(Ed Note: Buckle the heck up, Junior Rangers. This is going to be a long one. It is also somewhat inflammatory.) The other question I get is “what do you think is going to happen?” It’s usually phrased that way and to be honest it means different things depending on […]
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10 As I went around the province talking to people at breweries and festivals over the course of the last six months, I was asked the two questions that I’m always asked. I have decided to answer them on the blog this week in the hope that it might avert some […]
They Keep Asking Me: “What’s Your Favourite Beer?”
If there was a thematic element to this edition of the Ontario Craft Beer Guide, it is probably to do with the life cycle of the startup brewery. Mark Murphy from Left Field asked me back in the summer if we were going to go back and revisit the breweries […]
Some Post 2nd Edition Thoughts
1 “It’s really a root. The fabric is just there to keep the leaves from getting burnt.” The sun will burn in and the tobacco crops that show themselves a gnarled fading yellow back from the road and across an stretch of loamy soil are proof of that. It is the […]
Despatches From The Road: Norfolk County
5 Change comes slowly but inevitably, and in Toronto that means condominiums. The stretch of Yonge Street between Bloor and College, that final ungentrified stretch of smut peddlers, head shops, and bootleg vendors is going upscale bringing with it the promise of one-bedrooms from the mid 200’s. I can’t lie that […]
The End of Bar Volo and The Beginning of Bars ...
5 I had finished my Heritage Toronto walk on the Lost Breweries of the old city, the third of four for the summer, and had managed to remember nearly all of the regular talking points. Headed east over the Don, I was kicking myself for confusing the High Park Johns. Surely […]
The Long Trudge: Collingwood
The Background Sometimes, it takes a while to write about things that people send me. It seems that as you get to the portion of a beer writing career where books enter the equation that you spend a lot less time actually writing and a lot more time arranging travel […]
Review: Ernest Cider
When we write the Ontario Craft Beer Guide, the hardest part is coming up with interesting things to say about newly founded breweries. In some cases, we’re lucky and the personnel involved takes care of that for us. Take Second Wedge in Uxbridge: They hired Doug Warren as a brewmaster […]
Breweries and Hard Won Identity
2 (Ed. Note: This is a deeper dive than I intended on Root Beer. I am now sick to death of bloody wintergreen.) I always find alcohol trends fascinating. I remember the 90’s when Mike’s Hard Lemonade came out and engendered an entire wave of alcopop coolers that people enjoyed during […]
That’s Quite Enough Of Your Sassafras
22 Contract brewing has proved to be a grueling, merciless, low margin, joyless and difficult way to make your way in the beer industry. Consider how hard it is to operate as a physical brewery in Ontario. You’ve got to fight for shelf space in the LCBO and grocery chains or […]