Monday, January 19
I know things are going badly when local radio wants to talk to me.
With talk radio, since I am brought on as an expert on beer taxes and the craft beer segment, there is usually something going on by the time my name comes up in a production meeting. This week, it’s a CBC piece from Alberta about whether the Craft Beer market is losing its fizz that has prompted a round of lamentation from the antenna set. I get to do ten minutes at 9:20 in the morning, which at least means that I’ve gotten a cup of coffee in me by the time I have to talk. It goes pretty well, and I make the usual caveats about how it’s a generational business and Molson’s longevity is sort of an aberration.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going well at the moment. I’ve let Jason Foster in Alberta know that I have updated numbers from the ones I shared in November. People ask whether I’m angry about him using my data. Who do you think gave him the data? Why wouldn’t most of the high level industry observers across the country talk to each other? It’s reciprocal. I’m not sure who I’d talk to about the Maritimes, but I’m sure we have an equivalent out there.
The morning takes a turn when it turns out the WSET Level 1 Award in Beer program I’ve been promoting at George Brown is cancelled for lack of enrollment. The number of personnel in the office is reduced, so they don’t want to wait until the day it’s meant to start, but it seems early to me. The idea that I’m promoting it on my own social media as one of the sole forms of marketing grates a little, especially because I’ll have to answer questions if it’s not available. It makes me look a little silly.
Between the radio and the school and remitting taxes to the CRA, it does feel somewhat as though the walls are closing in. I finish editing quite a long section of the book while listening to Mozart and Erik Satie.
Tuesday, January 20
Having spent much of Saturday checking on all of the breweries in Ontario and updating their status in the spreadsheet, I’m now creating an outline for the timeline that goes on the OCB website. This includes looking at openings, closures, and changes in ownership and attempting to figure out at what point each brewery opened, closed, or got purchased by Lake of Bays. It is the kind of task where you procrastinate by going through several pens until you’re satisfied with your choice. I settled on a Micron .08.
Following a trip to the Harvest Wagon for a Flashfood pickup (Referral code: JORD2SDPX) and a whip round Summerhill for some Czechvar Dark, I’m home to watch Carney speak at Davos, which turns out to be whatever the equivalent of a Rubicon is for Canada. Probably the St. Lawrence River, depending on how they come at us. I’m reminded of something Frank McCourt’s father said to him home from the pub, “would you die for Ireland?”
Buddy, I’m not even paying full price for Sourdough.
Editing for the day includes a section on the Front of House that Ron says he had trouble with. It’s actually quite good. Periodically he mentions that he didn’t think he would have to write as much as he is writing. Most people writing their first book think that. I did.
After starting in on the timeline for the OCB, I call it a night when the subject of Greenland becomes a distraction. I have Czech Hermelin and Dark Beer as a snack. Nakladany Hermelin is a sort of cheese similar to camembert which is marinated with onions, garlic, allspice berries, black peppercorns, thyme, paprika, and bay leaves. You cut a wheel of bloomed rind cheese in half horizontally and then into triangles or smaller pieces. The mixture is covered with oil and you let it sit for at least a week in the fridge. Serve on toasted dark bread which has been rubbed with raw garlic and serve with some manner of bitter Czech lager. Be careful not to get an allspice berry by mistake. It’s punchy enough without that experience.
Wednesday, January 21
The nice thing about data entry and writing from home is that you can get into a routine. There’s no commute, so you’re up at 8:00 and at the desk with coffee in hand by 8:15. The OCB timeline document takes most of the day.
Since I’m having to track changes it makes sense to get the map updated on the website. For each opening and closure, I have to check social media and figure out exactly when in the year it happened. For each significant change in ownership, I have to justify the number of corporate entities. For the map, it makes sense to list all the locations of breweries since it’s public facing. For the timeline, it makes sense to track ownership. It seems to be 311 corporations at the moment. I finish the timeline by about dinner time after a day and a half of writing.
Keith Lemcke, late of Siebel in Chicago and now at large in the Goose Island tap, sends me a German economist who has questions about how liquor retail and interprovincial boundaries work within Canada. Instead of simply answering, “badly,” I ask for some thinking time to ensure I understand the issue correctly. She is confused as to whether Doug Ford is a conservative or a populist and doesn’t know what to make of the Crown Royal controversy with Diageo. I explain that he’s probably a protectionist, which is popular at the moment and that it’s mostly bluster because it worked last time.
Amsterdam Brewing gets in touch with a number of people who would like to sign up for the now cancelled WSET Level 1 Award in Beer course that would have started on the 26th. I forward them to the school. Over the course of the day, several people ask whether it will be offered online. At least the social media word of mouth seems to be drumming up interest.
The difficulty, really, is how to know whether to continue trying to market a course that could be cancelled if there isn’t enough interest. For all that I look silly in the moment, eventually it will work out. Presumably, reduced access will focus candidates into the lessened enrollment options throughout the year, but for the time being I may as well be on sabbatical.
Thursday, January 22
Charlene gets in touch from Food & Drink to make sure I’m on schedule for the piece due Friday. This is because my estimate has not made it into the accountant’s hands. It turns out Freshbooks doesn’t necessarily get accepted by every email server, so I download a PDF and bung it along.
A 325 word feature pays comparatively handsomely, but if we’re honest, most of the work and product choice was done during the outline, so this comes down to the luxurious puzzle of creating flow and choosing exactly the right wording. You could be forgiven for putting on some Brubeck (Strange Meadowlark) or Oscar Peterson (Waltzing is Hip) and soaking in the task. You want precision and lightness. Sometimes music gets you that headspace.
Having finished editing a section on Robbie Burns dinners, I’m now at the point where all the material on The Granite that has been submitted has been edited. The next step will be re-organizing the material that exists. Some of it makes sense chronologically and some of it is separated into aspects of running a hospitality business. The consideration is now flow, so I’ll take two days off and then re-read everything and see how we can justify various parts. I also owe the project some material, but I want that to fit an already justified text.
Kyle Osland from Horizon drops off non-alcoholic beers from Mikkeller and Force Majeure. We’ve come a long way from Partake, which is thin bodied and frankly dreadful.
Instead of non-alcoholic beer, I drink an O’Hara’s Leann Folainn, a terrific Irish Extra Stout that Eoghan Walsh talks about in Pellicle. If you haven’t had it from the LCBO, you probably need to. It’s a rare instance of a modern brewery from Ireland coming up with a classic. Beautifully balanced. I used to get O’Hara’s three bottle gift pack once a year just to get one. Now we have single bottles. Trust someone who’s seen everything come through for the last fifteen years: you want this.
Friday, January 23
A nice young man from the Toronto Star wants the skinny on the closures of Biermarkt and Pre-Nup. He wonders whether people are losing interest in import beers. I politely set him straight on the fact that the content is coincidence and that commonality is the lease on each place, which are at at about 25 and 10 years respectively. Biermarkt is a cavern of a tavern famous mostly for Rob Ford having done coke there. The price per square foot must be horrifying on the Esplanade. Pre-Nup is going to be Condos and Atef Girgis has opened two new locations in the last two years. Poor fella heard hoofbeats and thought zebras.
With admin complete and copy submitted and a whiteboard full of post-its, I’m done for the day at 4:15, and crack into the Force Majeure non-alc beers for something to do. It turns out they’re actually good.
Enough tip money has come in from the map that I’m able to buy the New Mexico expansion for American Truck Simulator. I’m hauling chemicals from Long Beach to Beaumont, Texas and listening to KLOR out of Ponca City, Oklahoma and it sounds to me as though the American Midwest is really in for a beating from the Polar Vortex. In Toronto, you just sort of put on long underwear and deal with it. In Oklahoma, there’s a good chance you could actually freeze. Not much you can do but shove it into overdrive until you can stop at a choke and puke for a pound of ground round, good buddy.
The mindless repetition is an excellent break from the doom scrolling. Eventually, I’m even signalling turns and using camera mode to take pictures of landscape features. Where’s a Buc-ee’s when you need one?
Saturday, January 24
I spend a decent portion of the morning responding to the German Economist who wants to know about Canadian alcohol laws. Apparently inter-provincial restrictions are set to end in May 2026, which is potentially a good thing, although more for high end purchases than for saving a couple of bucks on a case. I explain about Gerald Comeau and how people in Ottawa just go to Gatineau as a matter of course. The issue is largely performative as I know for certain that the quart bottles of 50 and Export they served at the Imperial Pub were bootleg Quebec product and they never seemed to make the paper.
I probably shouldn’t have watched the footage from Minnesota, but here we are in an afternoon long existential spiral where once again the rule of law and everything else you’ve surmised to be stable is shown to be pretty largely a fiction circumvented by psychopathic gun thugs and their fascistic puppetmasters. You have to feel for the people whose health care premiums have skyrocketed over the last month and who are still being told the immigrants are the problem. The naked faithlessness and perfidy are what get me most. Promise whatever sounds good while stripping the copper out of the walls. Eventually, one of those walls will be load bearing.
On the bright side, it’s Robbie Burns at the Granite and the promise of haggis and whiskey and good company is cheering. Turns out the haggis is from Sanagan’s at this point, and really very good. I don’t know if I’ve ever had much better. The level of heat on the Scotch Broth was just about perfect. When the table is served pitchers, it’s hard to know quite how much beer you consumed, but sometimes you’re better off not thinking about it if you’ve consumed a quarter of a haggis.
Sunday, January 25
An actual day off. Snow. Bob’s Burgers. I pop out briefly to the Bayview No Frills before noon and visibility is down to zero. If this is an Orange snow warning, I’d hate to see Red.
I take some time in the evening to fill out the ballot for Canada’s 50 Best Bars. While it’s odd to be on a voting panel for such a thing, I find the majority of voters are into cocktails specifically. That said, I put forward True History whose coverage for Beisl should assist them this year, and Isle De Garde, which has something for everyone. I give a nod to the Wolfe Tone and Bar Volo. Some maniac has snuck Sneaks onto the list of options and I throw it in as a fifth option. Why shouldn’t we value authenticity and a discount burrito? I can get a negroni anywhere, but it takes years to develop a patina of filth.