(Disclaimer: This is essentially twice as long as most of my blog posts. Go make a sandwich or something and then come back and read it.) Do you know, as I was walking along Renforth drive over the 427 on my way to the Molson plant this week, I was […]
Accounting for Taste
This week, I received an email from Labatt. They’re launching three new beers. Usually, they’ll put one beer out at a time and get some marketing behind it as an individual property. In this case, they’ve launched a platoon. There’s Blue Dry, a 6.1% version of Blue with a dry […]
Detente OR How I learned to stop worrying and love ...
It is worth noting that Brewing awards tell you one very important piece of information: Which breweries entered beers for consideration. Labatt did. Apparently Molson did not. (Edit: Thanks to Mark Murphy for pointing out that they did, in fact, enter their Rickard’s brands. Not really a good strategic choice […]
The Ontario Brewing Awards – A Thoroughly Biased Annotation
One of the nice things about the craft beer industry is that generally speaking, everyone wants everyone else to succeed. Also, in the rare instances in which this is not the case, both parties are usually too drunk to effectively fight a duel to the death. It’s very much a […]
So What Can We Learn From Duggan’s?
Sunday, about the time that the Blue Jays were demonstrating how not to score any runs, I went to the fridge to get a beer. It seemed to me that there was very little point in yelling at Juan Rivera for being a goldbricking layabout while completely sober. It’s sort […]
In Which My Local LCBO Closes Down
One of the hardest things to deal with in life and in beer writing are those moments when you’re legitimately surprised. Surprise seems to be the LCBO’s stock in trade these days. Gone are the underwhelming release schedules of yesterday. For the last four months or so, they’ve been actually […]
Seasonal Releases and Brewery Features at the LCBO
One of the problems that I encountered when reading about the convoy of beer fermentation tanks that have received so much publicity lately is that they don’t come across on a human scale. It’s hard to imagine a kilometer long convoy of vehicles necessitating the combined efforts of police services, […]
Interesting Facts About The Beer Convoy
As you’re all aware by now, Sam Adams Utopias is on its way to Toronto. It’s going to be $115 per bottle. In order to get a bottle, you have to enter a lottery held by the vintages section of the LCBO! That’s some fancy stuff. There are only 70 […]
Sam Adams Utopias: A Public Service Announcement
A couple of weekends ago, I took a trip to Buffalo with some friends. Ostensibly, we piled into the car for the reason that we wanted to visit the Blue Monk, but given that we could have done that on the bus, the real reason for the trip had to […]
Premiere Gourmet
It’s October, and you know what that means: Somewhere, someone is kissing hands and shaking babies. Across North America, people are on the campaign trail trying to get elected. As if I needed proof of this, I have messages on my cell phone from potential mayoral candidates who think nothing […]