admin

The nice thing about planning an event like the Feast Of St.John for Toronto Beer Week is that I’ve managed to create a certain amount of context for myself over three years or so that I’ve been writing about beer. I’ve collaborated on beers with a number of breweries, frequently […]

So You Want To Be A Brewer: Lazarus Breakfast Stout

September 7, 2013 in Beer and Food / Shameless Plugs / The Ontario Beer Revolution tagged Feast of St. John / Great Lakes / Lazarus Breakfast Stout / Mike Lackey by admin

Arriving in Burton-On-Trent by train, you get a real sense of what William Blake must have meant by “dark satanic mills.” The landscape is one of rolling hills interspersed with small lakes and marshes until you’re suddenly confronted by the expansive brick warehouses and towering breweries that were the pride […]

On Marston’s and Legacy

August 24, 2013 in Accounting for Taste tagged Burton On Trent / Burton Union / Marston's / Pedigree by admin

Here’s an interesting thought: Craft beer in North America went through a lot of growing pains on the way to being where they are at the moment. There were years of struggling to make English styles of beer as authentically as possible (hard to do in San Francisco) and the […]

London Craft Beer

August 18, 2013 in Accounting for Taste / Reviews / Shameless Plugs tagged Brodies / Buxton / Crate / Did I miss anyone? / Kernel / London Craft Beer Festival / Magic Rock / Partizan / Redemption / Thornbridge / Weird Beard by admin

Ed Note: Inevitably, marching into another country and talking about a situation I don’t have a complete feel for has the potential to rustle feathers. As such, I have changed the subtitle of my blog for the week to reflect that possibility. One of the things that has interested […]

Real Ale and Craft Beer – Live from the GBBF

August 15, 2013 in Accounting for Taste tagged Craft Beer / Pivovar Matuska / Real Ale / SA Brains / St. Austell by admin

One of the really nice things about having a column with a big circulation is that people send you things to review. Sometimes, it’s not even beer. At one point about a month ago, three books cropped up. One of those was Pete Brown’s Shakespeare’s Local, referred to here by […]

In Which I Review Two Books About Beer

August 2, 2013 in Accounting for Taste / Beer and Food / Reviews tagged A Year In Food And Beer / Books About Beer / Craft Beer Revolution by admin

When I started writing about beer, it was because I was trying to establish some credentials in order to get into brewing school. I did manage, subsequently, to get into brewing school, but then there was a book deal. I found that commuting 5 hours a day to Niagara College […]

So You Want To Be A Brewer: St. John Marzen

July 21, 2013 in Beer and Food / Ongoing Projects / Toronto Beer Week tagged brewing / St. John Marzen / The Beer Academy / The Feast Of St.John by admin

A couple of weekends ago, I signed a contract to write a new book with m’colleague Alan McLeod of A Good Beer Blog. The book will be called Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to the Hudson Bay. We’re just kids in a candy store […]

Beer and History: Mesopotamia at the ROM OR Sumer Lovin’

July 11, 2013 in Accounting for Taste / Shameless Plugs tagged Accountancy / beer / Beer and History / Mesopotamia Exhibit / Royal Ontario Museum by admin

The other day, I got a haircut. This is not news in and of itself, even though I’m relatively pleased with the haircut. During the smalltalk that goes along with a haircut, I mentioned that I write about beer. It turns out that the stylist had intended at some point […]

Fun With Numbers: Doom and Gloom Edition

July 7, 2013 in Accounting for Taste / The Ontario Beer Revolution tagged 100 Breweries / Andre Royo / Bubbles / Lake Of The Woods Brewery / Ontario Breweries by admin

It’s no secret that one of the things I look forward to every year during Ontario Craft Beer Week is the comparatively larger number of people thinking seriously about beer and food. Beer dinners, for instance, abound. The version of beer and food pairing that I think is probably most […]

Flights and Bites @ Fanny Chadwick’s – 2013

June 20, 2013 in Beer and Food / Ontario Craft Beer Week tagged Beer and Food / Fanny Chadwick's / Flights and Bites / Ontario Craft Beer Week by admin

One of the things that frustrates me when I’m reading a bottle of beer is when there are food pairing suggestions that don’t tell you anything. “Try this with spicy foods,” the label proudly exclaims, as though that conveys any useful information. Usually, when the bottle says something like that […]

Beer and Food Basics: Hops and the Marshall Stack

June 2, 2013 in Accounting for Taste / Beer and Food tagged beer / Cascade / food pairing / Fuggles / hops / Saaz / Turn off your smoke machine and marshall stack / Twisting In The Wind by admin

St. John's Wort

Beery Musings And Amusing Beers