Chris and Alicia are Hopping Happily

 

Okay, so that's Chris on the left, the guy behind the Hop Happy beer blog and
also well-known as @gamblinmcgoo to our many Vegas friends. So you might
look at this photo and think, "Awww, what a good man, taking in a homeless
fellow like that guy on the right and getting him that beer." But no, that's me.
Chris, his wife, Alicia and I all got together at Clifford Brewing back in late
September to enjoy some beverages on a beautiful Autumn day. Cheers to us!

Way back in 1995, there was a classic episode of the TV show, Seinfeld. In it, George finds himself in a relationship, which is all well and good. Except his new girlfriend wants to meet his friends.

This vexes George, who believes there are two versions of himself - Independent George, which he is with Jerry, Elaine and Kramer, and Relationship George, which he is with his girlfriend. In essence, he does not want the two worlds to collide because he believes the second he walks through Jerry's door with his new lady, it's like matter meeting antimatter. Everything collapses. Black hole. As he exclaims with no small amount of anguish: "A George, divided against itself, cannot stand!" 

It was, to be certain, a silly premise as most of us, while slightly better behaved in new relationships, are pretty much the same either way. But this TV show carved out nearly a decade of hilarity based on nothing but ridiculous premises.

When I met Alicia and Chris, aka @gamblinmcgoo, the Vegas lover but also
@hophappyblog, the craft beer lover, at Clifford Brewing towards the end
of September, I learned that Alicia takes the great majority of the photos
for the blog. That's impressive because the photos are fantastic. She has a
very keen eye at setting up both environment shots, the brewery itself and
the little quirks many would miss, as well as the beer shots. Quite talented.

So taking this George theory where there's more than one version of yourself and extending it to myself on Twitter, let's see where this lands.

I mean, there's Beer Donny. That's a pretty huge circle right there. Hundreds, I would say, when I take in everyone I follow or who follows me based on beer alone.

Then there's Vegas Donny and I really enjoy that Donny because, boy howdy, he sure loves it there. And that circle, though it started small, is humongous now.

Now the line between the different Donnys on Twitter is bleeding these days. My Vegas Twitter and Beer Twitter are all over each other's posts and unlike George, I think it's cool. Meeting of the minds... yadda, yadda, yadda. 

These two are a lot of fun and between them, they have created
what I consider the one of the best beer blogs out there. With
Alicia's skills behind the camera and Chris' ways with words,
Hop Happy Beer Blog has become a must-read for me. It's fun,
it's lively, it's informative and best of all, they explore Ontario
breweries that we really don't know until the pair land there.

Smokey Jon Kelly, master of the BBQ over there in Ireland, loves his craft beer, Vegas and, well, BBQ. My Beer Twitter peeps are all over Jon when he's posting food pics. Hell, I think Homebrewer Graeme wants to fly over, set up a tent in Jon's backyard and live there for a while, just to eat the food that Jon posts.

And then there's Chris. Now Chris is the subject of this little outing but because my preambles are ridiculously long (y'all still awake?), photos of him with his wife, the photographically-skilled as well as photogenic Alicia, have been used three times here without actual mention in this text of who he is.

Okay, then, who is Chris? Well, when I first got to know him on Twitter, he was McGoo (@gamblinmcgoo), a Vegas lover. I knew he was from the London area and that he flies down there four or five times a year, much like me. While I have become a huge fan of Downtown Vegas recently, Chris, a serious gambler, prefers to spend his time on the famed Strip.

This what what I mean about Alicia's photography skills. About
mid-October, Chris decided the change in the weather meant it
was time to switch to Porters and Stouts. So Alicia set up this
photo to illustrate that. This is some Creative AF photography!

So whenever I was in Vegas and I was tagging photos, my man, McGoo, was one of the tagged. Tagging someone in a travel photo is quite literally saying, "Look where I am! Cool, eh?" Fellow Vegas fans can relate.

Eventually, I noticed Chris paying extra attention to my "Beer in Vegas" photos. As it turned out, some time earlier, Chris had abandoned the Macro Train after his first visit to Triple 7 Microbrewery-Restaurant at Main Street Station Resort-Casino. As memory serves, it was there that he first tried their Black Chip Porter and... *bam* Bud was removed his tasting table forever.

Now I first went to Triple 7 last September on the word of my friends, Mike and Laura, better known as @hogand2cent on Twitter. As I walked closer to the place, I noticed a billboard promoting the award-winning microbrewery. They were about to meet an award-winning drinker, I thought to myself.

This is Chris on the Vegas Strip way back in 2012, performing
what is know as The Beer Fountain! It's a fast, efficient way of
demolishing a sixer of macro. If you tried this with an IPA or
Stout, you would die. In 2012, I was drinking the macros, too.

For the record, my beverages of choice at Triple-7 were their Carlsbad IPA and their High Roller Gold Blonde Ale. While not a typical choice of mine due to its mildness, I chose the Blonde Ale because I believe if you can pull off a Blonde Ale, Pilsner or Lager, you are a good brewery. There is no hiding flaws behind hops or dark malts. Gotta be bang-on. Both were perfectly on point style-wise.

So this past Summer when Chris said on Twitter that he wanted to try his hand at a beer blog, he got an enthusiastic response from me. My rationale has always been the more eyes out there in the Ontario Craft Beer world, the better it is for us all. This is how we learn.

What I wasn't perhaps anticipating was how quickly and cleverly his endeavour would be set up. First of all, he branded himself - hophappyblog.com - creating his own web domain. 

Even in something as simple as a sampler photo, Alicia has
a knack of adding real texture and depth. I mean, I take
beer photos all the time and trust me, none of them look
like this. Not sure what kind of camera her phone has but
lemme tell you, it's serving her well. This lady has a knack.

That's smart. I never really tried to brand myself and I probably should have. It turns out being lazy as hell and simply floating though life is actually a negative. Who knew? To most, I am simply Donny, That Dude Who Likes Beer. That's lax branding at best. Meh.

But secondly and more importantly, it's the way he writes his blogs. One brewery at a time. Clever, funny preamble each time. Some great background on the brewery follows that. Personal interaction with the staff or quirky details about the brewery is up next. And finally, he reviews ALL the beers that brewery has on tap the day he and Alicia land there.

When he, Alicia and I all met at Clifford Brewing in Stoney Creek back in late-September, he was taking notes on everything he drank. I rely on my memory. Show of hands - which method do you suppose is more accurate? I mean, I'm not saying that my memory sucks gigantic donkey butt but that's mostly because donkeys are a noble and respected beast of burden.

I have no idea where this is but I will say this. Whatever brewery is doing eight
ounce flight glasses, five per flight, I wanna go there! However, I do know this
is a few years ago, for sure. Young Chris is looking pretty happy here for sure!

So back in mid-August, Chris dropped his first blog. He started with the "This is why I wanna write a beer blog" intro. You kinda have to do that one.

His second one was on London's very well- known Anderson Craft Ales, a place we all applaud these days due to "Man, they're awesome and don't make a bad beer" reasons.

But after that, it was the smaller breweries. The lesser-known to most of us. And that's when things really took off for me as a reader.

Chris and Alicia invited two craft-loving neighbours over to
their house for the Great Pumpkin Beer Challenge just
before Halloween, pitting these six beers against each other
in an Ale-Off. Which won? Well, you'll just have to read it.

They have since stopped in at Steel Wheel Brewing in Brant, London Brewing in London, Stonepicker Brewing in Plympton-Wyoming, Fixed Gear Brewing in Guelph, Charlotteville Brewing in Simcoe and New Limberg Brewing, also in Simcoe.

With the possible exception of Fixed Gear, these are not well-known Ontario breweries. But each of them has their own unique, often fun or revealing story-behind-their-story. And Chris and Alicia are there to document it.

Born in old farms, old country estates and even in the case of New Limburg, an old elementary school, these are breweries that are substantially different than the ones we are used to in the GTA or other urban areas. No shortage of character, that's for sure.

So if you're not doing so, read Hop Happy which you can find here: Chris And Alicia Love Beer! You'll thank me later. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...