I spend a lot of time thinking about the state of the Ontario beer market. When I’m trudging about town between various activities, I’ll run into brewers and reps and they will quietly and confidentially intone things to me that make me wonder whether there isn’t a little bit of […]
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1 Ed. Note: I stopped by Rorschach the day we got our advance copies of the second edition of the Ontario Craft Beer Guide. I’d been dropping off a copy for Nicole Crozier at The Auld Spot and the night seemed young. The kind of high spirits that surround having your […]
In Which I Visit Rorschach
1 (Ed.Note: I mentioned previously that it is sometimes hard to know when it is fair to review a brewery. It’s more difficult when there’s a paucity of rumour and innuendo floating around. Some breweries exist as hype beasts and every release is dissected on twitter. Some breweries you don’t hear […]
In Which I Visit The Six Brewhouse
2 Editor’s note: Just going and reviewing a brewery is seemingly an old fashioned idea. When was the last time you saw someone do it? That’s a legitimate question, by the way. If you can picture a Maslow’s hierarchy of beer journalism, reviewing a brewery is somewhere towards the bottom of […]
In Which I Visit Black Lab
1 The Go Train is familiar, but I’m usually pushing on to the end of the line, either Burlington to transfer to Niagara College or Aldershot for Hamilton. The stations between Exhibition and that distant west end of the line dot the landscape between unfamiliar supermarkets and big box stores; the […]
In Which I Visit Stonehooker
6 Last week, I blogged so angry I made the Toronto Star. In 2019. When blogs aren’t a thing. I’m not really that guy. I just act out when I’m frustrated by incompetence. This is going to be a little more reflective of normalcy. Did you know I took finite math […]
Fun with Numbers: Diversity is Important
Hi there. You may notice that I am blogging more than once this week. You may also notice that I don’t get paid to do that. This may explain some of the tone that is about to emerge. I apologize in advance for any cussing. You know I hate cussing. […]
Some Advice for Ontario Craft Brewers On The Recent Kerfuffle.
It’s always hard to know when it is acceptable to review a new brewery. There are a number of schools of thought here. For the Ontario Craft Beer Guide, we included everyone who was open whether we had tried their beers or not, denoting untried products with the designation “NR”. […]
Avling Kitchen and Brewery
2 I don’t quite remember who said it to me (maybe Dave Sun Lee on twitter): “why would you go across town for beer at this point?” A decade ago that question was ridiculous; people would cross the country. With nearly 60 breweries in the city of Toronto, you probably have […]
Longslice Brewery and The Aviary
3 It’s not really St.John, you know. No one really had that as a last name. It wasn’t a medieval occupation like Smith, or Baker, or Fletcher, or Cooper. An eccentric master at school would always ask if it was Sinjin, since I went to Upper Canada and it must have […]