Probably the highlight of Alberta so far was dinner at Charcut Roast House, which has garnered a reputation as one of the best new restaurants in Canada. I didn’t realize, when I saw it on the itinerary exactly why I knew what it was. It turns out that the chef […]

Beer and Food – Charcut

One of the benefits of getting out of Toronto is the contrast that it necessarily provides. Recently, I went to a bar called Thirsty and Miserable in Toronto. I like Thirsty and Miserable. It seats about twenty five and as many as can stand around nodding to the punk rock […]

Water Music and Continental Treat

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I have been a little bit surprised by the willingness of the large brewers to engage with Discount Beer February as a concept. So far, Labatt, Molson and Sleeman have all jumped on board and have either sent, or are sending, samples. I suppose it’s not that strange when you […]

Discount Beer February – Labatt Products

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(Much of the background information for the following comes from Allen Winn Sneath’s excellent book Brewed in Canada. I borrowed Ken Woods’ copy, but you should probably buy your own.) The DISCOUNT BEER CATEGORY at The Beer Store exists for two reasons: 1)      Canadians didn’t drink enough Amstel in the […]

Discount Beer February – How We Got Where We Are

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WHOSE BABY IS THAT? The first thing that you have to know in order to understand why the James Ready brand exists is that the Oland family, scions of Maritime brewing, had extraordinarily bad luck with their breweries based in Halifax. The brewery burned down in 1878 when fire from […]

Discount Beer February – James Ready

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I have currently been writing professionally about beer for two and a half years. Next week will be the beginning of my third year with Sun Media. I’ve discovered that if you write about beer all the time, you run into a few small problems that nag at you. The […]

DISCOUNT BEER FEBRUARY

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It’s hard to know exactly what to make of Ramblin’ Road Brewery Farm. They’re a new brewery in Norfolk County. Part of the issue here is that there really aren’t all that many farm breweries kicking around and there’s not really a concrete definition of what that might entail, at […]

Ramblin’ Road Brewery Farm

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I want to point something out to you, and it will seem obvious in retrospect: Toronto’s Amsterdam Brewery is running a tap takeover at Bar Volo on February 2nd. It sold out completely in about 4 hours. The first rating on Boneshaker IPA on Ratebeer.com is May 2010. That was […]

Amsterdam Tap Takeover @ Bar Volo

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I’m always happy to receive beer from Grand River Brewing. I got to know Bob Hannenberg a little bit during a stopover in Philadelphia on the way to the craft brewing conference in San Diego last year. I like Bob, and generally speaking, I like much of the beer that […]

They Send Me Beer: Grand River Brewing

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I’m always interested when something I’m not expecting happens. For instance, I didn’t expect the brewers at Black Oak to start up their own label. They’ve been a bit cagey about it as the thing has developed and I don’t think that anyone knew quite what to expect. It was […]

They Send Me Beer: Radical Road Brewing Canny Man