and then he throws it open for our flavour profile suggestions. Those came fast and furious but since it's a west coaster and not a haze bomb, it's The Usual Suspects - grapefruit (of course), some pine, a little orange, some tropical fruit, perhaps apricot, super light malty back-end (y'know, if at all.)

Then Andrew asked if we have any favourite hops. Of course, the Big C's come out - Cascade, Centennial and Citra. I threw out Idaho 7, which I have come to truly love, and by gawd, yup, it was there. In fact, I think I heard about eight or nine hops in total and yes sir, almost all were on site. And Andrew was game to jam as many of them in as possible. (You can read all about it in my future PhD thesis: "Why We Love Andrew.")

So then why Andrew was plunking all the variables for our brew into his laptop, Rob walked us through the day. We would make the beer, of course, but we were also official tasters-judges-critics for some of their experimental beers.

Come on, Cartoon Boy, put your back into it! David
Buist helps pour the malt into the mash-tun. So you
know, David's job is with a Board of Education out
in Brant County so yes, we had a very animated and
interesting conversation about the Premier with us
coming to the conclusion that the man is a disaster.
Plus swearing as I am couching our real words here.

He had to arm-twist (*cough*) but eventually we agreed to taste-test all these funky brews, complete with score-sheets and comment sections.

But first, we had to start our beer, which involved four or five of us following Andrew into the brewing area. He had pre-selected the malt we would be using - don't remember which it was - and we each took a took pouring it into the mash-tun. This was trickier than it sounds because inside the bag was a separate plastic liner to preserve the malts and we had to be careful not lose our grip on that while pouring. Otherwise, Andrew warned, we would be creating the world's most plastic-tasting beer.

As the last group of five in there, Andrew laid down the brew-room rules. Number one of which was: Do not step on any hoses. We all nodded in accordance. To which Andrew then added, "Donny, get off the hose." I looked down and, yup, I was pretty clearly standing on a hose. Y'know, I'd like to say that was my last mistake of the day but then again, I'd also like to say I'm filthy rich. Neither would be true.

Anyway, we got our brew started but we'd be back to rake the used malts out of the mash-tun, carry four really heavy buckets of it up five stairs, later pour in some hops and... well, actually, that was about it. Pretty much everything else rested on Andrew's shoulders.

Barrie Beer Bro Hago and Lake of Bays owner Darren show us
the "Elbow Bump." This was used instead of shaking hands as
Darren was coming off a cold and didn't want us to catch it. For
his part, Hago, usually the most precision-orientated among us
because of his military training, actually started off in Baysville,
rather than Huntsville, because he didn't read the instructions!!

But our day was far from over. As food continued to shuttle out from the kitchen towards our group and the beers flowed freely, we had some free time with Darren Smith at our table - that is, the rowdy table, the poor man. So naturally, the group started quizzing him and I gotta be honest, he was all-in, open to any question. Someone in the group lobbed him a softball. "What's your favourite Lake of Bays beer?" He thought about it for a second and came back with their new 4.7% Sunseeker Tangerine Pale Ale, which is quite nice, very orange and should be a summertime hit for many, myself included. I followed up the easy lob with a slightly harder slider. "What's your favourite non-Lake of Bays beer?" eliciting some "ooohs" from around the table. Now that he had to think about for a bit but he came back with Duggan's No 9 IPA, an old-school Toronto favourite that's been in and out of circulation for many years. I believe it's back in but can still be a tough find. And, of course, he talked about the brewery, the brewhouse and pretty much anything else we wanted to know.

Andrew had them bring out samples of the different hops (pellet form)
for us to smell and get a sense of the difference. However, Jackie and
Emma saw this shot I posted on Twitter and cracked that's what was left
of all the hops at the Huntsville Brewhouse when we finished up our beer.

To be honest, his appearance was completely unexpected even though I helped coordinate the day on our end. I mean, Rob and Andrew had a firm handle on the event so Darren joining in and having a good time, well, that was truly just a bonus for all of us.

Eventually it was time to start rating some of their experimental beers and while I usually keep notes on voice recorder, I completely forgot so I enlisted Matty's memories of the day as he and Joel were posting them on Untappd. First on deck was an unidentified radler, which like the rest, came with a tasting sheet.

The Beer Mail Exchange! You see, this group mails A LOT of beer back
and forth throughout Ontario through Canada Post. But since we were
all meeting in Huntsville, we decided screw the hefty postage and just
hand-deliver our next Beer Mails to each other. From the left, that's
Ottawa Joel, Cartoonist David, me, Ottawa Matty, Sudbury Danny,
Shwa Boy Glenn and everyone's favourite soldier Hago, taking the pic.

Now to me, a radler is grapefruit juice mixed with (usually) a lager and as such, I neither drink them nor know much about them. That became readily apparent when I tasted it and said bluntly (a bit loudly, as well) "This is not a radler!"

Poor Rob kept shushing me as I repeated my insistence a few times. Well, turns out it doesn't have to be grapefruit in the mix and this was, in fact, a cranberry-apple cider-beer mixture the brewery was calling Red Sky at Night. Gotta be honest, for a guy who refuses radlers, I quite enjoyed this, as did the balance of the group.

We got slightly altered versions of Peach Paradise Milkshake IPAs, their Paddle On Session Ale, as well as the Sunseeker Tangerine Pale Ale, Darren's current favourite.

Chef Brian came out to talk to our group during the
festivities and I gotta say, the food at the Brewhouse is
Top Shelf (little Lake of Bays humour there.) We had
delicious trout tacos (SO GOOD!), freshly-baked huge
pretzels, flatbread bruschetta and these shots of funky
tomato soup on a spice high. Just fantastic food here!

But there was also some newbies in the mix - a Scotch Ale they're testing (wonderfully malty and bang-on in style), a new Stout (which I quite liked but they had one on tap I liked even better - I'll get to that) and finally, the show-stopper, a potential Double IPA release that, frankly, we all raved over! Damn, it was good!

But that other stout on tap? Well, Andrew created a coffee stout called Java the Hutt that they goosed with nitro at the tap. Although the brewery decided not to release it, we all thought it was fantastic. I think we're all kinda hoping they still will consider it as a seasonal release at least. Think of their Nightwatcher Oatmeal Stout (which is great) but with coffee instead... and on nitro! I tell you, it was damn good!

Except for a couple of us, this would be the first time the group was meeting in person. I mean, we talk on Twitter all the time but up close and for real is always different. One of the funnier things to me was Matty's shifting accent. You see, both Joel and Danny's homes had a strong French presence growing up so yeah, they had that cool Franco lilt in their speech from the start. Matty did not. Until he got drinking and then suddenly the French accent became a little more and a little more pronounced.

There were a lot of beers we enjoyed up there in Huntsville
but the one we drank the most, as well as the one we all
purchased the most on our way out the door? This one.
Their Starboard New England IPA. Just a fantastic beer!

So, of course, I called him on it because that's what guys do. He laughed and admitted that, yeah, when he drinks, that French accent, well, it kinda sneaks its way in there.

And just today, their social media squad of Jackie and Emma, told us on Twitter that our beer is coming to the finish line! They said it was dry-hopped on Monday with Idaho 7 (yes, my hop!), fermenting at 20C and then on Thursday, it was crash-cooled from 20C to 0C. It's apparently 5.9% (perfect - we all suggested around 6% or so) and was ready to be filtered. So we're getting close here!

So they asked everyone involved to suggest some names. Hamilton Craft Beer Couple Kristal and Paul liked Bucket List IPA since brewing a beer is something a lot of people in our group had on their bucket list. I went with Huntsville Brew Crew IPA which is both unimaginative and pretty dull all at the same time. I have a gift. Danny liked All The Hops (certainly true) or Hopstravaganza. But Joel threw out DIPA: Donny Is Phantoming Again! Okay, obviously, this needs explanation.

Except for me and David, the guys do not know about this cartoon. You
see, when the boys all caught up to me in a Huntsville motel, they found
their way into my room, watched the Leafs play Boston and snapped a
selfie of themselves around me while I was sawing logs. They are, from
top left, counter-clockwise, Cartoonist David, who drew this, Ottawa
Matty, Sudbury Danny, Ottawa Joel and Shwa Boy Glenn. While the
selfie was hilarious, it was a soft focus in a dark room with David's and
Glenn's heads chopped off. So David stepped up to capture the moment!

You see, David and I arrived at Huntsville Brewhouse at about 12:30 pm for the day. Matty and Joel were the only two there before us. And we drank and drank and ate and then drank some more. At about 6:30 or so, I was out front having a smoke when I realized, man, I'm knackered.

So I asked the waitress where the nearest motel was (about five minutes on foot up the road), grabbed a sixer of Starboard NEIPA and basically just disappeared without saying anything. Checked in, turned on the Leafs-Bruins game and promptly fell asleep. My friends call that "phantoming" as in "Where's Donny?" and the answer is "Oh, he phantomed again!" So Hago phoned me, asked me where I was and I told him. Next thing I know, these guys were knocking on my window. I let them all in and fell back asleep while they watched the game. There had to be 25 empty cans of Starboard in my room when I woke up in the morning. One was mine. And that's the whole story, Your Honour. Anyway, that was our day and this weekend, I will be writing about the best beers I got from these gents and one lady. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...

Landing at Huntsville Brewhouse

In TV and movies, this is what's known as an establishing shot. If it's a
crime show, they show you the outside of a police precinct. A comedy?
You are shown the bar or pizza place or office where it's taking place.
In this case, this is where 13 craft beer lovers landed to brew an IPA this
past Saturday. Will it be any good? Oh baby, we are counting on that!!

The funniest thing to me about our Lake of Bays Brew Day at Huntsville Brewhouse on April 13th is that people kept thanking me for organizing it.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret, folks. (*Looks left, looks right, whispers*) "Brew Days organize themselves..." I was just the guy taking down names. However, I will happily take credit for the amazing crew we pulled together for this beer-fueled event even though, well, Twitter did all the heavy lifting there, too.

But let's start at the beginning. Tim Glazin has been my Lake of Bays sales rep for, well, I don't even remember. However, we know we do go back to the days when the brewery had a deal with the NHL Alumni Association and they put out those sweet-ass single hockey player bottles. That deal eventually died but some of those singles were pretty sweet.

Hey, it's Lake of Bays' owner Darren Smith,
both in human form and then cartoon form,
courtesy of Hamilton artist David Buist. Darren
was a great part of our day, sitting right with us
for a goodly portion and, well, just having fun!

So whenever Tim would pop into my Beer Store, we'd talk craft beer, hockey and Tim's biggest love, classic cars.

So way back in January, Tim texted me to see if he and Lake of Bays Director of Sales Rob could stop by for a chat at my Beer Store. (What? You don't have craft beer reps in your phone? Geez, catch up!)

The one snag? On that exact day, I was in Guelph at Wellington Brewing with the IGBrewCrew help to make what would become our 5 Out Of 5 Foreign Export Stout. (It was fantastic - thanks for asking.) So we made our meeting a week later.

Sure as shootin' possums in a hedgerow (I have no idea what that means - I just made it up), the guys showed up a week later and we talked beer. One of their questions was about their new release Starboard New England IPA, a beer I had given a mediocre review. It tasted pretty good but was not really to style. Not being a brewer, my advice was just three words. "Juicier. Fruiter. Hazier."

That's when I found out about Huntsville Brewhouse. You see, Huntsville Brewhouse is the Lake of Bays property where, under the watchful eye of brewer Andrew Walsh, they test out new products which may or may not make the final cut, have their recipes travel 24 kilometres (15 miles) south to the brewery to become actual Lake of Bays beers. It's like their Test Market but with really funky experimental beers and fantastic food. Also, from an outsider's perspective, a brilliant idea if you can afford it. Like, this is MY idea of a dynamite Science Lab!

(Quick side-note before I continue. They did revamp the Starboard. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell you this part but they drank it side-by-side with Collective Arts' Life in the Clouds Hazy IPA and basically asked themselves, "Okay, what are they doing right that we are not?") End result? A fantastic NEIPA.

Hey, it's looks like Huntsville Brewhouse's brewer Andrew Walsh got
BUISTED!! As in David Buist drew him as well. Full props to Andrew
as he patiently walked us through the process of brewing our own IPA.

Long story short, the chat at the Beer Store came with a damn enticing offer from Rob. How would a group of us like to head up to Huntsville, brew our own beer and test-taste a bunch of their experimental beers?

Uhhhhh, okay? Sold! So I threw the offer out there on Twitter and said inbox me if you're down. Oh yes, people were down - many people. So I gathered names, pulled together the group and, well, that was my oft-applauded organizing end of it. Frankly, it was as easy as drinking the new, improved Starboard. In the end, 13 of us ventured to Huntsville for the day of eating, drinking and merriment!

This would be the Rowdy Table. Clockwise from lower
left, we have Graeme, Curtis, Danny, David, myself,
Joel, Matty, Glenn and Hago. This would also be the
table most often chastised by Director of Sales Rob for
speaking out of place. And by table, I mean me. At one
point Rob asked me, "You were that kid at the back of
the class always wisecracking, weren't you?" Guilty...

In the end, with two exceptions to me, it was a group of us who regularly chat and swap beer stories on Twitter but have never actually met. The two exceptions were Beer Bro Glenn, who I've know since college and Soldier Boy Hago, who I've known for a few years and also my son David's #1 favourite other Dad. But also coming along for the let's-make-a-beer ride was Hamilton Craft Beer Couple Paul and Kristal (@craft_couple), their friends Paul and Colleen, who own a cottage near the Brewhouse, Graeme (@needmycaffeine), "That Canadian Beer Guy" Curtis (@BeerFromCanada), Sudbury Danny (@SudburyHomebrew), Hamilton cartoonist extraordinaire David (@david_buist), Ottawa Joel (@ottawahockey) and Ottawa Matty (@heatherington84). Paul is also a founding member of the Southern Ontario Beer Boys (@SOBeerBoys), which does a fantastic job of fundraising - mostly through empties collection - for the Hamilton McMaster Children's Hospital. So, you know, it wasn't all rowdy hooligans. They were good people there, too. It's nice to have that balance. Also, an equal amount of Montreal Canadiens fans to Toronto Maple Leafs fans in the group so like I said, you take the good with the bad. And Paul and Kristal? Boston Bruins fans! So for the name of inter-group harmony, we all kept our jerseys out of the mix for this Sacred Brewing Of The IPA Day. Except for the occasional taunt. Because... hockey reasons.

And this was the Well-Behaved Refined Table with Hamilton Craft Beer
Couple Paul and Kristal bookending their two friends Paul and Colleen,
who own a cottage very close to the Huntsville Brewhouse. That fellow
at the far left? Our dude Rob Walcot, Lake of Bays' Director of Sales.

Okay, now maybe two weeks before the Main Event, I got a phone called from Huntsville Brewhouse Head Brewer Andrew Walsh, asking about the style because, of course, he has to make sure they had the necessary hops and malt on-hand. Because I was the only one in our collective who had done a Brew Day and I had already done a stout, we quickly settled on an IPA. I'm not even lying a little bit to say that our group was thrilled with the style selection.

So that's the stage set for April 13 Brew Day. How did Brew Day and our IPA go? What experimental beers did we taste? And were the Police, EMS and Fire Department called in to restore order? Well, come back Sunday to find out all those answers, more anecdotes and much more because Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I'm outta here! Trying to keep these things shorter than War and Peace. Until then, I remain...