The Mountain lives on and some Summer Beers

So anyway, I have a new co-worker, Ryan. Here's his pic.

As it is Summer, the busy season, there has been a small influx of new workers at my Beer Store. So far, the two I've met - and worked with - are Lyall and Ryan. I would tell you more about Lyall except that if Ryan is in the room, it's impossible to see Lyall, much less communicate. That's because Ryan is the size of a wall. This young man is a behemoth and frankly, I have decided he is my new best friend because, well, who wouldn't want a Godzilla-sized dude on their side? To all my old best friends, puny lot that you are, sorry... I wish you all well. Don't bitch... it was a helluva ride. Even if we don't remember good chunks of it.

As it turns out, Ryan played professional football for two years with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. If you are from outside Canada or North America, please stop laughing - Saskatchewan is a real place.

Saskatchewan Joke (Told With Affection) Before We Continue With This: An older well-travelled British couple are at the airport, waiting for their flight when they spot a young man, looking very confused at the departure screen.

This is roughly the size I feel when Ryan and I
occupy the same room. I'm there. You just don't
see me because, well... a Huge Wall Of Ryan...

The wife notes the lad looks puzzled and asks her husband to go give him a hand. So over the husband goes.
"Where are you headed to?" asks the man.
"Saskatoon, Saskatchewan," says the young fellow.
"Oh, right then, you have a good day," says the man.
Going back to his wife, she asks him if he was able to help.
"Not really," says the man. "He doesn't speak English."

And we're back. So, of course, I have to ask Ryan, "You ever watch Game of Thrones?"
Oh yeah, he says, huge fan. (Huge fan? No kidding.) "Anyone ever call you The Mountain?" I grin.
"Yeah," he chuckles, "(Our co-worker) Saga did two days ago." Damn that Saga - always one step ahead of me. So anyway, the Roughriders play out of Saskatchewan's capitol city, Regina (and now you're laughing again - pipe down, it's Latin for "Queen"... and now you're laughing even harder...) You people are horrible.

I asked him what life was like in Regina. Well, according to Ryan, the minute you leave city limits, you are surrounded by wheat fields. In every direction. The whole Province is wheat fields. Bummer for Ryan but folks, let's thank Saskatchewan for helping bakers out with relatively unimportant things like bread and bagels and far more important things like helping breweries across North America create some fantastic wheat beers.

A much more clean-cut Brew-Ha-Ha stumbles into
my long-time bro, Ian, at a Kings of Leon concert.
Nothing but smiles and laughter when we connect.

But the big thing about Ryan, currently going to Osgoode Hall in Toronto to get a Law Degree (a wall-sized intimidating lawyer - again, my new best friend), is his younger brother, Ian - one of my all-time favourite part-timers at the Beer Store. Ian is one of those guys I don't see all the time, now that's he's no longer a part-timer but out there in the real world. But when he fills in an emergency shift to help out, he and I pick up exactly where we left off. We have at times gone a full year without seeing each other, even longer. It doesn't matter. One of my favourite Ian stories is the time we crossed paths at a Kings of Leon concert at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto a few summers back. I was there with a new girlfriend whereas Ian and a bunch of his buddies had been partying all afternoon and came in a limousine. Having never met my GF, Ian did exactly what a bro should - he started talking me up to my lady. Bro Rule #93: Being a wing-man is an ongoing process. Even after your bro gets the lady, you continue with the Subliminal Wing-Man Duties, meaning talking your buddy up. And Ian was as smooth as silk.

Kaaad Spring IPA out of Kastrup, Denmark.
This is NOT a melancholy Dane. Damn good!

A couple of days later, I called him to thank him on a job well done - a brother does you a solid, you acknowledge it. Ian had to confess that when he groggily saw himself tagged on the above Facebook picture the following morning, he pulled it up and said to himself, "I saw Donny last night?" So he pulled off those stellar Subliminal Wing-Man Duties while absolutely plowed. That, my friends, is positive proof that Ian is the Gold Standard for Wing-Men.

Okay, another good bro, Kevin, has been long hoping I could find a good IPA from Denmark, his homeland. Challenge... accepted. Except I didn't find a good IPA... no, what I found was an outstanding IPA. Kaaad Spring IPA decided screw that malty British style IPA and went the American hop route. But apparently they weren't certain what hops to use. So they used them all. Summit, Chinook, Simcoe, Centennial, Amarillo and Cascade hops are the rocket fuel in this little hop-blast. The aroma is... everything. Pine, citrus, mango, grapefruit, you name it... while on the tongue, bitter and sweet. A great little find! About $6 a bottle at the LCBO. If you see it, grab it. You can thank me later.

More tart than sweet, Amsterdam's Framboise is a "one and
done" but still, give 'er a shot. It's a summer-time thing...

Next on deck from Beer Musketeer Cat's home brewery, Amsterdam, is their raspberry-infused Framboise. On the nose, all raspberry. On the tongue, all raspberry... though it has just enough tartness to carry me past the sweet. I quite like it but doubt I could have more than one per sitting. Amsterdam should consider dropping this into the Fruit Beer category of a beer competition - I suspect it might medal. Also it's not pumpkin-related in the least and is 6.5% so it's got that going for it.

Okay, recently the Beer Store closest to mine closed for two weeks for renovation and while they were closed, we took on their employees because in essence, our business doubled and our empties purchases seemed to triple. We needed their help. Desperately.

They named a beer after me? Do I get,
like, royalties or something? Free beer?

So anyway, one night, I found myself working with present co-worker Marie and former co-worker Karen, two ladies in their 30s. They were talking about one of Karen's co-workers, a guy who apparently wears "skinny jeans". That they even make skinny jeans for guys at all baffles me - not one guy I know wouldn't wear track-pants all day, every day if we could get away with it. So when the conversation steered to his, uh, junk, I noted that guys don't usually notice that kind of stuff. They outright scoffed because well, women are constantly checking out other women... right down to a molecular level. So what do guys notice about other guys, they asked. I had to think for a second. Then it struck me. Facial hair. If a dude is rocking a sick-ass beard or a sweet 'stache, that's something we notice and appreciate. They seemed confused so I offered a case-in-point.

After a shift one day, I popped into an LCBO for a few newbies. Young guy there laughed and asked if I forgot to buy my beer at work. I smiled and said no, I had my beers... just looking for a few extra odds-and-sods to add a little ethnic beer diversity to the fridge at Donny's Bar and Grill. As I wandered through their Craft Beer aisle, he came flying up to me with a Lake of Bay's Cujo, a blonde ale named after former Toronto Maple Leaf goalie, Curtis Joseph, above right.

"Jim, I drank the Vulcan Ale. Remember I enjoyed serving
with you. And while I am dying, please live long and prosper."

"Do you like hockey?" he asked. I dunno - kind of a weird question for one Canadian to ask another but anyway... So he handed over the Cujo, which I took. Why? As I told the girls, he had a big-ass lumberjack beard and he was just a kid - I thought that was cool. How was it? Not too bad, actually. Kind of gets panned on RateBeer but this 8% beer wasn't too shabby. Grassy on the nose with some mild hoppiness (Saaz hops, likely), it's malty on the tongue. My favourite LoB beer is their Mocha Porter and while this is not pushing it out of the top spot, I quite enjoyed it. Good call, Beard Boy.

But "Grab Your Crotch Tuesdays" and "Soil Yourself
Thursdays" will continue on, business as usual, right?

One beer I bought for Beer Musketeers Glenn and Cat when they descended on Donny's Bar and Grill was one they never had. A Vulcan Ale, brewed specifically for Vulcan, Alberta's Centennial celebrations by Harvest Moon Brewery in Montana. What can I tell you? This stuff is killer... and by killer, I mean, set your phasers on "kill", not "stun". Don't shoot at the Romulans. Send cases of this crap over to their ship and let them die them naturally. An Irish Red? Not hardly. Imagine a bag of barley that's been left out in the rain and then sun and then more rain for seven weeks. That's the aroma. I wish the taste even came close to matching that. You know how you watch a really crappy Nicholas Cage movie and you walk away thinking, "Well, it could be worse, I suppose. I could actually be Nicholas Cage." This beer aspires to ascend to that level of badness. If I have done one decent, one noble, one saintly thing in my life, it is this - I did not inflict this Stephen King horror story of a beer on my fellow Musketeers.

Okay, that's plenty for today. As for myself, I am off to play the Bob Marley Drinking Game. What's that, you ask? Well, you play Marley's song, Jammin' and every time he says "jammin", you drink half a beer. My personal best? Two and a half listens before I was on the floor like a dirty sock. Here, you try: The Bob Marley Drinking Game Good luck. It's a damn hard game. Don't front-load the ganja prior to the game... it'll kill you faster than Vulcan Ale

Well, guys and dolls, this has been a blast... but that's it, that's all and I am outta here! As always, until next time, I remain...

Ontario, BC dominate the CBAs

Usually you have to be pretty baked for a statue
to talk to you, much less respond on Twitter...

The damnedest thing happened to me after I posted my last blog about funky old Canadian stubby bottle labels on Twitter. An inanimate object talked to me... Tweeted me, actually.

After posting it on Google+ and then Facebook, I went onto Twitter to post it there, as well... so that, you know, movie stars and supermodels had access to it because, well, we all know what dreary lives they lead. Anything I can do to help them through the tedium of their day. (And yet, still no Time Magazine Man Of The Year honours... what up with that, Time? It's not like I'm asking for the Nobel Peace Prize here... though you gotta assume that would follow, right?)

So I wrote, "A pretty cool look at some old Canadian stubby beer bottle labels... and who the hell is Frank Ney?" followed by the link. (The late Frank Ney was the long-running Mayor of Nanaimo, BC, and was pictured on a beer bottle label back in the 1960s - the lead-off to the blog.)

Almost instantly I got Tweeted back: "Who the hell are you?" The Tweet was from - I kid you not - Statue of Frank Ney (Twitter handle - @FrankNeyStatue).

When Brewmaster Adrian Popowycz shifted
from Black Oak Brewery to Great Lakes Brewery
in June 2011, it was the beginning of something
big for GLB, the Canadian Brewery of the Year

Well, after busting a gut laughing, I applauded the statue on Twitter for its clever and thoroughly unexpected comeback. But the statue wasn't done with me just yet. It Tweeted again: "There's a Frank Ney's Beer Drinking Game, by the way. Here's the details..." with a link, attached to the account. It said: "The Frank Ney's Beer Drinking Game is all the ladies take a drink and then give Uncle Frank a big ol' smooch."

I am quite certain that never before in my life has a statue made me laugh quite so hard, twice in one afternoon. Well played, you crazy-ass, slightly-perverted statue, well played...

Okay, last Saturday at the Fredericton Convention Centre in New Brunswick, the 2014 Canadian Brewing Awards were handed out and man, did some of our Ontario brewers do well. With Ontario and British Columbia virtually deadlocked, snagging 41 and 40 awards respectively, it was the Beast From The East versus the Best Of The West.

Hands down, the single biggest winner of the day had to be Toronto's Great Lakes Brewery, which captured Brewery of the Year honours for the second straight year.

Great Lakes Brewery goes two-for-two at the CBAs...

The brewery swept the American Style India Pale Ale, possibly the most fiercely-contested category of the event, with gold to their Thrust! An IPA, silver to their Karma Citra IPA and bronze to their My Bitter Wife IPA, a big favourite of Beer Musketeer Glenn, who I'll wager is on the verge of abandoning his hometown 5 Paddles Brewing and adopting GLB as his home brewer in its stead. If it means sleeping on an old army cot among their vats, well, that's a sacrifice he'd be willing to make, zoning laws be damned. After all, Beer Musketeer Cat has Amsterdam Brewery as a neighbour, here in Burlington, I have Nickel Brook Brewery while down in New Zealand, Stevil St Evil has his boys at Garage Project around the corner. Back to the point, the three winning Great Lakes' IPAs notched 94, 99 and 95 respectively on RateBeer.

Every single time Glenn has one of
these, he babbles on about Carrie
Nation, a driving force behind the
Temperance movement to whom this
beer is attributed. It's why we caution
all brewers: please do not put too
much reading material on your labels
because Glenn insists on reading us
every single word you have written.

Truth to tell, I haven't had the Thrust! or KarmaCitra, simply because I've never seen them. The craft breweries release so many one-offs and special editions that you may miss a few. But I have had the My Bitter Wife IPA and concur with Glenn. Huge citrus and pine on the nose, caramel and hoppy bitterness on the tongue, this is a strong IPA, part of the brewery's ongoing Tank Ten series. I reviewed their Lake Effects IPA, also part of the Tank Ten run, here sometime before Christmas and was equally impressed. This brewery absolutely continues to knock it out of the park with their IPAs. I am also a huge fan of their hoppy, punchy Crazy Canuck Pale Ale which is a regularly and happily-imbibed session beer here at Donny's Bar and Grill.

A surprise bronze winner in the North American Style Lager was Guelph's F&M Brewery's StoneHammer Light, which I had recently as part of a StoneHammer Mix Pack, which also contained my beloved Coffee Oatmeal Stout (the beer that kept me alive during the frigid outdoor Winter Beer Festival at Steam Whistle), their Pilsner and Dark Ale. The surprise is simply that a light beer snagged a medal in the hotly-contested lager category. With its slightly fruity apple aroma and malty corn on the tongue, this is actually pretty good for a light beer, which I never drink. Except it was in the fridge and the empty was worth 10-cents so...

For an Amber/Red Ale, this is my favourite IPA

Another surprise winner - and one I know will make Cat very happy - was the gold for Amsterdam's Boneshaker IPA in the North American Style Amber/Red Ale category, rather than the IPA division. That category clearly has a lot of latitude but frankly, I don't care because I have enjoyed many a Boneshaker over the past year. Another big Amsterdam gold went to their Spring Bock in the Traditional German Style Bock. Cat, who is trapped as an instructor at Music Camp this week, overseeing hundreds of elementary and high school students somewhere up in the Ontario boondocks, may or may not have tripped and accidentally had one of these fall into her mouth up there. Accidents happen. We'll know when she returns.

Okay, a category that had all of Beer Musketeers crowing with delight was the Imperial India Pale Ale where Barrie's Flying Monkey's Shoulders of Giants took gold while my homeboys Nickel Brook's Immodest IIPA took silver. We were all hoping these would land one and two, regardless of order. A while back, I noted these were the two best Canadian IIPAs I had ever had - and it's personally satisfying to see that validated here with the appropriate hardware.

Nickel Brook Brewmaster Ryan Morrow
added a number of feathers to his cap at
the CBAs with two Pale Ale medals and
another in the Imperial IPA category. He
collected another silver in the American
Style Black Ale for Malevolent BIIPA.

And finally, another category that has both Glenn and myself thrilled - the North American Style Pale Ale - where Glenn's favorite Rhyme & Reason by contract brewer Collective Arts Brewing took gold and my Nickel Brook besties took silver for their Naughty Neighbour APA. I'm claiming victory for both of these - sorry, Glenn - as Nickel Brook Brewmaster Ryan has created both. Quite a weekend for this young superstar.

And finally, a raise of the frosty mug to Ole Yale Brewery out of Chilliwack, BC, who took Beer of the Year honours with thir Sasquatch Stout - a beer that I, of course, now dearly want to sample. Further to that, even though I've only seen fuzzy pictures of him, I believe Sasquatch exists and my reasoning is that I've seen plenty of fuzzy pictures of me and I know I exist. As you can see, you cannot refute my logic because it is flawless. *Takes a bow... promptly trips...* Also to all the breweries that won and the especially strong showing from BC, cheers to you all! Okay, I included it last time but here it is again - the link to all the winners at the Canadian Brewing Award right here at: Cheers To Canada's Best!!

Courtesy of Stevil St Evil's Photoshop wizardry,  Cat gets pied by the
students at her Summer Music Camp in God-Knows-Where, Ontario

Glenn, too, has a thing or two to say in his blog about the CBAs in which he declares this: Ontario Crowned King of the IPAs.

Next up, holy crap on a stick, we have some treats for y'all. Lake of Bay's Cujo Blonde Ale is on deck, as is Left Field Brewery's Resin Bag IPA. Also in the line-up, straight from Denmark, Kaaad Spring IPA, Beau's All Natural Brewing's Wag The Wolf Hopfenweisse, Amsterdam Brewery's Framboise, a raspberry-infused fruit beer... and finally, the most mysterious, the most devilish and clearly the most evil of the bunch, Muskoka Brewery's Legendary Oddity, which coyly only described itself as a "Strong Flavoured Beer." If you don't hear from me, send the cops to Muskoka Brewery. Or go there yourself and demand some answers... and then politely ask for beer. And promptly forget about me. I would... if it was you.

Okay, guys and dolls, that's another in the books so... that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain as always...

Who is Frank Ney and why is he on a beer bottle?

Who was Frank Ney... and
why is he on this beer bottle?

I have often said that if I ever go missing, don't put my picture on milk cartons. People who drink milk are never gonna recognize me. No, put it on beer bottles because that would make more sense. A beer drinker stands a better chance of looking at the pic and say, "Holy crap, is that Donny?" Granted with a couple of my friends, if they saw my pic on their beer, it's equally likely for them to look around and wonder where the hell they were, as well. Another advantage of this approach is that if the beer drinkers find me, there's a pretty good chance we'll be stopping for a few wobblies on the way back to wherever I'm lost from... (Let's rule out "church" right from the start...) And depending on who finds me, I might choose to remain lost... for a few more days.

But people's pictures tend not to land on beer bottles, especially their labels... or do they? In the Facebook 4-way private message between the Beer Musketeers, Stevil St Evil shared a link the other day which was, in essence, a tribute to the Canadian stubby beer bottle of yester-year. (I'll throw the link up at the end with several others.) Frankly, to me, it was fascinating - like an abridged picture-book edition of a significant era in Canadian Beer History.

Instantly, Stevil and I started plucking pictures from the link (Cat is at Music Camp and Glenn is planning a move so basically it was the two of us pouring through it) and posting them with little cheeky comments from the Monkey Gallery. Under the picture above left of Frank Ney's Beer, Stevil noted: "Hmmmm, who is this guy? Because he is both smooth and mellow!" Well, that certainly piqued my curiousity. Who was Frank Ney and how the hell did his smiling mug land on a beer label. Because that's certainly something on both my and Stevil's Bucket List!

By the ocean front in Nanaimo, BC, a statue of
Frank Ney, complete in his pirate outfit! Aaaarrr!

Well, as irony would have it, Stevil is the only one of the four of us who has spend any significant time in the geographic vicinity of Frank Ney's turf. As it turns out, Frank was the Mayor of Nanaimo, B.C. from 1968-1984 and again from 1987-90 and geezuz, was this dude colourful and a crap-pile o' fun. Turn out Frank, a.k.a. Black Frank, was a very eccentric but hugely popular politician in his town, often dressing up as a pirate for public events, as well as, on occasion, a pearly king or Mississippi Riverboat gambler. Although really, why veer from being a pirate.... aaaarrr. (Ladies, little-known fact about men. We are physically incapable of saying the word 'pirate' without adding 'aaaarrr'. It's hardwired into our DNA.) He was completely responsible for creating the town's continuing tradition of bath-tub races, responding by written letter to pretty much anyone who corresponded to him but get this - he was also one of the town's premier developers prior to his run as Mayor! In 1960, he bought and developed nearby Protection Island (previously named Douglas Island), parceled it into lots and then had his office staff dress as pirates while organizing Treasure Hunts for Silver Dollars to lure lot buyers. The crazy-ass stunt worked - 300 lots were purchased on the first weekend with the balance sold soon after.

Joseph, Mary and the Little
Baby Jeebus: how on earth
did Carling-O'Keefe get away
with this? Look familiar???

Somehow, Frank shook off that rep (though land developers are not dissimilar to pirates), won office and since his passing in 1992, I'm gonna guess he still remains the town's most cherished politicians in memory. The above swashbuckling statue certainly attests to that. "I'd seen that statue when I passed through Nanaimo," admits Stevil, "but had no idea who it was." When Frank was running the Nanaimo show, all three major Canadian players - Molson's, Labatt and Carling-O'Keefe - all had breweries in every major Canadian city and it was the Carling-O'Keefe's Vancouver brewery used to crank out the Frank Ney's Beer. Indeed, those were the days when a Canadian politician could be crazy, a little off-centre and we liked it.

Okay, up next is the curious care of Carling-O'Keefe's Standard Lager. They always say, "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery." Okay, gang at Cheers, you know doesn't say that? Copyright infringement lawyers. Does that label (circa 1982) to the left look a bit familiar? Maybe kinda, sorta look a little exactly like Budweiser? The folks at American giant Anheuser-Busch certainly thought so. Did it go to court? Ah yeah, many times. Turns out the Standard Lager label was registered way back in 1929 by Carling although Budweiser's label also existed then. The Standard Lager label wasn't exactly as you see it here but mostly similar - though I could only find a black-and-white version from 1929 and colouring is relevant, too. I read through an article about it and don't know if the battle is over but I'll tell you this for free. I have never seen this label on a beer so let's assume Anheuser-Busch won this little squirmism.

From Drummond Brewery in
Alberta - "Beer". That's it, just...
Beer. Not even like Bob's Beer.
Or Frank's Beer. Just... Beer

One that had two of us laughing out loud was Columbia Brewing's Mountain Brew Man-Style Beer. What the hell is "Man Style" beer? Drink one, you grow a full beard? Drink six and you qualify for a MMA cage match? Drink 12 and you don't need a saw or an ax to cut down an 90-year-old Oak tree. Drink a whole case and Hugh Hefner hands over the keys to the Playboy Mansion? Even just looking at the label instantly gave me six-pack abs. Granted, they're under a considerable layer of protective fat but dammit, I can feel them! Rock. Hard.

And then from Drummond Brewery in Alberta, there's "Beer". That's it - Beer. (Also from Drummond? Light Beer!) "This is what happens when the marketing guys get drunk at lunch and run out of ideas," snickered Stevil.

Anyway, it is remarkable little of Canadiana looking at these old labels. Take a look for yourself here at: Cool Old Stubby Labels

Okay, next up according to Paste Magazine is the 100 American Craft Beers That Every Beer-Lover Should Try. Being up here in Canada, I've only had four - Brooklyn Brewery Lager (98), Samuel Adams Lager (93), Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA (91) and Anchor Steam Beer (78). But basically this just became my American Craft Beer Bucket List, especially The Alchemist Heady Topper (3) and Russian River's Pliny The Elder (2), beers I have heard raves about by the online craft community. But all of them really. What I liked about this list - it wasn't snobby. They were careful to incorporate every beer style from lagers through stouts, including a *ugh* pumpkin ale.

Here we have a typical Canadian protest. The second sign is revealing in
that it's usually the  reason why we always forget what were protesting...

May pass on that - no, wait, it's on the list so I have to... *sigh* Regardless, here's the list right here: The 100 Top American Craft Beers Use the list wisely. It's not a play-toy. And props to the Paste gang for looking across the beer spectrum!

Next up, we look at last Saturday's winners at the 2014 Canadian Brewing Awards, held out in New Brunswick at the Fredericton Convention Centre. Ontario and BC totally dominated so we'll look at the big winners - Great Lakes Brewery out of Toronto did huge! - and go over some of the best of the best. My Canadian Craft Beer Bucket List always has more than a fair few crossed off... then there's hundreds more. If you want a sneak peak, here's a list of the winners right here: 2014 Winners At The CBAs

Okay, guys and dolls, as I said, next up in a few days is the results of the Canadian Brewing Awards, plus a handful of others. But for now, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain...

The upside - and downside - of flavoured beers

Our friends at Amsterdam Brewery recently released
their Oranje Weisse in time for you-know-what...

As the heat of Summer edges near and patios are slowly opening (or partios, as Beer Musketeer Stevil St Evil refers to them), the wheat beers are returning and this year, they're in numerous flavours... which is odd since wheats traditionally were meant to be slightly tinged with orange and light spices such as coriander. But these days, breweries are going nuts with them and like anything else, that can be good... or that can be something quite south of that.

Now a lot of beer drinkers note that they don't like flavoured beer but the fact is most beer styles have a touch of some fruit or food stuff in their essence - IPAs often have a touch of grapefruit or mango or citrus. Stouts rely on oatmeal, some fruits (cranberries, mostly) and lots of chocolate. Porters have the essence of coffee and licorice. Red ales... apple. And so on and so on. Mainstream beers, however, tend to be so malt-forward that no, you don't get much extra out of them. Which is fine since they still are the brew of choice for the masses and why would the major breweries change a formula that clearly works?

Is it possible he thought you asked for a 'crap' beer...

Now before I go on, allow me to disqualify a couple of types of flavoured beers that ride an inexplicable popularity wave in the summer - the lime beers, the lemon shandy beers and *gagging* the ice-tea-infused ones. Why am I disqualifying them? Okay, in terms as diplomatic and polite as possible (I am Canadian, after all), they are... well, disgusting, nasty, vile, sickly-sweet ass-water that no one other than an under-age teenage girl should ever drink. And since I can't advocate under-aged drinking, if all the 19-year-old girls (legal age in Ontario) could buy them all, drink them or pour 'em down the drain for all I care and then (what do 19-year-old girls do? Oh I remember) post thousands of giddy, giggly selfies all night on Instagram or Snapchat, well, I would be most appreciative. "DRINK THE LIME BEERS, YOUNG LADIES!!! DRINK THEM ALL!!!" This has been a court-ordered Public Service Advisory - two down, 98 to go - clearly the courts shouldn't have let me choose the topics. Oh wait... don't do Meth: it's, uh, whack... (do we still say 'whack'?)... okay, 97...

The new Shock Top line - their regular Belgian
White, centre, flanked by the Lemon Shandy and
Raspberry Wheat. You know where I stand on one

Shock-Top sorta poses as a craftie but here in Canada, it's brewed by Labatt while in the U.S., it's brewed by Anheuser-Busch - both of whom are, in turn, owned by Belgian giant, In-Bev. As such, they get punished on RateBeer... which is fine. The regular Shock-Top Belgian White actually isn't too bad. The orange is there but not overpoweringly so. As it turns out, the more a fruit is muted, the more I am inclined to enjoy it. The stronger its flavouring, the less so. The Shock-Top Raspberry Wheat is strongly fruit-flavoured and suffers because of that. It's like having a 5.2% Raspberry Soda. The Shock-Top Lemon Shandy? Hey, 19-year-old Instagram girls, hurry up and buy that crap. As noted in last blog, my old publisher/friend Arnie did say that I can't say I don't like something without trying it. To Arnie, I simply say this: yes... yes, I can. I'm gifted that way.

Had the Amsterdam Brewery's Oranje Weisse today and quite enjoyed it. Brewed at Beer Musketeer Cat's hometown favourite brewery, this is pure Belgian White. Light orange and coriander on the nose, light citrus touches on the tongue... very nice. Scored a 47 on RateBeer, a decent score for a Canadian wheat. Where Shock-Top could have done themselves a solid would have been by sampling Amsterdam's KLB Raspberry Wheat. Yes, you get the raspberry on the nose and tongue but it disappears quickly in the mouth. We're not looking to be overpowered. We're drinking beer here... not wrestling with a damn orchard.

Yeah, their Apricot Wheat Ale is overpoweringly sweet...
but when I had that Oatmeal Stout? Whoa. All was forgiven

Okay, remember that Okanagan Spring Apricot Summer Weizen I talked about last blog where the flavour was so muted, I couldn't even figure out what fruit it was - just that there was an unknown one in there and it was tasty? Well, meet its polar opposite - out of Montreal, St Amboise Apricot Wheat. I grabbed a St Ambroise Premium Selection Pack at another Beer Store and it has three of these, 3 IPAs, 3 Pale Ales and 3 Oatmeal Stouts. The pale ales and IPAs (a junior IPA, really) were decent, not outstanding. But the Apricot Wheat? I've had it before. Sweet to the point of apricot syrup, it was too much for me. How this managed a 46 on RateBeer is beyond me. Gotta be some sort of Montreal Apricot Orchard Voodoo. So it went upstairs to Hathaway's British Pub where the owners and denizens could give it a try.

This 8% Double IPA only got a 78 on
RateBeer and the Beer Musketeers have a
pretty strong nothing-under-90 rule about
IPAs. That said, I will hunt for it anyway

Owners Simon and Amy were first up. They took their gulps... and both made faces. I laughed, "You can pour it out, if you want. I didn't like it, either." They both instantly dumped it in the garden - no doubt killing both plants and bugs alike. Ugly way to go. But gawd bless him, Dan from Draft Services pops over after a long day of video gaming and I offer the other to him. He takes a huge haul, says, "Mmmmm, peach!" (meh, close enough) and pounds it happily while he's plugging away on his iPhone. Again, people, every beer has its happy audience.

Indeed, St Ambroise Oatmeal Stout definitely has me in its audience. This is the best session (5%) stout I've ever tasted in my life, if not the equal to many of the great one-off high-octane seasonals I had this past winter. Chocolate, coffee and butter (weird, right?) on the nose, it was all cocoa and molasses on the tongue. Just an outstanding stout. The store that sold me the mixed pack also has this in six-packs. I'll be back for more. Whereas wheats, excepting the outstanding German ones, are a style I only want one or two of at any sitting, a session stout this outstanding? That I could drink all night. I will force one on Beer Musketeer Glenn when he next visits. He continues to resist stouts and porters but he will bend to mine and Cat's will. (Evil Villain Scientist laugh in 3... 2... 1... *click* "Mooo!" What the deuce? *click* "Muah ha ha ha ha ha!!!" Okay, better... but could I get someone from IT down here? This sound effect app blows.)

I have no idea what's in Aisle 1 through 7. I also
don't care. Dairy, meat and grain right there. Wait.
What's the fourth food group again? Dessert??

And finally, due to the popularity of Austria's Stiegl Radler Grapefruit 2.5% beer last summer (the LCBOs could not keep it on the shelves), Brick Brewery has put on their own Waterloo Radler - a 3.1% beer/grapefruit combo. Big fan of the grapefruit essence in many IPAs so I tried one. It just tasted exactly like grapefruit juice, which I love, my favourite of the Juice Family... but not as a beer replacement. There is no beer essence to this whatsoever. I told my co-worker Karen when I was sampling it after work one night and her reaction? "Need some vodka there, Donny?" Uh, yeah, like a 13-ounce mickey at least. Granted, I may have stumbled across a breakfast beer that won't mess me up by lunch.

So flavoured beers can be a crap-shoot - just like any style of beer, I suppose. Can be great... can be horrific. And they are small doses beer - one or two, switch to something else. It's a little like my buddy who wants to hold a Beer Pong Tournament at his wedding reception - it walks that fine line between trashy as hell and pretty much the coolest idea ever!!! Don't panic, ladies. He's single.. and likely to stay that way for a long while.

Okay, more beers in a few days... but guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, as always, I remain...

Trafalgar Ales & Meads expands into distillery

Trafalgar Ales & Meads founder-owner Mike Arnold is
venturing into distilling and offers vodka and white-rye
with whiskey up next... once it's aged for a few years...

I have talked to Mike Arnold, the owner of Oakville's Trafalgar Ales & Meads, many, many times but never once about beer. Only politics. Well, yes and no. Allow me to clarify.

Not sure they do this anymore but every election, whether federal, Provincial or municipal, the brewery created a different beer for each party, labelled them accordingly and had a mobile sign out front, marking the scores of each party by their allotted beers purchased at the brewery. The campaign was cleverly called "Vote With Your Throat" and several times was eerily in sync with the final results. For municipal elections, the candidates for Oakville Mayor were given their individual beers - photos on the label and all - and those results were also posted. Again, it could be remarkably accurate. One time when it was bang-on, I called Mike to congratulate him on his accuracy and he shrugged it off, saying simply, "I didn't vote. Beer drinkers did."

The labels for the 2008 Federal Election, representing,
clockwise from top left, the Green Party, the NDP, the
Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. The beer poll
gave the Liberal the slight edge but the PC's won a majority

Now when I plied my editor's trade in Oakville back in the mid-90s, my publisher, a gregarious chap named Arnie (who continues to be a friend to this day), was good pals with Mike, who it should be noted played a key role in the creation of the Black Creek Historic Brewery, now run by Beer Musketeer Cat's sister-in-law. And as a friend of Mike's, Arnie had some of the brewery's meads in his garage. I shunned them instantly but Arnie, being Arnie, insisted I try them before casting them aside. "You can't say you don't like something you've never tried!" he scolded me. True enough. So I sampled their raspberry and blueberry meads, fresh from Arnie's garage. Okay, I should have stuck to my guns. Both were so acidic, my first question to Arnie was: "Where do you keep the Tums?"  I think I also asked if his Milton Hospital had stomach-pumping equipment readily available.

Clearly, I am not a mead drinker. Why? Well, for one, I'm not a Viking. Nor am I a senator in Ancient Rome. In fact, has any anyone living after, oh say, Mary Queen of Scots, ever drank mead? Definitely a niche market.

"Tastes great!" "Less filling!" "Vodka!" "Beer!"

However, the big news out of Trafalgar is that, as of this past Sunday, they have expanded into being a distillery, as well as a brewery and, uh, meadery. According to an article in the Oakville News online, they have already begun distilling vodka and a white-rye (meaning non-aged whiskey) with actual whiskey, probably five years or more down the road because, well, if it ain't aged, it ain't whiskey. And Canadian whiskey is world-renowned because not only does it do the job, it also apologizes for your hang-over in the morning. "Yeah, I did that to your brain. So very sorry. My bad. Can I get you a coffee from Timmy's?" 'Tis the politest of all whiskeys.

Now I am not a spirit drinker simply because I don't like the taste of most and there's so many beers left for me to try. So it was past time to start sampling Trafalgar's beer, especially since the place is literally around the corner from my Beer Store.

So far, the best of the bunch but that's faint praise...

Thus far, sadly, it has not gone well. I started with their Hop Nouveau, a wet-hopped ale and was expecting something in the vicinity of Amsterdam Brewery's excellent Autumn Hop, another wet-hopped product. The nose is off - sulfuric, metallic even - and it didn't fare much better on the tongue. Bitter, but not in a good IPA way, it has a weak finish and though overly-carbonated, it can't seem to hold its head. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I'm trying, Billboard Cartoon! I'm trying!!!
Strangely, Stevil St Evil yells this at me too!

Next up was their Honey IPA, billed as a pale ale brewed with honey. Okay, word to the wise for all those brewing IPAs: no more brewing with honey. Okay, for starters, this is definitely not an IPA. Despite claiming to be 70 IBU (international bitterness units), there is virtually no hoppiness to this 5.5% brew, which has more in common with, say, an extra special bitter than it ever will with an IPA. That said, different strokes... Beer Musketeer Glenn quite enjoyed it while mine went down the drain.

The brewery redeems itself to a certain degree with their Smoked Oatmeal tout. At 5%, it is a lighter stout than my favourites tend to be but does have some smokiness on the nose. The taste - light chocolate - is a little more, well, timid than I expect in a stout but over-all, it's a decent offering. It unfortunately suffered immediately by preceding a Montreal-brewed stout, not naming names (*coughs* St Ambroise) that instantly blew my socks off. This will be mandatory reading in the next blog. No excuses. There will be a test afterwards. All of that being said and done, I never say never (except I just did twice - never again - *facepalm*) and I will be popping into Trafalgar for their Paddy's Irish Red - a style I love - and their Oak-Aged Rye Ale, which sounds promising. Let's see how it stacks up next to their cross-town rivals Cameron's outstanding Rye Pale Ale. So rest assured, Glenn, (in my best Ah-nuld voice) "Ah'll be bach..."

Look at that teeny, tiny word under
Summer. It says Apricot. Okanagan
Spring, you are cheeky devils!!!

Recently landing at the Beer Store was the Okanagan Spring Craft Pack with three of the Vernon, BC brewery's beer - their Pale Ale, their 1516 Bavarian Lager and their Apricot Summer Weizen. To be frank, I bought it for the Summer Weizen because I'm always on the hunt for a good wheat beer. The Pale Ale is a decent patio beer, light, non-distinct, as well as non-threatening, much pretty on par with your Keith's and the like. The 1516 Bavarian Lager is a wee step up - not much on the aroma at all and a little coppery on the tongue, it's an okay though not at all outstanding lager. Again, a patio brew.

No, it was their Apricot Summer Weizen that grabbed me. If you look at the label to the right, you can barely see the word "apricot" under "summer". In fact, without my reading glasses, I didn't see a word there at all. I was drinking it and couldn't figure out what fruit I was tasting at first. Usually, with wheats, it's orange peel. Not this one. My coworker Marie finally pointed the "apricot" out to me - thankfully before I drove myself crazy trying to figure it out. Obviously, once you know, the nose is apricot (my first note - "some unknown fruit, def not orange") and on the tongue, although the fruit is there, it's beautifully muted, gives it some tartness, allowing the hazy wheat to shine through. Scrap the other two - here's your patio beer!!! It very much outshines another apricot wheat which was overpoweringly sickly sweet that you'll read about in the next blog. Again, not naming names (*coughs* St Ambroise).

Hopus is not hoppy - it is fruity and spicy. It
is also a remarkably tasty strong Belgium ale

From Beer Musketeer Cat came the recommendation of Hopus, a Belgian strong ale out of the Brasserie Lefebvre in the Belgian town of Rebecq-Quenast. Despite its name, this is not hoppy in the least although you get some nice citrus and orange on the nose. On the tongue, this 8.2% offering is a crazy mixture of bitter and sweet, fruity yet spicy - a lovely break from all the IPAs and stouts Cat and I consume with alarming frequency.

And speaking of the Beer Musketeers and IPAs, one beer I neglected to mention in that Debauchery at Donny's Bar and Grill blog was Arch Brewery's Dinner Jacket O'Red IPA. Contract-brewed by Arch Brewing on the premises of our friends Wellington Country Brewing in Guelph, this one was the middle-of-the-pack for us. More malty than hoppy on the nose (though I did get some pine), it pours a hazy red, had decent carbonation and was grassy on the tongue. It was pretty good but more of a Beginner IPA and certainly not in the elite class of either Nickel Brook's Immodest IIPA or Stone's Ruination IPA.

Amanda gives thumbs-up to all who donated to the Leukemia Bottle Drive

And finally, other than mention the shenanigans of my co-workers, I don't talk much about the Beer Store here. That's because this is a beer blog and Head Office has a perfectly effective and capable Communication Department. That said, I'm sure HQ won't mind a quick shout-out on a personal point of pride. This past weekend, on May 24-25, every store across Ontario held their Returns For Leukemia Bottle Drive whereby we ask customers if they would be willing to donate some of their empties with all funds going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. As always, our customers were remarkably generous as we alone raised over $2,000. That was just on Saturday. Probably, another sweet G on Sunday. At 10 or 20-cents each, that's a lot of empty bottles. The across-province tally will likely be known inside the week but count on it being well over $1 million. Okay, I'll let the Communications Department take it from there but on my end, big shout-outs and hugs to Team Captain Marie and head volunteer Amanda for their hard work. See that red shirt Amanda's wearing? Their faces and arms all looked like that by day's end. They started as volunteers; they finished as lobsters. Which means they would go well with a wheat beer.... perhaps one brewed by Okanagan Spring? See? It always comes back to beer.

Okay, guys and dolls, I'll be back in a few days but until then, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain...

Hathaway's British Pub and Walkerville Brewery

Here's some captured iPhone shenanigans involving me and
Sandi at Hathaway's British Pub back in February. I am
happily pounding Nickel Brook Headstock IPA out of my
cherished 32-ounce Molson Canadian skate/boot mug.
Apparently, Sandi is trying to help me lose my hiccups.
Nothing in this photo suggests anything of that sort...

Apparently, the weather is finally getting nicer up here in Canada. My upstairs neighbour, Amy, who I worked with at the Beer Store back in the 1990s (she has since gone onto another Canadian institution, Tim Horton's head office), texted me at work last weekend and told me to pop up to the patio at Hathaway's British Pub when I got home. Copious fun and often blurry, slurry nights on their patio happened with alarming frequency last summer.

Regarding our country's biggest doughnut chain, here's a quick Tim Horton's aside for those living outside Canada:
"It's over there beside the Tim Horton's..."
~ Directions to anywhere in Canada

This was the first patio outing for 2014, meaning it might be finally turning warmer after The Winter From Hell. Now whereas Donny's Bar and Grill on the lower level of this sprawling, luxury complex we all inhabit is truly Canadian (though with an infusion of outstanding American IPAs), Hathaway's British Pub upstairs has a distinct U.K. flavour simply because Simon is a Brit and is, in fact, the Hathaway half of the now Married-With-Child couple.

I say if Magneto and Professor X can mend fences over a
cold brew, then the whole world can. Beers for every nation!
These guys give us hope for growing older and having fun

You see some years ago, Amy went to visit the U.K. and had the time of her life. She also returned to Canada with Simon as her carry-on. How she jammed the lanky lad into the over-head remains a mystery to this day. No doubt it was this sort of flexibility that explains why Amy found him so gosh-darn attractive to start with.

So on this particular evening when I popped up, the patio was buzzing with others, including the Hathaway's British Pub neighbours, Stacey and Matt, as well as Dan and Sandi from the Beer Store's Draft Services department. Draft Services, for the uninitiated, are the people who take care of consumer kegs and pumps, as well as installing and servicing the draft lines in any number of bars. They are akin to Roman Gods for bar-owners. You don't have to kneel but kissing their rings is not out of the question.

♫ I GOTTA ANOTHER CONFESSION TO
MAKE... I LOVE BEER!!! ♫ If Dave Grohl
loves beer then you should also love beer.
No peer pressure but if you don't, it's uncool

As for Stacey and Matt, this was the first time I met Matt but I had briefly met Stacey last summer at one of these Hathaway's British Pub patio events. Last year, while we were all chatting, someone said something funny and I started to laugh... loudly. Stacey looked right at me and said, "So that's where that laugh comes from!!" For the record, she and Matt live on the other side of the building, one floor up. And she recognized my laugh. From that distance. Either she has a remarkably keen ear or I am incredibly loud. Let's bet on the latter. After all, it was Amy who first dubbed me with the nickname "Happy Happy Loud Guy" way back in the 1990s when we worked together. Thankfully, due to the fact it's too cumbersome a nickname, it never really caught on and was discarded quickly. Sometimes, the universe gives you a gift and you just quietly say "Thank you..." Regardless, first brews of the year on the patio at Hathaway's British Pub means winter is finally gone and the patio fun is about to start... oh, happy, happy, loudness!!

Okay, beer time, kids. My co-worker Marie recently cleaned up huge at Caesar's Palace in Windsor and wandered down the street to Walkerville Brewery, which was originally built way back in 1885 by none other than Hiram Walker, the distiller who created the internationally-popular Canadian Club whiskey.

Walkerville Brewing Company in its 1998-2007 incarnation.
According to locals, the beers were plain and uninspired
during this run. That has clearly changed with new owners.

Like most small Canadian breweries, this one has long persevered over the years, opening and closing, bankruptcy and solvency, lasting through Prohibition and during that time, becoming a key bootlegger to neighbouring Detroit, which was hailed as the wettest city in the USA during the booze ban, partially due to Walkerville. The old Walkerville Brewery building was demolished in 1962 and after a long absence, was reopened in 1998, just as microbreweries and craft brewers were sprouting up across Ontario. It went bankrupt in 2007, shut its doors, only to reopen in September 2012. This little brewery's been up and down more often than the toilet seats at a mixed college kegger.

So armed with all that cashola courtesy of an extremely loose slot machine at Caesar's (she won big, and I mean big, off the same machine twice in two days - certainly a rarity), Marie wandered down the street with her fella, Ernie, had a nice meal and some tasty brews there.

The beer menu at the Walkerville Brewery. Marie, who is
exploring new and different beers, had the Milk Stout and
absolutely loved it. I like the looks of the Loophole Ale

But gawd love her, on the way out, she grabbed me a litre mini-growler of their Indie Pale Ale (yes, Indie) with a brewery glass and another litre of their Honest Lager for our former co-worker Louise who now toils at another store. Now when new owner Chris Ryan reopened the brewery in 2012 with brewmaster Nick Posloski in tow, the first battle they had to fight was the memory of the 1998-2007 version of Walkerville, which according to locals, brewed up some lousy and uninspired beers. Based on just one beer, the Indie Pale Ale, I would suggest they're headed in the right direction. At 6.3% and just 55 IBUs (international bitterness units), this won't club you over the head but is, nonetheless, a very solid, very tasty IPA. Pine on the nose, orange peel and grapefruit on the tongue, this is the exact halfway point between a session IPA and a hop-bomb.

"You liked it?" Marie asked. "Okay, next time, I'll get you a growler!" Ummm, where do I sign? And is this dependent on a loose slot machine? I also plan to send her back with the one-litre bottle to be filled with their Loophole Ale. I asked Louise, a Coors Light drinker, how the Honest Lager was and she raved "that was delicious! Really, really good!" Marie and I will bend The Weez to our wicked craft-filled ways. Resistance is futile.

Normal is, indeed, weird to my
friends at Flying Monkeys...

My friends at Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Barrie have continued on with their "The Matador" series of beers. Last year, it was a Double IPA, which I missed but *choking up a little*... that's okay. It only got 97 on RateBeer. *Sniff* Damn allergies. This year, The Matador Version 2.0 El Toro Bravo is a brash Imperial Dark Rye Ale. The 10.1% spice-bomb is charged with Hallertauer hops and Spanish Cedar wood-aged in barrels. Oh man, spicy, spicy and spicy... Hell, it's the Spice Girls of beer but, you know... actually good. Toffee on the nose, spice and rye on the tongue, this is an explosive ale and hey, only available at the Beer Store. It's also only available if you get to it before me. Good luck with that. Some days, you're the matador... some days, you're the bull. I'm whichever is faster. (Four legs... let's assume the bull.)

Some funny doings with my boys at Nickel Brook Brewery here in Burlington recently. Popped in one day a while back for growler refills and saw my main man, Tony, out front tending to the gardens. "You know what I'm doing?" he asked. "Yeah, weeding the garden as it's finally Spring," I replied. "Nope," he chuckled, "Planting a weed." Turns out a customer had given them a hop plant - not sure which hop - and Tony was giving it roots in a tiny back corner of the garden. I check on my little hop plant (I've adopted it - don't tell them) every time I go now. It's a sickly little weed-looking thing at the moment. But one day, it will be a mighty hop plant. Gonna put little chalk marks on the wall behind it as it grows. Because that's what you do for your children...

During the past long weekend, Great Lakes Brewery
asked Facebook readers to send in their pics of their long
weekend to win swag. Beer Musketeer Glenn sent in this
 shot of him with My Bitter Wife IPA with the caption  "She
may be bitter but I love her. All three of her" and got a
 "well played, sir" from the brewery. However, from Stevil
St Evil, he got "Wanna help me find my lost kitty?"
while I went with the obvious "Who likes candy?"

And I had a young new server at the brewery this past week, who I had never seen before but all the same, looked vaguely familiar. "How long have you been here?" I asked. "All my life," he smiled. Turned out it was owner John's son, Nick - the Nickel part of the brewery name while his sister, Brooke, completes it. Nick has just finished his first year at Wilfred Laurier University, where he's taking business and finance. "Gonna take this place over some day?" I asked. "I hope so," he smiled. Nice kid... and good for him.

Okay, so many beers I never got to including Hop City Big Mouth Pale Ale, Arch Brewery's Dinner Jacket O'Red IPA (which Beer Musketeers Cat and Glenn had here at Donny's Bar and Grill), Great Lakes' My Bitter Wife IPA you see here with Glenn, as well as Lake of Bays Brewery's Cujo Blond Ale, Left Field Brewery's Resin Bag IPA (a recommendation from Melissa, Toronto Craft Beer Queen), Hopus Strong Blonde Ale from Belgium (Beer Musketeer Cat's recommendation), two beers from Trafalgar Ales and Meads because Beer Musketeer Glenn asked me to give the Oakville brewery a second chance and the Okanagan Springs Craft Mixed Pack, which is now available at Beer Stores.

Okay, before I go off the clock, my buddy, Joe, sent me this awesome video, Mind Throwing A Beer My Way? which shows some pretty creative ways of giving a bro his beer. Note: use cheap beer, such as they did with Old Milwaukee because it ends up everywhere. Turns out this is their second outing... here's the first called: Hey, Pass Me A Beer!

Okay, guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!!! Until next time, I remain...