Ottawa Part Vier: The Last Leg...

The owner of Spearhead Brewing, Josh Hayter, jokingly said if ever
there was a beer men should be protesting, it's Great Lakes Brewing
Over My Dad Body Pilsner for its unflattering depiction of the male
physique. The problem is the art, created by former GLB artist Garnett
Gerry, is actually bang-on! Here the beer is illustrated brilliantly by -
who else? - Drunk Polkaroo. We would lose badly in court over this.

Okay, for the 613 Ottawa Brew Crew Craft Brewery Invasion columns, I named the first Part One. Then as a nod to my French friends - Danny, Joel and Matty, I named the second one Part Deux. I went Spanish with the third one - Part Tres - as a nod to some Vegas friends because Spanish is hugely spoken down there. I am always practising my Spanish with the predominantly Latino cleaning staff because they seem to really like a Canadian who tries very hard. If I don't get something perfect (Google Translate isn't 100%), they are very sweet in correcting me and appreciating my efforts, at least. Also I'm on their turf - Las Vegas - so it's up to me to acclimatize, not them.

So this, Part 4 and the final one, has been called Vier (like "veer") because in Grade 9, I took German. Why? Because my late father filled out my course selection. I was incredulous and asked him why? Because, he said, it's good to know other languages.

And speaking of Dad Bods... (Well, not Curtis, who looks like he
has actually done a sit-up once or twice.) Okay so, from left, this
is Curtis, Glenn, Matty, Danny, Ben, Josh, Paul and Joel outside
Bicycle Craft Brewing, our second-last stop. Matty yelled out,
"Donny, you keep taking our pictures but you're never in one!!"
He nearly stumbled onto the only goal of being the picture-guy!
Bottom photo... Paul, WTF is that?? You fall asleep on us here?

In retrospect, he wasn't wrong but I was going into Grade 9, thus I was also a bratty teenager so I stormed off, muttering something about Grandpa going to war so I would never have to speak German. Truth to tell, it was engaging enough that I took it again in Grade 10. It is, frankly, the most logical and sensible language in terms of learning it. But I've forgotten most of it now, except counting numbers up to 20 or so. Also "kugelschreiber," the world's longest translation of "pen."

Okay, Quick Recap of the 613 Ottawa Brew Crew Craft Brewery Invasion:

1) We have now visited Orleans' Brewing on the Friday night and Kichesippi Brewing, Beyond The Pale Brewing and Waller St Brewing on Saturday. Two more stops to go!

2) I still haven't made Josh Hayter, owner of Spearhead Brewing, laugh out loud because I have been told by a former employee of his that he does not LOL. My secret mission on this brewery invasion? Make him laugh out loud. Now if I'm making Josh seem dour or salty, he is most definitely not! The guy's actually a real blast. In fact, the dude had so much fun these two days in Ottawa that he's organizing a similar one in Kingston for February. With a bus, a driver, full tours of Kingston craft breweries, the whole magilla. In fact, he's not screwing around. Whereas EVERYTHING that I organize is a "by the seat of the pants" deal (and yet, somehow always well-received), Josh is bringing in the head of the Kingston Economic Development group for assistance on his brewery tour. Whaaaaa...??? For us idiots?

Okay, this beer was the big story at Bicycle Craft Brewing when
we landed there in mid-August. We all tried it and we all walked
out with some. Damn good beer. No longer available but from
what I see, the brewery has done more than a dozen Milkshake
IPAs with different fruit combos. But this was fantastic and we all
noticed, when we got it home, there was a little heat in the back.

When I pointed out, you know, geezuz, man, that's a step above, he just shrugged, "Going way overboard is kinda my thing." As this benefits me personally, bring it on, big man!! But I have to make him laugh out loud. Two breweries left. Will I succeed?

Okay, second last stop on Saturday was Bicycle Craft Brewing. Where is it located in Ottawa? Not a fracking clue. We had been so many places at this point in so many different directions that, like Glennn (who seemed inordinately curious about this one single thing), I had no idea which direction the completely-irrelevant St Lawrence River was anymore. I liked their set-up. In a strip-mall. Small-to-medium taproom. Our group basically doubled the customer base on this day. But I quite liked it. The staff was very friendly (good) and extremely knowledgeable about their beverages (even better.)

They had a jalapeno pale ale on tap which a few of us rushed to try. Was it hot and spicy? I dunno, maybe white guy in the suburbs hot. Not so much to a group like us.

Okay, here's a shot of the early tasters at Bicycle Craft
Brewing, founded in 2014 by Fariborz and Laura Behzadi.
Laura is a brewer and the pair are also totally bicycling
enthusiasts, hence the name. But the present design of the
tasters is now the same as my glass in the above picture.

The irony there is, of course, we're all white guys from the suburbs. But most of us spent the Spring and Summer drinking Wellington Brewing's (Guelph) Raked Over IPA with Mango, Pineapple and Habanero. That shit was Aye Carumba hot. Bicycle's was mildly hot. I liked it but when I left, it was with their Peach Apricot Milkshake IPA (my two favourite IPA fruit essence flavours - I don't think I've ever eaten an apricot in my life but I love what its flavour adds to any style of beer, especially sours), their On The Lam IPA and their Velocipede IPA.

While we all quite enjoyed Bicycle, we also knew it was a quick pit-stop before the big finish, the King (or Queen) of the courtyard, the Big Kahuna (apologies, Josh) itself, the final destination... Dominion City Brewing, home of Sunsplit IPA, which, for my money, is one of the Top-5 IPAs in all of the land. And, of course, by all of the land, I mean Canada... our Dominion, if you will.

This is the only photo I appear in from the weekend because, as
I said, I make a point of being the photographer. But because
we needed a group photo of our friend David Buist's artwork,
we enlisted Nicole to snap the photo. As you can see, they have
taken David's clever illustration for Sunsplit IPA, blown it up
and posted it within the brewing area. Inspiration at work...

In fact, at this point, I have done so many mail orders from Dominion City - and in every order, Sunsplit represents at least half - that they're at the point where, instead of the traditional "thank you" card, I suspect they are on the verge of asking me how work's going and whether David's seen the latest Spider-Man movie.

Okay, so here's what I know about Dominion City. They opened in August 2014, rebranded and expanded the joint top-to-bottom in late 2016 and since then... *boom!* The Great Canadian Success Story in our nation's capital. There's much more obviously but that's the Reader's Digest version. (It dawns on me that's a reference I won't be able to make much longer. Someone much younger is bound to ask: "What's Reader's Digest?")

Okay, when I say they expanded, I'm not kidding. While on a smoke break, I wandered down the length of the strip mall they occupy. As I looked in each consecutive window (because I'm a nosy AF curious fellow), it was like, "More brewery, still brewery, yup, still brewery, oh hey, brewery office, another brewery office..." I think they started with one big end unit and just kept knocking down walls in the opposite direction. If I was in one of the few units left that's not the brewery, I'd be looking for new digs. As any Marvel hero will tell you: You can't stop the Juggernaut.

Okay, if I had to name our time at Dominion City, I suppose I would simply call it Sunsplit-A-Palooza. Except for a quick exception when Glenn tried a Double IPA of theirs, we all drank Sunsplit IPA well into the evening. Why? Because it's Sunsplit. Nuff said.

Our server at Dominion City Brewing:
"How are you guys doing here?" Us: "..."

We also took up a humongous space in their "Tree-Fort." For the record, the brewery's tree-fort isn't exactly that but rather a huge wooden deck elevated about four feet off the ground. However, it is surrounded by trees so the name works on that level. Now since the tree-fort falls under Ontario Liquor Laws, being as it is an alcohol serving space, the server had to walk from the brewery and back, bringing us our orders. It's about a 10-yard walk from building to tree-fort so it doesn't sound like much but try it with a tray of beer sometime. Across the lot and then up and down the stairs every time.

Now granted, since the only one of us even remotely familiar with the province's serving laws would be brewery owner Josh, we all just wandered over with our beers, purchased at the indoor tap-room. So once again, for probably the 12th time in one day, we were unwittingly breaking the law. Apparently, without even knowing it, our attitude remains: "Well, the cops can't catch us all." I'm pretty sure I can outrun Glennn. Dude's got pretty bad knees.

Oh, hey now, I see Danny on the right is also having a non Sunsplit IPA
moment as it looks exactly like orange juice. But he's a home-brewer so
we give him more latitude to explore styles. Anyway, here's two-thirds of
our Brew Crew. From left, Glennn, Curtis, Big Tree, Josh, Matty, Joel
and then back to Danny. This was a fantastic capper to a great day...

That's all I really need to know if shit goes south on us. Glennn and his knees, well, I've seen faster penguins.

Okay, much like Orleans' Brewing on the Friday night, this is where we'd end Saturday. Bright and sunny when we got there. Dusk and then dark long before we left. But something lit up our night. At one point, we noticed a flame in the distance. Quite far away but it just kept burning. Finally, someone asked our server WTF it was. Turns out the building was one of the city's wastewater facilities. And the flame? Well, that would be the methane burning off from human excrement. That might gross out some people. Not us. Josh dubbed it, "Plume du shit" and we - and I mean the entire group - toasted to it heartily all night.

Matty and his goddamn potato chips. Can't have a
sandwich - and yes, hot dogs are sandwiches - and
not have potato chips, too, according to Matty. His
thinking is far too rigid on side snacks. But I suppose
that's what makes Matty... well, Matty. Love the guy
because he's my brother. But dude, loosen up a bit.

It was our Olympic torch. "Faster, higher, stronger, poopier!"

But again, I have to make Josh Hayter laugh out loud and still haven't done so... *Tick tock* goes the clock and I still haven't succeeded. Finally, I saw my spot. In fact, Danny gift-wrapped it for me.

At one point in the conversation, Danny said one of those "You know what makes me feel old?" things. I believe his example was waiting for people to get off the phone to use the internet. Well, I have 20-25 years on Danny so that's like yesterday to me. But this was the Golden Ticket to the chocolate factory of Josh laughter for me. What could I use? The advent of colour TV? Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon? Disco? The creation of ATMs? I had an extra quarter of a century to work with here. I needed something solid. Some comedy gold, Jerry. Finally, I thought of one.

"You know what makes me feel old?" I barked loudly. All eyes on me, table falls silent. I yelled, "MY F**KING AGE!" Did Josh laugh? Well, I'm not sure. I mean, he looked like he might be but everyone was laughing so I don't know if he actually made a laugh out loud sound. Ah well, I'm not done with our favourite brewery owner yet. But that's a wrap on our Ottawa adventure. More silliness coming soon but Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...