Kingston #BeerFam 2020 Brewery Tour 1.0

The Host With The Most: When Josh Hayter, genial co-owner of
Spearhead Brewing, hosts a Brewery Tour, well, he doesn't screw
around. Enlisting the help of Tourism Kingston to pick up our
lunch (which will be described in great detail here) and Kingston
Economic Development to foot the tab for dinner, we ate like
royalty... but drank like court jesters. One day, six breweries and
probably the best-run Brewery Invasion ever. Hats off to Josh...

Way back at the beginning of November, Greg, Kimmy and I organized and run the 905 Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion. We all thought it went very well, as did the participants. Everyone had a blast. Granted, "Hey, let's go to a bunch of breweries and drink all day..." well, it turns out that's a remarkably easy sell. Go figure.

We were glad we did it. And to that, I would like to add one very important caveat. I personally am very frikkin' glad we did it before Kingston.

Because when Josh Hayter, co-owner of Spearhead Brewing, picked up the ball to organize February 22nd's Kingston #BeerFam 2020, geezuz, he ran the length of five football fields with it. For starters, I checked back in my DM with him and he started planning this early last October - four months ahead. Like I said, the dude doesn't screw around. He quickly enlisted Amanda, the brewery's social media liaison among other duties, to help out (there was an ongoing debate, albeit friendly and chirpy, about who did more) and man... whatta day!

At Stop #1, Daft Brewing, their head brewer Ryan found a high
perch to talk beers with our group of 20, which basically took
over the sizable horse-shoe shaped bar. Which what we pretty
much do at every Brewery Invasion. The brewery had only
been open for just three weeks and I gotta say, it has a pretty
eclectic starting line-up. Colourful as hell and chill atmosphere.

Using his status as the most powerful businessman in Kingston (he's never ever claimed that - I'm totally projecting that onto him), he quickly enlisted Tourism Kingston and Kingston Economic Development into helping with the meals - first lunch at Kingston Brewing Company (much more on that coming) and then dinner at Spearhead.

We also had this sharp-ass white bus shuttling us from brewery to brewery (including a very necessary washroom), courtesy of McCoy Bus Service (the owner is a shareholder in Spearhead) with a great driver named John. Josh wisely waited until Spearhead, our last of six brewery stops, before dropping a glass onto our large table and suggesting we all throw something into the tip pot for John. Oakville Brew Crew's Greg was there when John got the tip and reported he was thrilled. Not surprised. Because the day only cost us our purchases at the six breweries, I saw nothing but $10's and $20's being crammed into the glass from all of us. Hey man, John kept a bunch of drinking fools safe from 11 am to 9 pm. No easy feat. Gotta reward that shit.

So here's the thing. When the Ottawa thugs - Matty, Joel and Ben - organized last Summer's Ottawa Craft Brewery Invasion, we already knew about the great craft breweries there. Same when Kimmy, Greg and I organized the Halton-Hamilton Craft Brewery Invasion at the beginning of November. Everyone knew these breweries either through Beer Mails or Twitter posts. But none of us knew much about the craft scene in Kingston beyond Spearhead, to be honest. Josh was about to change that.

Actually, Stop #2, Stone City Ales was a place I was quite
familiar with but had never visited. A friend of mine used
to go visit friends in Kingston a few times a year and she
would always bring me back 1 litre howlers of Uncharted
IPA and Ships In The Night Oatmeal Stout. So I was very
pumped to finally visit here. They had some real beauties!

He wanted to show us that Kingston was a thriving craft brewery destination city. We had no real idea to what extent. But, my friends, we were about to learn.

We all gathered in the lobby of the Delta Waterfront Hotel until Josh showed up at 11 am to get our party started. Okay, Roll Call: Greg and I from Oakville; artist-cartoonist David from Hamilton, homebrewer Graeme from King City, Glenn, Jeff, Candice and a few others from Oshawa, Paul Peezy from Newmarket, our favourite engaged couple, Curtis and Nichole from Guelph and April and Chuck, the public faces of Waller St Brewing in Ottawa plus a healthy handful more that I didn't recognize. In fact, despite tons of tweets and correspondence between April and myself, I didn't even recognize her for certain. I went out for a smoke with five people in the lobby and came back in to 20 people. I was pretty certain it was April and Chuck but I didn't want to walk up, say, "Hey April!" only to discover I was talking to Sue Somebody. I'm sometimes a little over-cautious on account of being wrong so very often.

When he arrived, Josh was looking resplendent in his Sin City Brewing bowling shirt from Las Vegas (they had some kinda deal where if you bought a couple of pints, they throw the shirt in for, like, 10 bucks) as he herded us like the slow-moving cattle we are onto the bus and it was off to Stop #1 - Daft Brewing.

Curtis captured this selfie of him and fiancee
Nichole at Stone City Ales. Afterwards, when
I was asking Brew Crew members what their
favourite memories of the day were, Nichole
said simply, "Seeing everyone from the Brew
Crew again." And this is why we all love her.

When we arrived, I checked out their beer menu and saw... no IPAs? Once they resuscitated me, using a nearby defibrillator, I carried on best I could. (They very recently added Bingpot NEIPA so, you know, carry on. Too late for me but the rest of you will be fine.)

Now at this point, Daft, owned by Adam Rondeau, had only been open three weeks so yeah, here's a brewery just starting to spread its wings. And what a cool set-up. A former muffler shop (I believe) so it's got those big bay doors that can be opened in the Summer. And they had a lot of fun on the interior with the bright colourful cartoon paintings. Awesome place!

Okay, one of the things Josh set up with all the breweries we visited was that they would offer up tasters, displaying a variety of styles and Daft was in the game. Now, the Brew Crew can correct me if I'm wrong (and I will edit this accordingly - or not. It's a crap-shoot) but I'm pretty sure we got their Never Nude Tangerine Sour, the True Level Fiesta Gose and (boy, I remember this one) Coffee Is For Closers Coffee Milk Stout. I liked the first two - fairly typical but solid for their style - but geezuz, that Coffee Stout? Okay, you know how in a lot of Porters and even some Stouts, you get that coffee background?

Candice, second from bottom right, passed her phone to brewer Ryan to
get a pic of the whole Brew Crew from his high perch at Daft Brewing. 
That would be owner Adam Rondeau crouching down behind the bar in
the centre of the photo there. Just an excellent start to a fantastic day.

Usually mixed in with some licorice or chocolate? This tasted like a cold black cup of coffee. Not a little... a lot! It was actually quite jarring. I'm betting an espresso drinker like my brother would be all over this one. So kudos for taking that extra step to Daft. It could be a polarizing offering but hey, you're new to the game so you gotta stand out. This would do it.

But this was funny. I grabbed a pint of their Oat Dirty Bastard Oat Stout afterwards (which I very much enjoyed) and while talking to brewer Ryan, I found out it was a brewery collaboration with the winner of a Homebrewer Challenge that Daft had set up. I told Ryan I quite liked it and he told me that the Challenge was a lot of fun for them. But when it came to the actual beer, there was a slight hesitation on his end.

Jeff, left, wearing his stylin' Wavemaker Brewing shirt
(Cambridge brewery) talks beers with Josh Hayter, the
organizer of the Kingston #BeerFam 2020 brewery
tour. Josh and Amanda did a fantastic job with all this.
Here we all were at Stone City Ales, the second stop.

"When we were brewing this, there's probably a couple of things I might have done differently," he noted. Nothing huge, he added. A tweak here or there. When he saw me grinning, eyebrows raised at his pickiness, he shrugged and chuckled, "I know. I know."

But here's the thing. That just shows me Ryan is absolutely 100% a craft brewer. They are protective of both what's in their tanks and brewing the way they believe something should be brewed. Right down to the very smallest of details. And that's a good thing. A very good thing.

So Daft Brewing was just the beginning of the day. And as bright and colourful and fun as they are (they really are), things were just starting. Great start, though! As Graeme said to me afterwards, a early-day highlight was, "Seeing Daft so fresh and them talking about pushing the envelope (style-wise) to start." Tell you this for free - on this day, Graeme was truly in his brewer's wheelhouse but we'll get to that further along.

Okay, let's all hop back on the bus for Stop #2, Stone City Ales.

Someone had brought out a specialty Saison and our
King City homebrewer Graeme was all over it. It
seemed that everyone came away from Stone City
Ales with an unknown hidden treasure. In this case,
Graeme was trying the Counterpoint French Saison.

It seems Stone City turned out to be a highlight for various reasons for a couple of the Brew Crew. Everyone's favourite artist-cartoonist David was pumped about the locale. "It was cool going to Stone City Ales and seeing the downtown area." And he's right. Kingston's main downtown strip, perhaps because it's steeped in history, still has that small-town feel. And here was Stone City, as you can see above in the picture, just blending right in. Unless you were looking up at the banners (which I wasn't), you could easily walk right past it (which I did) until I glanced back and saw everyone going in. I wish I could say this wasn't typical.

But in my distant past (so, you know, five years ago), I had become familiar with some Stone City Ales beers. Back then in Burlington, there was a craft beer bar called Rib Eye Jacks (since shuttered) where a young and knowledgeable beer technician named Kylie worked. She had friends in Kingston and several times she returned with one-litre howlers of their flagship Uncharted IPA for me. So even before I entered for the first time, I knew this brewery had the goods, the right stuff.

While the brewery is owned by Ron Shore, I don't believe any of us caught the name of the soft-spoken gentleman who gave us our samplers and then guided a tour into the back.

Spotted while having a smoke at Daft Brewing
was the Kingston Water Tower (which I think
is more for show these days.) Ironically, there
was a Speedy Muffler Shop shown here in the
foreground. The irony is with an average age
of 45 or so (Glenn and I inflate that number)
none of us are particularly speedy these days.

Granted, his name notwithstanding, we had a lot of questions for him. The first few were near-identical. "Could you speak up a little?" We quieted down (nice trick, man - not many can pull that one off), he spoke up, all was good. But some great tasters there for us, as well. Now granted, I'd love to tell you what those tasters were but I neglected to take a picture and now a month later, yeah, right, like I'm going to remember. I wasn't even 100% sure April was April...

That said, I'm fairly certain Uncharted IPA was one. But another I can tell you without hesitation. That would be their Nocturnal Czech Dark Pilsener. Why? Oakville Greg and I, seated at the same table, enjoyed the shit out this one. Just an absolute beauty. Roasty malts, nice medium body (not the norm for a pilsner), light touch of licorice, 4.8% so lighter ABV but certainly not in the Crushable Zone, given the dark malts. Just a fantastic beer.

In the end, I went home with bottles of the Noctural, the Uncharted and the Distant Origin Dry-Hopped IPA. Distant Origin was pretty solid, as well. Containing my two favourite hops - Amarillo and Idaho 7 - the 6% west coaster had some solid citrus in it, a little floral on the nose and a creamy smooth feel. That said, as much as I enjoyed those two IPAs, Nocturnal was the clear winner on the day. Believe me, a pilsner beating out two IPAs is unusual in my corner of the world. But Greg said that beer was a highlight for him as well so, hey, that's gotta be a damn good beer.

Here's a sneak peek at the next blog where Curtis, left, asks me, right, if
I've ever seen a guest brewery list on tap as extensive as the Kingston
Brewing Company's list was. As you can see, I gave it careful thought
before my researched and thoughtful answer: "I dunno." And hey, on
the far left, is that Paul Peezy and King City Graeme? Shit, it sure is...

Okay, back next with my favourite stop of the day, Kingston Brewing Company, where it seems, oh, one or two of us enjoyed lunch. A quick Brew Crew side-story here if I may. (I write this. Damn straight, I may.) Graeme lost his paternal grandmother yesterday morning. His daughter is her namesake. We didn't learn that until last night. He had messaged me, asking about potential brewery visits but I didn't think twice about it. Graeme has forgotten more about beer than I'll ever know. When we all learned yesterday, it turned out Graeme had spent the day, visiting Ontario craft breweries, helping them stay afloat. Pretty cool gesture. And I also noticed we circled our emotional wagons around him quickly, offering support and hopefully comforting words. But that's the Brew Crew. As much as we sometimes chirp each other, it's a tight brother and sister outfit. You're always just there for each other. I saw that last night. More importantly, Graeme did. So, Scooby Doo Gang, it's it, that's all and I am outta here! More Kingston fun coming but until then, I remain...

That was the day Las Vegas closed

Here's Britain's premier Vegas vlogger Matt Bridger, left,
with casino host Richard Wilk, who works for both The D
and the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino in Downtown Las
Vegas. They met late last week at The D but more to the
point, look at the crowd behind them. The very popular
Fremont St is now very much a tumbleweed ghost town.

I literally watched Las Vegas go from a thriving, bustling vacation spot last week to shuttered as of yesterday. And by shuttered, I mean shut down completely.

I have to be honest. Like many, I never thought I would see that day. It's like something out of a horror movie, that our beloved Las Vegas could become a ghost town. A movie like, say, "Outbreak" in 1995. Or "28 Days Later" in 2003. Or perhaps "Contagion" in 2011. Or even worse, "I Am Legend" in 2007, where that rat-bastard Will Smith killed his German Shepherd, Sam. After seeing that, I now think he was probably the one causing all that trouble in that West Philadelphia hood. Bastard.

You know, those crazy, far-fetched Hollywood yarns about a viral pandemic that wipes out half the world's population??

Turns out that's not so far-fetched, after all. I mean, I certainly don't expect we'll see half the world's population of 7.7 billion wiped out by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) a la Hollywood-style but with each passing day, we are all actually seeing how dangerous and even moreso, how very feared it has truly become by everyone world-wide.

On March 17, St Paddy's Day, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak shut down
all non-essential businesses, including hotels and casinos, to try and slow
the wave of Coronovirus, now gaining a foothold in the USA. Many of the
strip hotel-casinos had already suspended operations, especially after
seeing occupancy rates of less than 5% but Sisolak's order shut down all
the rest, including the hold-outs on Fremont Street. When business safely
gets started in Vegas again is anyone's guess but most of us hope it's soon.

Now both myself and my London, Ontario buddy Mark (along with his wife, Liz) had Vegas trips planned for March Break. Mark and Liz were leaving Sunday, March 15 while I was flight-bound the next day. And for a long while, we were both defiantly adamant that our trips would happen.

Then things started to change for us. First, early last week, a few markets in the NHL decided that no spectators would be allowed at games for fear of spreading the virus. San Jose is the one that comes to mind but I think a couple others were ready to followed suit.

Then the NBA "postponed" its season on March 11, due to fears of - same thing - Coronavirus. Then the next day, the NHL postponed its season. Okay, when hockey gets shut down, Canadians like Mark and myself finally start to pay very close attention.

Okay, a stopped escalator is nothing new to regular Las Vegas visitors
such as myself. Hell, a quarter of them are being repaired at any given
time on the Vegas strip. But it's the sign on the right that tells the tale.
Las Vegas is closed for business. It's something I never thought I'd see.

Next thing we know, March Madness, that yearly event where the top 64 US College basketball teams play off for the nation's crown, was canceled entirely. March Madness happens over March Break in America and believe me, Vegas is on fire during the tournament. If it was a TV show, it'd be called Betting Gone Wild. No single sporting event sees as many various and varied bets in Vegas as March Madness because it runs the entire week solid. It's a shit-ton of games - 63 in all - packed into one week.

Next up, the NFL Draft, which was slated to take place on the strip, mostly in front of The Bellagio, from April 23-25, more than a month from now, was changed to an audience-free TV event instead. It was meant to be this big glitzy live event that would have shut down a significant portion of the Vegas strip as the Oakland Raiders shift to Vegas and the presently-being-built Allegiant Stadium for the 2020-21 NFL season.

On the weekend, MGM Properties decided they were shutting down their properties as of Tuesday, including (take a deep breath) Bellagio, Aria, Vdara, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, The Mirage, New York New York, Park MGM and even the T-Mobile Arena where the Vegas Golden Knights play.

Half of my 16 trips to Vegas have been spent at the
Excalibur so I can tell you this is the walkway from
the Excalibur to New York New York. Doesn't even
matter what time of day or night it was because I
have crawled on that strip morning, noon and night
while I'm there - any hour, really - and I can tell you
this 100%. This walkway has NEVER been empty.
Not even once. So, 4:17 am, say? Yup, people are on
there. Not a lot but it's never empty. This is unreal.

That's half the freakin' strip.

On St Patrick's Day - March 17th - who was open and who was closed quickly became a moot point. Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak stepped up to the podium and announced every single non-essential service, including hotels and casinos, were ordered to be closed 30 days for public safety. I applaud this bold but tough move. Well done, sir.

So - and you have never heard me say this before and likely never will again - the Canadian government absolutely did Mark, Liz and myself a huge solid by shutting down Canadian travel out of country on the weekend. We both pulled the plugs on our trips on - hey, how appropriate - Friday the 13th. I would have been forced home to Canada on Day 3 of my week-long March Break trip. I can only imagine what a total shitshow McCarran International Airport in Vegas was for the past few days.

But even though I have been stuck in Canada, I have slowly over the week been able to see what's going on live in Las Vegas over the past week. You see, I watch a lot of Vegas vlogs. It started with El Paso, Texas couple, Hog and 2 cent (@hogand2cent). From them, I started watching Mark (@pennys4vegas). And because YouTube has these "recommended for you" videos on the right hand side, that lead to a trio of British Vegas vloggers. First, it was the affable Ben Heath (@benjiheath) with his trips and his very fun "Cocktail of the Day."

For the life of me, I can't remember which casino this was last
night or even which of my Twitter friends took it. But frankly,
every casino in Vegas looked like this last night. Empty. Barren.
Deserted. Other words from the Thesaurus. But again, I don't
think any one of us have ever seen anything like this. If I wander
down to a casino at 4 am, there are asses in the chairs. Just wow.

From Ben, I started catching Nick Furmage (@nickyfurmage) and his lovely wife, Claire, who on one night in Downtown Vegas last October had a slot machine run, the likes of which I have never seen. He started by saying in that polite British manner how much he enjoyed it Downtown on Fremont Street. By the end, after countless Budweisers, an insane amount of slot free plays and a final winnings of over $800 (a complete reversal of their trip to that point), he was basically yelling, "I love Downtown Vegas!" towards the end. (For you hardcore slot players, I'll include the link at the end because it was as entertaining as shit and I don't even gamble. Well, all that much.)

Moving along from Nicky, I eventually found Matt Bridger (@Matt_Bridger68), the Godfather, the Headmaster, the Grand Poobah and Chief Bottle Washer of the British Vegas vloggers. Now Matt has posted some fantastic Vegas stuff. Disarmingly charming, the ultimate Vegas vlog host, you feel like you're actually sitting next to him as he speaks. The dude is pretty much David Niven. (Feel free to Google him, younger people.)

Now I have a Matt Bridger story here but I want to say something at large to these three British vloggers. No matter how many Budweisers or cocktails you consume at the slot machines, no matter how hammered you actually are, you all still sound so bloody distinguished! It's that damn British accent. Drunk as skunks and you all still sound like freakin' Cary Grant! Canadians and Americans all sound like bombed Homer Simpson!

Hold on. I'm Canadian but British Vegas vlogger Matt
Bridger got to the just-opened and I suppose now-closed
Bar Canada at The D in Downtown Vegas before I did?
So you know, Matt, I took this to my lawyer. He told me
I was an idiot and I should probably just shut up. But I
tell you, mate, if it couldn't be me, I'm glad it was you.

Where do I file an official Human Rights complaint? I hardly think this is equitable.

So, anyway, back to this Matt Bridger chap. Well, he was in an interesting position to see everything go down, having landed in Las Vegas on Wednesday, March 11 just before the Coronavirus shit hit the fan. And I mean, just before. As he posted his daily vlogs, things began to slowly unravel. If you go to You-Tube, plug Matt Bridger into the search engine and watch his recent series "Las Vegas Vlog 11-03-20 to 17-03-20" Parts One Through Six (slightly more than two hours combined - so, you know, grab several beers and some snacks), you will see precisely what I mean.

At first on Part One, Vegas was still jammed, the crowds around him buoyant with buzzy enthusiasm and the casinos, well, packed. Then there is this slow shift downwards as the vlogs progress. Matt usually ends his vlogs with a synopsis of the day and things take a turn to the south as the week progresses. For starters, British Airlines cancels his flight home. Being left on hold (and eventually disconnected) by both BA's British and American help-lines for an hour at a time, it takes him two days to straighten it out with a new flight home. But you can sense below that steely British reserve, there is some anxiety over being stranded there.

Well, at least the escalator was working. So this
young couple had little problem with appropriate
social distancing in Vegas this week. As you can
see, there's no one near them. This is not a Vegas
that any of us recognize. It just looks spooky.

By the time you get to Part Six, it goes from "Well, this is a lovely win on the Buffalo slot" to "Holy crap, the entire city is shutting down around me." (And yes, I can happily report that after an unexpected diversion to LAX, Matt finally touched down in London this morning. I repeat, The Eagle has landed. Safely!)

On one of his vlogs - Part Five, I believe - I commented underneath that it was fascinating progression, watching them daily and seeing the events unfold as if in front of me. As I said earlier, for some reason, you feel like you're right there beside him.

A follower of Matt's on Twitter, Dave Coyne, expressed very much that same sentiment. "This last set of Matt Bridger vlogs have captured a moment in time that is unprecedented. When we talk to our grandchildren in years to come about this outbreak, his vlogs will be reference material."

Towards the end of his trip, Matt got to interact with some well-known American-based vloggers, all of whom were still able to travel to Vegas, including Hog and 2cent from El Paso, Texas and Sin City Nerds, Kaylene and Nick, from the Seattle area. (Kaylene and Nick are young, enthusiastic and she has really cool hair so subscribe to them.)

Poor Mark Anderson, my Vegas vlogging bro
from London, Ontario. In this instance, he was
damned if he did, damned if he didn't. He and I
both canceled our Vegas trips on March 13 to
avoid our chances of catching Coronavirus but
it looks like Mark caught it in his hometown,
regardless. I suspect in two weeks, he'll be as
right as rain and we can both go back to our
guessing as to when Vegas is open to us again.

Also along for the final ride was Ace of Vegas (also on YouTube so subscribe) as all of them were taping the eventual shutdown - deserted casinos, shuttered bars and... well, nobody home. On Ace of Vegas' filming of the final shutdown, I commented underneath that "This is unbelievable, Ace. It's like a place I know all too well... but don't recognize at all." He agreed. "Like your house (but) without all your stuff in it, right?" Exactly that!

Anyway, make the time to watch Matt's Six-Part Series on the trip that started fantastic and then went all to hell. If nothing else, like me, you'll walk away thinking, "Wow, what a shitty year this past week has been."

Anyway, I want to end this on happier Vegas memories, those halcyon days where it was, you know, open. As I said earlier, British Vegas Vlogger Nicky and his wife, Claire, absolutely tore up the machines on Fremont Street one night last October and, well, this is the Vegas I want to remember. And Matt? He's quite well-known for filming his casino-hotel walk-throughs. His vlogs usually get anywhere between 5,000 and 50,000 views. But one filmed last November - a walk-through of Circus Circus Casino Hotel and Theme Park - just, well, exploded with over 164,000 views, None of us, including Matt himself, can figure out why. Nostalgia for an old-school Vegas resort? We don't know. But anyway, for Nicky and Claire's crazy night on Fremont, click here on: The Couple Who Could Not Lose! And hey, let's add some more views to Matt's biggest hit by clicking here on: Circus Circus' Hidden Fan Club! That's it for today but on a final note: Please wash your hands and practice social distancing. The life you save could be someone else's. Just be safe! Peace out, homeys...

Las Vegas? Coronavirus? I'm still going!!

This is where I scheduled to be the evening of Monday, March 16 and
this is where I'm gonna be. When one Toronto man returned from a
conference in Las Vegas with a now-confirmed case of the feared
Coronovirus, a number of my friends jumped on it, as if Las Vegas
was somehow an unsafe tourist designation. Bullshit, I say. We have
all these cases of it here in Ontario - 29 in total - while Las Vegas has
remained pretty clean thus far. One caught it in Vegas and came back
to Toronto. Another caught it in Washington and brought it to Vegas.

A few days back, news broke that a Toronto man returned from a conference in Las Vegas who was diagnosed with the Coronavirus.

Since that point, a great number of my friends have been sending me that story. Over and over... and over again. Why? Because I'm their "Vegas Friend," the one always going there.

But the thing is I've seen this happen also over and over and over in the course of my lifetime.

As you can see from the name of this craptastic blog, I've been here on this stinky little mudball of a planet a while. The Coronavirus is hardly my first pandemic. When I was a young kid, there was something called the Hong Kong Flu in 1968-69 that killed a million people worldwide. I was in elementary school and they gave us all shots with this massive eight-pronged needle that vaccinated us against pretty much everything. I still have friends with the needle scars on their shoulders.

Since then, I've seen the HIV/AIDS virus. I've seen the SARS virus. I've seen the Ebola virus. I've seen Swine Flu. Hell, in 2009 alone, there was a worldwide Flu pandemic that killed another 203,000-plus people around the globe.

And yet, somehow, I've survived at all.

But yes, absolutely, people have died. Especially in the case of HIV/AIDS where we're talking 32 million deaths since its initial outbreak. So by saying, "Well, hey, I survived," I'm not downplaying or underwriting that at all.

Here's a photo from @OnlyInLVNV on Twitter
showing a "Virus-protected" shopper at a Costco
in nearby Henderson, just 16 miles away from
Las Vegas. Why people have decided to buy out
all the toilet paper and bottled water baffles me.
It's a virus. Not a hurricane. Not a tsunami. None
of this will stop a virus. At all. This only helps one
single group. Those who own supermarkets. And
that's about it. So, folks, Costco thanks you all...

That's tragic on pretty much every single level. But just as history is doomed to continually repeat itself, you can count on a new virus every 10 years or so. Or at least that's been my experience.

So why the panic over the Coronavirus as opposed to, say, the flu? Well, lemme tell you. It's new and it's different. As a former journalist/editor, it's "sexy" for lack of a better word. It's the thing everyone's talking about so let's slap that on the front page or these days, I guess, have it continually trending on Twitter.

Now, looking at my friends' sudden panic over my Vegas travels with the Coronavirus out there, is this actually a big deal? On one level, I suppose yes, there is cause for concern and here's why. It goes from a virus to a pandemic when it is no longer localized in one country or a larger regional area, which is the case far more often than not, but rather spreads world-wide. Then it's a pandemic. Ergo, now that it's worldwide, Coronavirus can actually now be considered a pandemic. In 2013, there was a Measle outbreak in Vietnam. It killed 142 people and yet, no one paid attention because it remained contained in Vietnam.

So what about the Coronavirus and Vegas? Well, let's see. One Toronto man caught it down in Vegas at a convention and brought it back to Canada. A Vegas resident caught it in Washington state and brought it back to Vegas. Thus far, the Vegas Coronavirus stats are this: one-in, one-out. In Vegas, that's actually what's known as a "push."

Are you gambling on catching a nasty virus in Las
Vegas, simply because of an ongoing pandemic?
Vegas Vic says no. Here's why. You can catch the
Coronavirus anywhere. From the smallest of towns
to the largest of cities, your odds remain the same.

Neither the dealer nor the player win because they have the same hand. It's Even Steven. Move along.

This is as opposed to where I live - Ontario, Canada - where there have been 29 confirmed cases (with zero fatalities) thus far. As I have said to my London, Ontario buddy, Mark (aka @pennys4vegas), since we are both slated to land in Vegas next week, I believe we're safer in Vegas than we are at home.

In fact, because I work in retail and remain exposed to hundreds of people daily with actual face-to-face, money-exchanging-hands contact, well, that, my friends, is how you catch a virus. And yet, I still go to work, oddly without fear. And, to be frank, without that pay-cheque, I couldn't afford to travel.

So why wouldn't I go to Las Vegas? Despite my many friends' concerns, which I do appreciate, by the way, I am every bit as likely to catch it here as I am there. And to put it in Vegas terminology, the odds are still ridiculously low, regardless of geographic location.

I suppose the cause for concern for many is the mortality rate. With the Coronavirus, it's 3.4%, whereas with the flu, it's 0.1%. So for every 1,000 people who get the Coronavirus, 34 have died or will die.

When a group of us traveled to the Huntsville Brewhouse last
April to brew an IPA for Lake of Bays Brewing, brewery owner
Darren Smith, the good-looking one on the right, hung with us all
day, despite having a cold. However, wisely, he did not wish to
shake anyone's hand for fear of passing it along. Instead, what we
all did instead was this congenial elbow bump. No one got sick.

Only one in 1,000 will die from the flu. That said, the flu is - and always has been - the far greater threat. Why? Because it's that much more prevalent. There were an estimated 80,000 American deaths from Influenza in the Winter of 2017-18 alone, more than double what health officials consider to be a "bad year." The usual numbers in the USA during the 2010-2020 time period saw 16,000 deaths on the low end, 56,000 on the high end until that record 2017-18 Winter.

So, in essence, I am more likely to catch the basic flu on a Vegas vacation than the Coronavirus. And, if anything, catching a everyday common cold is the most likely of scenarios while traveling.

So how do you quell the fears of potential traveler when a pandemic like this breaks out? Well, if you're me (and to be clear, you are fortunate not to be), the recipe is a big mixing bowl of common sense with a completely inappropriate dash of humour thrown in as spice. For instance, whenever I read COVID-19, the virus' name, I do so to the tune of "Come On, Eileen" which gives it a much more musical and softer feel.

This is Tiffany at Banger Brewing, serving up their
antidote to viruses, known better as their El Heffe
Hefeweizen wheat ale. It's a well-known fact that
hops contain antimicrobial properties. So is young
Tiffany serving me a beer? No, she's potentially
saving my life!! Such a noble person, that Tiffany.

As a beer writer (of sorts) and a craft beer consumer (of, dare I say, legend - oh, I dare), I am also quick to remember that not only are hops natural preservatives, they also contain antimicrobial properties. Because I drink so many hopped-up beers, favouring IPAs, I am drinking the antidote to potential viruses. In fact, I am so health-conscious that I drink a remarkably high amount of this virus preventer. Some of my friends would go as far as to say I drink a ridiculous, possibly inhuman, amount of this particular medicine. Hey, man, you gotta take care of yourself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Or get wrecked yourself. Not sure how that catchphrase actually goes.

As well, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that worldwide, they have seen 101,811 confirmed Coronavirus cases. Of that number, 3,460 have died, mostly the more-susceptible elderly in the Asian regions and oddly, Iran, which was hit hard. So there's your 3.4% mortality rate there. There have also been 55,882 who have completely recovered. The balance are still being treated. Those numbers remind me of that time I was pulled over and had to explain to the officer, "Yeah, sure, I hit a pedestrian but you're not even taking into account all the times I haven't hit a pedestrian." I mean, seriously, you have to look at both sides of the picture.

Okay, you wanna see something that could actually kill
me in Las Vegas? It'd be this little fun-loving activity just
off Fremont St that invites beer drinkers to throw many
sharp objects around. In fact, Axehole Vegas, doesn't
even stop at stop objects, offering up shovel throws as an
alternative. How drunk do you have to be to throw damn
shovels around? You'd have to be Tequila drunk, I'd say.

Also of note, a recent study showed that 38% of Americans will not purchase Corona beer because of the Coronavirus. To be clear, there is NO connection between the (inexplicably) popular libation and the virus. None, whatsoever. However, I can quite imagine that Constellation Brands, the conglomerate that owns the Corona line, approaching the WHO and offering multi-millions of dollars just to change the name to the BudLightvirus.

Okay, since the Coronavirus is no laughing matter, should I even be making jokes? No, probably not. But here's the thing. Gallows humour is where the brain naturally goes when we are inundated with a subject matter, such as the Coronavirus. So long as the humour is not racially-oriented because that's both mean and unfair. This is worldwide. It doesn't matter if it originated in the Wunan province or Cleveland. We're all susceptible now. We are being told by medical professionals to stay six feet away from other people so how do you connect or interact with others during a time like this? Well, right or wrong, this is how I do it. And Vegas? I'll see you on Monday, March 16. Make sure, as always, you have a sufficient supply of my hop-based medicine on hand. Peace out, homeys.