Accounting for Taste

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?”

January 16, 2017 in Accounting for Taste by admin

Since I started writing about beer about four and a half years ago, the Ontario situation has become more and more interesting. There are more breweries competing for market share and there’s increased media coverage of the beer retailing problem. Martin Regg Cohn, for instance, has been on fire of […]

The Ontario Problem

December 30, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / The Ontario Beer Revolution by admin

(Ed. Note: Periodically, I’m called upon to do an interview on the radio or in print about Craft Beer. The question that comes up most frequently is really two questions: “Why Craft Beer? Why now?” I do not think that I have ever been able to properly answer that question […]

Why Budweiser Lost

December 20, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Budweiser / TV Party Tonight by admin

Last time we talked about German Beer and Food (scroll down a couple of posts) we had established some pretty basic truths about the situation in Germany prior to the advent of Oktoberfest. We talked about how the flavours in German landrace hops more or less matched the flavours in […]

On Malt Lightening and the Beer Style Continuum

November 24, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / Beer and Food tagged 19th century malt lightening / Anton Dreher / Beer and a Burger / Gabriel Sedlmayr / Oktoberfest Food by admin

This week in the column, I talked about the growing trend for breweries to produce advent calendars. It’s a fun idea and one that I can get behind. With the short days and cold weather, you want to treat yourself nicely and a single high quality beer a day is […]

Advent Calendars – But What If You’re In Ontario

November 22, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Christmas / DIY Advent Calendars / Fezziwig / LCBO / Ontario by admin

Cask Days is this weekend and for Toronto beer drinkers, that’s an event that is more or less Christmas. This year’s specialties are from California, with nearly 40 beers to choose from. There are also 22 beers from England. As if that were somehow not enough, there are 22 ciders […]

Two historical beers you should try at Cask Days

October 23, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / Bar Volo tagged Cask Days / Dring and Fage / Fort Rouille / Helliwell Brewery / Spruce Beer / toronto by admin

Last week (just scroll down a little), we ended up by talking about Oktoberfest and how it’s a sort of benchmark for the modernization of the Bavarian agrarian system. The impressive thing about Oktoberfest is not that it has been going on for 204 years. The impressive thing is how […]

German Beer and Food Part 2: Terrines, Terpenes and Terroir

October 4, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / Beer and Food tagged Canstatter Volksfest / Germany / Herbs / hops / Humulene / Myrcene / Spices / Terroir by admin

One of the things I don’t see people taking into account frequently when they talk about beer is time. I don’t mean that you should drink a hoppy beer when it is fresh (you absolutely should) or that a 2008 Thomas Hardy is probably still too young to drink (it […]

Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff

September 8, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Foothills / New Belgium / Permutative Factorial Functions / Time by admin

One of the things that I find frustrating in writing about beer is the insistence by people that brewing is not first and foremost a business. I have written two histories now and I can claim to understand from its outset the development of brewing in North America. At no […]

Stone’s Indiegogo Campaign is Cynical and Exploitative

July 24, 2014 in Accounting for Taste tagged Indiegogo / Stone Brewing by admin

In undergrad, a friend of mine adopted a principle that allowed him to spend more time playing cards than doing coursework. While he was very interested in doing his best when it came to the courses pertaining to his major, he viewed elective courses as something of an intrusion into […]

On Mediocrity

April 6, 2014 in Accounting for Taste / The Ontario Beer Revolution by admin

St. John's Wort

Beery Musings And Amusing Beers