Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion 3.0

When we stopped into Grain & Grit Small Batch Beers, we were all
pretty pumped to see Joe Mrav, co-owner of the brewery with his wife
Lindsey, working the counter. I'd say he was thrilled to see our huge
posse but the place was already jammed! Here, Drunk Polkaroo and
the lovely Lady Polk are glasses full up with Joe. Fantastic brewery!

Okay, let's wrap up the 905 Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion, shall we? Mostly because it happened more than a month ago. Besides that, I am busy trying to sort out my Best of 2019 list and what I'm seeing so far is this. Thanks to Ben, Matty and Joel, Ottawa, our nation's capital, is very well represented.

But we're not just there yet. I have this nasty tendency to jump ahead when I should be acknowledging the past. My bad. I'd like to be able to say that's my worst trait but I have many far, far worse.

However, pulling Craft Brewery Invasions together seems to be repetitive behaviour of mine so let's emphasize one of my selectively few solid points as a carbon unit on this mudball. Done a few of these before - Whitby in 2017, Barrie and the Muskokas in 2018, IPA Brew Day in Huntsville back in April - but those places are not where I live. The Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion is very much where I live. There was a seriously stronger element of "Don't Screw This Up."

Candice and Glenn crashed at my place on the Friday
night. Candice took my son's David bedroom which he
never uses, preferring the couch in his alcove. So when
I woke up Saturday morning, I was informed by David
that "There is a beautiful woman in my bed." My son,
someday that will be about the best news ever for you!

It had to be a lot of fun. It had to be the most comprehensive group of breweries for the out-of-towners who have heard me sing the praises of our local beverage makers. It had to be perfect.

I don't do perfect. On a good day, maybe I can scrape up a mediocre. I was gonna need some help. Fortunately, I had a couple of stellar compatriots right here in Oakville ready to step it up to A-Game levels - Greg and Kimmy. We each brought our skill set. Greg was the Type A dude all the way, drafting up driving and brewery schedules right down to the minute. I'm more the Type B guy, just a leaf blowing in the wind, going in any direction the breeze dictates. Kimmy, suffice it to say, was the solid balance in our troika, bringing her level-headed savvy and brewery connections into the mix. And truth to tell, it all meshed beautifully. I'm going give all three of us a pat on the back. The 905 Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion saw us visit eight breweries on a Friday night and a Saturday day-run - the largest Craft Brewery Invasion to date. This was a geographical chunk of brewery real estate that was, indeed, well-represented.

Okay, I've gone through Cameron's in Oakville, Stonehooker in Port Credit, Nickel Brook in Burlington and Clifford in East Hamilton.

Here's Kimmy and King City's Graeme swapping beer
notes at Fairweather Brewing. Graeme, as well as
Sudbury Danny and Guelph Curtis, all provide me
with an invaluable service. As two homebrewers and a
Cicerone, they will correct me when I'm wrong on any
given beer. When you make as many mistakes as I do,
that's insightful collective expertise in my back pocket.

Let's run down the last four then, shall we?

From East Hamilton, we all traveled west to the Twin Newbies of the McMaster-area turf - Grain & Grit Small Batch Beers and Fairweather Brewing, each outstanding in its own way.

Landing first at Grain & Grit, I was pumped to see Joe Mrav, who co-owns the brewery with wife Lindsey, actually working the bar along with his troops. That takes me back to their early days (all of two years ago) when the pair had little choice but to show up six days a week. Because owning a craft brewery is glamourous, right?

With the addition of Nickel Brook's Brandon at Clifford, this had become - by far - the best attended Craft Brewery Invasion, as it included Danny, Polk, Lady Polk, Big Peezy Paul, Glenn, Candice, Graeme, Curtis, Nichole, Kimmy, Greg, David and myself. And I thought it may get even bigger when we crossed paths with Hamilton Craft Beer Couple, Paul and Kristal, at Grain & Grit. They, of course, joined us way back in April at the Huntsville Brewhouse when we created our Lake of Bays Bucket List IPA. Alas, they were just stopping by but at the same time, pretty happy for the opportunity to say "Happy Invasion" to everyone. Yeah, it's a small world but I feel like we took up at least half of it on November 2nd.

"Okay, does someone have a permit for this bear?" Kat
seems to be saying. This St Bernard-Great Dane mix was
called Frank. He weighs in at a hefty 160 pounds, about 10
pounds shy of me. We ran into him here at Grain & Grit
and again at Fairweather Brewing a few minutes away.
The reason he was not inside? There was no room for him.

I tell you our roster size simply for this reason. Okay, sure, pretty proud of me, Greg and Kimmy. But the actual reason? Both Grain & Grit and Fairweather were already "It's Saturday afternoon" jam-packed. And G&G is not what you'd call spacious by any means. We descend on both with a Party of 13? Make sure your property insurance is up-to-date and you have the extra kegs readily available.

But the thing is anyone in our group from, say, Oakville to Guelph is within striking distance of these two breweries. We post their pictures often, describing their beers in elaborate detail, carefully wrapped with colourful praise. (Nod to Christmas Day there.) I personally send them in Beer Mails across the province and they have always been well-received. The out-of-towners HAD to go to these two breweries. None of their products ever see the inside of an LCBO in Ontario. Retail at the breweries only. Our friends literally have no access to the beers from these two unless they are gifted them.

So yeah, we were going. No doubt. To me, these two particular breweries were pretty much the ones the out-of-town folks wanted - or perhaps needed - to see the most.

Okay, look at Nichole's glass. Now look at Candice's and Glenn's. Now
look back at Nichole's. And now back at Candice's and Glenn's. Okay,
so a friend named Nichole brought her Game Day face to the Invasion.
That's why we are so fond of her. You know, it wasn't all that warm out
on November 2nd (despite the fact Glenn has no coat) but all of us were
pretty happy on the patio at Fairweather. Okay, for starters, it was the
only place to sit so there's that. Drinking on a cool day is so Canadian.

Grain & Grit was a stop many longed to see and we warned them, "Hey, the place is not huge." I think they got a sense of what we've been talking about these past couple of years. Kimmy checked into it and for X dollars (I forget how much) we could have taken a tour. Which is great, except for one thing. You can see the entire set-up the second you walk through the front door. So a tour? Perhaps not all that necessary. In the end, I think that may have impressed out-of-town Brew Crew the most. That a brewery this small - truly the working definition of a Small Batch brewery - produced such big beers. Believe me, it has impressed the rest of us, lo, these not-that-many years.

Fairweather Brewing, a three-minute walk away, does offer a little more leg-room, so to speak, but the place is a bit of a mystery wrapped in a riddle cloaked in an enigma to even us locals.

Dave at Collective Arts, left, gave probably the best brewery tour I've
ever been on and the poor guy... well, it was our fifth stop of the day and
a couple of us (so mainly, me) were a touch chirpy due to the prior influx
of beer. Nothing mean, mind you. Chatty might be a better description.
But man, did this dude know his stuff. I may go back and do a sober one.
As you can see, both Big Peezy Paul and Lady Polk were listening here.

They had social media presence. And then they did not. Nobody really knows what happened and there's no one there to really respond to whatever happened because they've gone completely off the social media grid. Trust me, we've all had those "Well, this is just total bullshit! Why do I bother?" days when it comes to social media.

All of that being said... who gives a damn? We're there for the beer and they do that very, very well. Their Silky American Oat Porter and High Grade IPA are two of the absolute finest examples of their styles I've ever enjoyed. You wanna speak loudly in the marketplace without social media? Make beers this excellent. That'll shut most people up. (But, y'know, social media so not everyone.) And even though the place was packed, we still managed to score some seating on the patio. It was a brisk but not brutally cold day so we were all happily onboard.

Collective Arts Brewing, if you put a sign like this on your
barrels, you have to know that's like an open invitation for
people like us. The scofflaws. The renegades. The somewhat
inebriated. Besides, Drunk Polkaroo barely touched it. It was
a passing tap at the very most. Anyway, we're all banned now.

Our second last stop - so Brewery #5 on the day - was Hamilton's biggest gun, Collective Arts Brewing. Thanks to the generosity of Toni Shelton, we got a comprehensive tour of the place... which is huge. Used to be the Lakeport Brewing plant. Prior to that, the Canadian plant for Amstel. It's got some serious history.

Some personal history for me, too. I remember driving there from the west end of Toronto back in the Summer of 1985 during the Beer Store (Brewer's Retail) strike. I think the strike lasted a month. (I wonder if anyone reading this even remembers that. I'm thinking you'd have to be at least 55 years old now.) I waited in line for well over an hour and walked away with three cases of Amstel. That's all I could carry as there were no carts available. The restaurants had every single cart tied up. Solid enough beer for a macro drinker but oh my, dark times. So yeah, not exactly my first time at that brewery.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, the 905 Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion so let's fast-forward 34 years to November 2019 again.

Glenn had to come back to my place in Oakville on the Sunday because he
forgot his bag at my pad. While here, he and I talked about Curtis, shown
above with a knight's suit at Clifford Brewing in east Hamilton. Glenn
asked, "Is it just me or is Curtis, like, the nicest guy in the world?" No, I
answered him, "I think Curtis makes Tom Hanks look like a scheming,
miserable bastard." And then Glenn and I probably talked about beer.

So we had the big tour at Collective Arts Brewing and I gotta say, pretty much the best leader ever in a young guide named Dave.

This guy seriously knew his stuff. The history of the place (too young to remember the Brewer's Retail strike but that's cool), what they're doing they're now (some of which I did not know) and some of their plans for the future.

I mean, he was seriously great. What young Dave got as an audience: two beer bloggers, one vlogger, three homebrewers, two Beer Store employees and one Ontario Beer Writer of the Year. All of us on our fifth brewery of the day. The poor guy.

I'd like to say we weren't terrible because I don't really think we were. But some of us (myself, leading the pack) may have been a little bit of a handful. That said, the great majority, including all of the women for sure, were, to a large degree, appreciative and respectful. (At that point, I realized the only thing I had eaten all day was a Timmie's bacon breakfast sandwich. You know how you can drink yourself past hungry? Yeah... so, me.) Sometimes, with a few brews in me, I don't remember "listen" and "silent" are spelled with the same letters. All I know is I woke up Sunday feeling a tad guilty.

Here's most of our Brew Crew at Merit Brewing in Hamilton. It would
appear that I'm standing on a chair to take this photo which was likely
very ill-advised at this point. Anyway, the 905 Halton-Hamilton Brew
Crew here, from left, Drunk Polkaroo, David, Graeme, Lady Polk, very
blurry Candice, Danny and Greg. It was simply a fantastic and fun day.

Anyway, Dave, both Greg and I myself are willing to come back, pay full-freight and listen to you do your thing without any goofy interruptions. I get the feeling I may have missed a few things.

Okay, last stop. Merit Brewing in central downtown Hamilton. Thank frikkin gawd, finally food! Merit has always done the sausage thing very well (like 12 different versions) but they've now added burgers to their repertoire. And man (I said, looking in a mirror), did some of us need that!

Merit's beers are on par excellence-wise with both Grain & Grit and Fairweather. Just freakin' outstanding but you can only get them retail. Their Young Rivals IPA has long been a favourite of mine. That's what I enjoyed, washing down my burger and fries.

The day after the 905 Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion
is when my boy, David, and I took Sudbury Danny to the Tim
Horton's by his hotel for breakfast. Danny was driving all that
way home and we wanted to make sure at least he had some
food in his stomach. But here we have a Leafs fan and a Habs
fan happily sitting together, proving that food conquers all...

But that's a wrap on the 905 Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion. Greg, Kimmy and I want to thank, in order, Cameron's, Stonehooker. Nickel Brook, Clifford, Grain & Grit, Fairweather, Collective Arts and Merit all for being such great stops for our out-of-towners and letting them know, hey, our craft breweries down in this neck of the woods are second to none. As Drunk Polkaroo is wont to say, we are seriously spoiled when it comes to craft beers in this area and we all know it.

To the four lovely, lively ladies involved, co-organizer Kimmy, Lady Polk, Candice and Nichole, thank you all for lending a little gender equality to our event and, well, just enjoying the ride alongside a bunch of rowdy guys. All of you spared us hailing down Ubers and the like by providing rides from place to place, which was awesome. (Greg actually had transportation in place but we never needed it.) Just a fantastic gathering of friends, who are now considered family.

But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. I'll be back soon with the Best of 2019. But until then, I remain...