Spearhead's special touch & Steamwhistle's surprise

A couple of comments - not at all negative - about this
Spearhead Brewing Hawaiian Style Pale Ale caught the
eye of the President and CEO Josh Hayter. So he actually
responded... in a way that neither of us had anticipated.

Allow me to set the stage here, if I may. On May 6, I took flight from Toronto's Pearson Airport to Las Vegas. When I left Ontario, it was maybe 5C, wet and, well, miserable. As it had been for quite some time.

So I spend more than a week down there. It was 30C, sunny, glorious and Vegas being Vegas, very neon, very loud and very fun. Seeing the sun again - or rather, finally seeing the sun - totally recharged me. I felt somewhat human again. Or at least, as close as I ever come to that. The jury's still out. And I figured, hey, I'm not back home until May 14th. By then, it had to be nice, right? Mid-May?

So on May 14, I land in Toronto about 10 am. On the walk through Pearson, I can see through the plate-glass windows that it's overcast, dull gray and had probably rained the night before. The asphalt looked damp. But I'm inside so I figure, well, at least it's probably warm out there.

Step outside to get a cab. It's 5C, still wet, still miserable. The same shit I left. But now in Mid-May. I'm not... what's that word people use?... oh, right, happy.

So this would be Spearhead Brewing President and
CEO Josh Hayter. As you can see, he's not a suit and
tie kinda guy. In fact, there has been rumours that he
sleeps with a baseball cap on and maybe doesn't even
take it off in the shower. Just a regular guy, who also
happens to own a craft brewery. So there's that, too.

But I'm not telling anyone in Ontario anything they don't already know for themselves. We're all living through this garbage weather and in the case of our friends in select areas of the Muskoka Region, add some serious flooding on top of that. So maybe inclement weather consisting of gray days and rain isn't the biggest of my worries. I mean, at least I'm not kayaking through my living room.

But hey, certain politicians assure us there's no such thing as Climate Change, right? I think I've even seen a Republican or two tell us that God will take care of the Earth. (God's ears perk up at the mention of his name. "What? You stupid idiots! I gave you scientists!!")

Anyway, just a few hours after my return, something happened that brought a big ol' chunk of sunshine to my day. The post dude knocked on the door with a package for me. It was from Spearhead Brewing in Kingston and contained two of their new Mojito Radler and two of their Chardonnay Summer Ale. Four cans of Summer landed in my lap, courtesy of Amanda, who takes care of the brewery's social media (among other responsibilities.) Naturally, I was so jazzed that I lined them all up and posted them on Twitter for my homeys and homettes in the Brew Crew to see.

Josh told us a pretty funny story about how he had a
wild night drinking their Big Kahuna Imperial IPA.
His wife had to help him to the hotel room and she
was none too impressed. Hey, it happens to all of us!
In my case, FAR too many times. Many will confirm.

Later that evening, Steve from Southern Ontario Beer Boys saw the pic and posted his own of the brewery's flagship Hawaiian Style Pale Ale, noting, "Partaking in this tonight. Needs a little more pineapple for my liking. Just saying."

I replied that I had "first had it in 2013 and thought it was loaded with pineapple! I think Cool was contract brewing it then. (They were.) But since then, so many have come out, using actual pineapple or puree that yeah, this has lost a wee step. Nothing they can't tweak, though."

And that was that. Just a couple of comments about the beer Steve was drinking at that exact moment on Twitter. Happens 18 million times a day, I'm sure. At least 300,000 with my group each night alone.

Well, that night eventually turned into the next day and sometime that morning, Steve and I (and everyone else) got a bit of a surprise. I guess Amanda saw our exchange and showed it to brewery owner Josh Hayter. He decided to response. By video! I kid you not. I mean, here's this totally regular guy in jeans, T-shirt, ball cap, sitting on a chair, holding a beer and basically talking directly to us.

My first ever mailing from Spearhead was their brand
new Big Kahuna Imperial IPA way back in early April.
Amanda had initially messaged me, introducing herself
and eventually asked me for my mailing address. Now
despite being in the Witness Protection Plan, I gave it
to her anyway because, well, she seemed very genuine.
And then, *boom*, these bad boys landed at my Casa. 

Looking at the camera, he responded: "Hey SO Beer Boys, this is Josh Hayter. I'm president of Spearhead Brewing and I saw you guys chatting about my Hawaiian Style Pale Ale on Twitter and I thought I'd chime in here. So, Hawaiian Style, you're absolutely right. It's not very pineapple-y, it's not a fruit beer. It was never actually intended to be. The Hawaiian Style is a hop-forward, west coast style pale ale. What we do with the pineapple - and we use real juice - is we actually use it just to cut the bitterness off the top of the hops. So you're still getting all that hops flavour through without getting all the bitterness to it. We do understand that there's a lot of really great fruit beers out there and to stay in line with that and be on the cutting edge, we have our new Mojito Radler we just put out if you want to give that a try. It's got a lot of lime and mint flavour to it. And we also have our Chardonnay Summer (Ale) that we brew with actual Chardonnay juice in the process. So thank you guys, if you have any other questions and any comments, feel free to shoot them to us directly. Cheers!"

This is Steve and my face after we saw Josh's video
response to our late night comments about their
Hawaiian Style Pale Ale. A video? Holy frijoles!

Then he took a big sip of his Hawaiian Style Pale Ale and the video ended. You ever see that cartoon wolf whose jaw drops to the table because he sees a pretty showgirl? No? Okay, well, I'm a comic geek as well as a beer geek so I'll let Plastic Man (to the right) illustrate what I'm talking about here. We were stunned but, like, not in our usual way. Stunned thrilled.

Since I tag 10 people every time I post a picture, the responses to the video started to come in one at a time. Brew Crew Buddy Graeme saw it early in the morning, even before I had and commented, "That's a company I will support hands down right there." In a message to me, Ottawa Matty concurred. "Josh's response was above and beyond to me and really got my respect. I have since bought (a handful) of Hawaiian Style Pale Ale and will continue to support them." And so it went, all morning and well into the afternoon. In fact, Josh bantered with us a little on Twitter that day. It was a blast.

These two beers - the Chardonnay Summer Ale and
the Mojito Radler - were fascinating twists on any
traditional beer style. The Chardonnay used actual
grape must in the brewing while the Mojito was a
crazy take on the new-school radler styles out now.

In actual fact, the Hawaiian Style Pale Ale and I go back a few years. I started this blog in June 2013 and when the year was ending and I did my first Best Of list, Hawaiian Style was my first ever Best Pale Ale.

As for Josh himself, in 2016, he took over the brewery from founder Dimitri van Kampen, who created it as a contract brewery in 2011, working out of Cool Brewing in Etobicoke. Josh's singular goal? To build an actual bricks and mortar facility in Ontario. It didn't take him long. By Spring 2018, they had finished construction on their brand spanking new 16,000-square-foot brewery in Kingston. And with the brewery in place, Josh knew it was time to also expand beyond the brewery's Core Four beers - Hawaiian Style, Moroccan Brown Ale, seasonal Belgian Style Stout and Sam Roberts Band Session Ale.

So he tasked 40-year veteran and internationally-respected Brewmaster Tomas Schmitt and his son, Head Brewer Jacob Schmitt to get creative with what was coming out of Spearhead's fermenting vats. I would suggest they are succeeding nicely in that regard and that before long, Spearhead will find its own place in Ontario's craft brewery hierarchy.

When Josh took over the brewery, Spearhead had established a nice
base with this Core Four - the seasonal Belgian Style Stout, their
flagship Hawaiian Style Pale A;e, the Moroccan Brown Ale and the
Sam Roberts Band (Yes, THAT Sam Roberts) Session Ale. All solid.

Three new beers out this Spring and each is pretty impressive. Let's start with the Big Kahuna Imperial IPA, the first ever IPA from Spearhead. Boy howdy, at 10% and 100 IBUs, this one will take your head off. Pine followed by pine with some more pine on the back end! It's like Tomas and Jacob snapped a huge branch off a pine tree and just started slapping you upside the head with it. And be warned, even though you do get an inkling of it with some boozy warmth on the throat as it's going down, this one will knock you onto your arse. It's a hop bomb!

Their new Mojito Radler... well, I fully admit I approached it with some trepidation. I'm not a radler kind of guy. In fact, the only radler I've ever enjoyed was the Schofferhofer Radler out of Germany, which used a wheat ale mixed 50/50 with grapefruit, rather than the traditional lager-grapefruit mix. But brewers are getting pretty creative with their radlers in Ontario, going far beyond the traditional boundaries.

When this 16,000 square foot brewery opened in Spring 2018, Spearhead
finally shook off the shackles of being a contract brewer and got a real
opportunity to start brewing new, fun stuff. They're just getting started!

The only thing I know about mojitos is they are a rum, lime and mint cocktail that my now-grown nieces down like Gatorade. The mint spooked me, not gonna lie, as it was pretty prominent on the nose. But it as far more subtle on the tongue as this 2.4% offering jacks up the lime. Gotta admit, this was a refreshing little beverage that could be fun in the Summer. You know, if Ontario even has a Summer this year. I'll be honest - between this and Lake of Bays' new Red Sky At Night Peach Cranberry Radler, these Ontario brewers might just turn me into a radler fan some day. For that, I both thank you... and curse you. But I do appreciate the boundaries being pushed on a style of which I've always been dismissive.

Steam Whistle has been busy lately, first creating the separate
Von Bugle Brewing in an Etobicoke facility and then announcing
that they will be contract brewing New Belgium's Fat Tire
Amber Ale for distribution in Canada. Now do they have one
more trick up their sleeve? Turns out that, yup, they sure do!!

Which brings us to their Chardonnay Summer Ale. While I, of course, thought, "Well, they'll simply throw some grape peel into the mix and *bam* chardonnay style beer." But no, Tomas and Jacob got a little more creative than that. They collected up Chardonnay must (think peel, grape pulp, everything that doesn't end up in the wine), mixed it all with Aramis and Strisselpalt hops (the latter of which I've never even heard of) to create what could best be described as a white wine-beer hybrid. The 4.3% (definitely Summer style) ale is like nothing I've had in the past. It's light, fruity but you still know you're drinking a beer, albeit one with a heavy wine influence. I couldn't drink a lot of these but I will grab one from time to time. It's quite unique, at least to me. But I'll bet white wine drinkers will enjoy the hell out of this one.

Anyway, Spearhead has become a brewery to watch. And if we kinda forget that for a minute, I'm sure Josh Hayter will pop up on a video and say, "Hey! Where the hell did you bozos go?"

This has nothing to do with Ontario craft beer
but I saw it on Twitter and howled. American
macro brewer Rolling Rock has launched a new
feature called #PerfectlyAverageReviews where
they find dismissive, even insulting, reviews of
their beer and post them online. Gotta be honest.
I love when macros show a real sense of humour!

I recently mentioned on Twitter that I heard Steam Whistle had a big announcement coming up. Where did I hear it? From the same person that told me they were creating a new brewery in Etobicoke and then told me the name - Von Bugle. Next up, he/she told me that the beer style Von Bugle would be brewing was a Munich Lager. Then he/she sent me a picture of the new label. And finally, he/she told me that Steam Whistle would be exclusively contract brewing New Belgium Brewing's (Fort Collins, Colorado) Fat Tire Amber Ale up here for distribution across Canada. I don't know who this person is - their Twitter handle is some vague beer-related name - and the messages are always private, never in public, but he or she has been bang on every single time. And according to this insider, what's coming next was a surprise. Steam Whistle will be brewing a pale ale! Now whether it's under the Steam Whistle or Von Bugle banner, I do not know but I would guess the latter. It may even be a version of New Belgium's Dayblazer Easygoing Ale, for all I know. But my insider has never steered me wrong yet so we'll just have to wait and see. But, wow, big news!

Okay, Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here for today. But coming up next is a visit to my Beer Store by Beau's All Natural Brewing sales rep Adam Wilson and the little gift box he brought me. (Yes, I know I'm getting spoiled. Hell, Stevie Wonder could see that.) Until next time, I remain, as always...

One Endgame teaser... and Beer Mail

So which beer was Thor drinking in The Avengers'
Compound? Turns out it was a Creature Comforts
Brewing (Athens, Georgia) Athena Berliner Weisse.
Seems the God of Thunder is a big fan of craft beer!

So anyway, I saw Avengers: Endgame on the Sunday of opening weekend with Beer Bro Glenn and, well... holy shit, go see it because Marvel is never gonna top this one. Like... ever!

Just insane and you never see what's coming. And both Marvel and the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony, who directed Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, The Avengers: Infinity War and now Endgame, basically begged the fans not to offer up any spoilers on social media, launching a gigantic campaign with the #DontSpoilTheEndgame hashtag on Twitter and other social media.

Well, I'm not giving you an Endgame spoiler but rather more of a teaser. Don't worry. It's not really about the movie. Not about who lives and who dies. Also not about who comes back from being a pile of ashes or who doesn't after that Thanos Snappening. Or who can actually make it through a three-hour movie without a washroom break? I didn't. Twice. (But I googled when the best times were during the movie for a pee break.)

No, my teaser is simply: What beer was Thor drinking at the Avengers' Compound in upstate New York during an early part in the movie? Take a look at the picture.

Yeah, yeah, Thanos is the "Mad Titan" and all
that crap but... does he, in fact, make a good
point here? I mean, don't we all get a little
pissed when a brewery we love has a special
release and by the time we get there, all of the
beer is gone? Imagine half the competition...

You can tell it's not a macro. We all know every macro in existence. That's not one. Not a chance. So I tucked that away in my often-befuddled brain as something to check out when I got home.

But, of course, the movie was so awesome I could think of little else for a while. Then on the Monday, I got this nagging feeling I was supposed to look something up. Natch, I couldn't remember so I carried on with my day, knowing at some point, out of the blue, it would hit me. And, of course, it did as I was turning towards my beer fridge and saw a God of Thunder action figure nestled among others. Thor's beer! So I googled "What beer was Thor drinking at the Avenger's Compound" and *poof* up it popped up.

Because the scene was part of a trailer showed on TV before the movie was released - the scene where Thor approaches Captain Marvel for the first time - it seems that beer had also caught the eye of a healthy handful of Athens, Georgia residents who recognized the beer from their hometown craft brewery, Creature Comforts. The beer itself was their 4.5% Athena Berliner Weisse, a wheat-based sour. And yes, the beer is named after the city it is brewed within as a tribute.

The story had been discovered by Jess Baker, the editor-in-chief of CraftBeer.com, herself a former Georgian and self-proclaimed "Marvel fangirl" who dug a little deeper.

You may have guessed its former use but Creature Comforts Brewery
was originally a Chevrolet dealership back in the 1940s before becoming
Snow Tire Company. As a heritage building, the independent brewery
left some historical components to the exterior as you can clearly see
when it was transformed into a craft brewery in April 2014. Excellent!

As it turns out, according to Baker, the Russo brothers are big craft beer fans and since Marvel Film Studios uses Georgia as location in a lot in its filming, they became big fans of Creature Comforts, as well.

So did the brewery know of its eventual inclusion in the movie that is likely to be the biggest blockbuster of all time... until Marvel's next blockbuster? Uh, can we get a Georgia "Hell yeah!"??

That's because the studio would, of course, legally have to approach them to use their product on film. Obviously, the answer was going to be yes. And to the brewery itself, there was some additional symbolism to the beer chosen for the scene.

Chris Herron, who co-founded the brewery with Derek
Imes, Brewmaster Adam Beauchamp and David Stein,
is shown here in their website photos. As it turned out,
all of the Creature Comforts folks were ecstatic with
their beer's cameo appearance in Avengers: Endgame.

As brewery co-founder and CEO Chris Herron happily told Baker, "We think it is fitting that Thor, the God of Thunder, would drink Athena. The Greek Goddess Athena is, of course, the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare."

Added Baker in her entertaining piece published a few weeks before the opening, "At this point, Thor, Cap, Black Widow and the remaining Avengers need a whole lot of wisdom on their side." 

Well, sure, as well as some quality craft beer from Athens, Georgia, the Quantum Realm and a few other key variables such as... oops, I can say no more. But as Baker noted, the beer's appearance in the movie means "No. 1: The fine folks at Creature Comforts survived Thanos' 'Snapture' at the end of 'Infinity War' and they're still making beer. No. 2: Craft beer survives Thanos! No. 3: Thor, the God of freaking Thunder, who has a choice of any beer in the Nine Realms, chooses to drink Athena - a craft beer!" Like I said, her piece was a really fun read and hey, I readily admit I share her enthusiasm for both the MCU and craft beer in general.

This Redline Brewhouse's Signal Boost West Coast
IPA landed in my Beer Mail, courtesy of Hamilton
Craft Beer Couple Paul and Kristal. It seems they
popped into Redline over the weekend and had this
available in their Goodie Grab Box! Hey, I'm down!

The story continued after the release when she saw the movie and by gawd, there was Thor drinking yet another Creature Comforts' beer, as well as a brief glimpse of him in a brewery T-shirt. But I'll attach that as a link at the end as I have told enough of Jess Baker's story already. Time for her to tell the rest of this Asgardian tale. Excelsior, Jess!! Fantastic read for both a Beer Geek and a Comic Geek, such as myself.

I have my own yarn to spin here and it's called Beer Mail: Endgame! No one turned (or got unturned) into a big pile of ash in my story. But rather, it's connected to our big Lake of Bays' IPA Brew Day at the Huntsville Brewhouse in mid-April. (I think I may have mentioned it in passing in this very space. Once or twice, maybe.) But you see, there was a group of us - 13 in total - and within that group was a separate sub-group that sends Beer Mail to each other across the different corners of the province. Since that involved Canada Post getting a whole lot of our coin, we decided to simply do our Beer Mails when we finally met in person. Not that we don't like handing Crown Corporations our cash.

Two of Ottawa Matty's beer were leading the race, neck-
and-neck until I had this Beyond The Pale Brewing Saison
Tropicale. Okay, this saison was insanely juicy to the point
that, if blind-folded, I never would have guessed a saison.

Okay, okay, we don't and would much prefer to spend it on beer.

So what I want to do here is look at some of the Beer Mail I received and since I can't go through it all (we're talking dozens), simply pick my favourite from each of my Beer Mail Buds.

Now Hamilton Craft Beer Couple (as they're known on Twitter) Paul and Kristal suggested since we were all meeting in Huntsville that we should do a Bottle Swap. The others and myself noted that we each would be getting so much beer that day via our unposted Beer Mails, that more wouldn't be necessary. However, I said we'd all be happy to give them some beer and receive exactly zero back. I mean, we got so much beer, it took me five trips from the car to get it all in the house. And I'm that guy who tries to retrieve ALL the groceries in one trip. So anyway, when the time came to do the beer swaps, Paul had a box of beer in front of him and basically insisted that we all take something. Anything! Well, I didn't want to let the pair down so I peeked into the box.

When it came to Ottawa Joel's beers, there could only be one
winner as this Waller St Brewing Black Imperial IPA was so
outstanding that I was practically willing to get into my car and
drive to the Nation's Capitol to buy out their retail. Crazy good!

I, being me, spotted a brightly coloured label and pulled it out of the box. (So yes, marketers, to this guy, catching my eye counts.) Much to my surprise, it was a new release from Barrie's outstanding Redline Brewhouse, their Signal Boost West Coast IPA. A new Redline beer? Suddenly, I didn't feel so guilty about plucking a free beverage from Paul and Kristal's Bottle Swap Box. (To be honest, I can't remember what I brought for them at this late point.)

As for the Signal Boost? Well, every once in a while, a strong west coast IPA comes along, slaps me upside the head and says, "What's with all the haze love, bro? Have you forgotten you started with us?" This was damn good. Grapefruit, orange, apricot (mmm, apricot *Homer Simpson drooling face*) in a neat little 6.3% package. So thanks, Kristal and Paul! It was fantastic!

Okay, Ottawa Matty was, hands down, the toughest from whom to pick a favourite.

Hamilton artist-cartoonist David Buist's cartoon for Dominion
City Brewing's Sunsplit IPA (shown here liberally cropped)
was so good, the brewery itself wanted to know if they could
get prints made to put up on the brewery's wall. The dude's
got some righteous talent. Hopefully, that actually happens!!

Eventually, Ottawa Joel sent me a list of who got what from which breweries between the pair of them. I was never sure but apparently, the guys split up so there's be no duplication (which is very smart.) So Matty got me some beauties from Stray Dog Brewing, Beyond The Pale Brewing, Brasserie Tuque de Broue and Perth Brewing. Stray Dog had a fantastic session stout, Perth had a crazy good Session IPA and Tuque de Broue had a Maple Wheat that was awesome.

But in the end, I had to go with Beyond The Pale's Saison Tropicale, which was just nuts! Being as this is the same brewery that created Aromatherapy Vermont Style IPA, which was one of my first really big NEIPAs a couple of Summers back and Yummy! North East Pale Ale, a little hazemeister which was also part of Matty's package, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that they'd find a way to go crazy with a saison. But this was the juiciest, most flavourful saison I've probably ever had and I have had a few beauties, notably from Whitby's Little Beast Brewing, in the past.

Orange, mango, pineapple all collide with Belgian yeast in this little bomb blast called Saison Tropicale, that's 7.7% and 55 IBUs. Just a fantastic and very different interpretation of the style.

Ottawa Joel, in the meantime, grabbed us beers from Brasserie Etienne Brule, Waller St Brewing, Cassel Brewing and Dominion City Brewing. Now one of the Dominion City beer, Sunsplit IPA, had to be ruled out of this little competition right from the get-go. Why? It was selected as my Best IPA from 2018. So I already knew how great it is!

Given some of the outstanding beers that Danny got
me from Sudbury's Stack Brewing, I suspect my
selection of their Birch Pale Ale as their best will
surprise him a little. It shouldn't. Hugely unique!

Not only that but I have placed two mail orders from Dominion City and half of each delivery was six Sunsplit IPA. So yeah, let's just slide this out.

So while Cassel made a top-notch coffee and milk brunch stout and Brasserie Etienne Brule made a dynamite little black pale ale (my first ever), it was much easier to pick a favorite from Joel the second I opened the Waller St Black Imperial IPA. This is hardly my first Black IPA rodeo. I've been in that saddle many times. But you know what? I think this might be the best I've ever had. Actually, let's just say it definitely is and be done with the guesswork. Huge chocolate and licorice on the dark side, big (and I mean, humongous) pine on the IPA side, all blended into this 8.5%, 90 IBU black magic. Just a phenomenal beer. Take a bow, Waller St brewers! Seriously.

Okay, Danny, who hails from Sudbury, was faced with a different problem when assembling Beer Mail for us all. While Matty and Joel has to split their time between Ottawa breweries and I have access to pretty much any brewery from Toronto to Hamilton, Danny was frustrated because Sudbury only has one brewery, Stack Brewing. He was bemoaning that fact when we all just said, "So what? Bring us a bunch of Stack beers!!"

Among Ottawa Joel's beers was the Dominion City's
Provincial IPA With Centennial (hops). So here I am,
chopping wood with the beer up front. Yeah, right, like
I do physical stuff ever. This is a brewery photograph.

I mean, I'm not sure how accessible Stack's inventory is to the Ottawa guys but I don't see much of it down in the GTA. Okay, dude, we all said, just overwhelm us with Stack!!!

So he did exactly that. While I had enjoyed just one of these previously, we got everything - a Black IPA, an Altbier, a Chocolate Cherry Stout, a sinfully delicious Imperial Stout, a Sour IPA, just some fantastic beers.

But Danny, a Montreal Canadiens fan, became an unwitting part of the Maple Leafs playoffs run when I drank nothing but Stack beers during a crucial Game 5 between Boston and Toronto - a game the Leafs won to take a 3-2 series lead. Well, hockey fans are as superstitious as hockey players so when the series went to Game 7, I took the remaining Stack beers I had, added some more of their Belgian Blonde that I found at the LCBO (on sale for $2.80/can!) and crossed my fingers that the Stack Magic could work twice. Unfortunately, it didn't. Boston won but let's be honest, I was asking a lot of the Sudbury brewery. And I think both Habs' fans Matty and Danny and Ottawa Senators' fan Joel were kinda sorta (very) mildly rooting for my Maple Leafs for one reason. We all hate Boston.

Ahhh, yes, it all comes back to Thor, doesn't it?
Well, as you can tell from this T-Shirt, our noble
God of Thunder doth love his beer. You'll see how
much in Avengers: Endgame. Though at this late
date, if you haven't seen it, you likely never will.

So, anyway, the Stack beer that I enjoyed the most wasn't the best of the bunch. That would be the Helter Smelter Imperial Stout. No, in this case, I picked the most unique. That was their Birch Pale Ale. Why? Because they actually used birch in the brewing process. The brewery said there's hints of mint and wintergreen in the 6.5% pale ale. Yeah, honestly, I didn't get any of that. You know what I got? A crap-ton of wood - pine and apparently birch. And I loved it. It was the most unique beer I've had since... well... the last most unique beer I've had. But I tell you, as I drank it, while watching my Leafs lose Game 7, I thought, "Well, at least this is a very cool beer." When you're losing, any port in a storm, right?

Okay, I'll be back in a bit with some cool beers from Beer Bro Glenn that I'm not including because this is long enough and we exchange beers several times a year. But that second Avengers: Endgame teaser involving Creature Comforts Brewing? Well, you can find it in Jess Baker's uber-cool story that I'll just call: God Of Thunder Or God Of Beer? But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...