It’s hard to know what to write anymore. It’s not writer’s block exactly. It’s where we are in beer culture. The dirty little secret is that craft beer in Ontario is succeeding even now. Even despite the fact that we are in a correction. You can order it online and […]
You’re still angry about beer taxes, aren’t you? Despite the fact that I illustrated in my last blog post (in January! Remember when I used to review things? Now I just sit here with a fountain pen and a calculator debunking propaganda from lobby groups!) that the escalating federal excise […]
Fun With Numbers: Provincial Excise Tax & The Price Floor
Hi there! Aren’t you angry about TAXES? The Toronto Sun this morning says you should be angry! About TAXES! Taxes on companies which go to pay for roads that they use?! Taxes that pay for your aunt Barb’s splenectomy?! ANGRY! TAXES! RABBLE! Beer Canada would sure like you to be […]
Fun With Numbers: Excise Tax Remittance Edition
1 “If you’re looking for the real thing, he can show you where it went.” – The Band It was July first and I had been booked to appear at one of the reopening weekends for Ontario Place. In principle, speaking as a historian at a Canada Day celebration during the […]
Supper’s Ready
6 “The more it stays the same, the less it changes.” – David St. Hubbins Aging in a Craft Beer context is odd. There are people who turned 19 today who will always have thousands of options and may never see a macro brand. The great joy of teaching Beer Appreciation […]
The Village Green Preservation Society
2 “It is a world within the world, and, if there be such places between the things of the world, places built in the gaps, then surely there are things there, and places between them, and things in those places too.” – William Gibson I never went to Mascot Brewery. Not […]
All Tomorrow’s Parties
3 “Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”? Mark Z. Danielewski How do […]
Now For Plan A
The benefit of walking everywhere is that it does set you up with some context for the thing that you’re about to see. In the case of Toronto, that means that you’re going to see cranes in the sky and streetscapes mostly made up of advertising boards proffering suites from […]
Absolute Beginners
3 “So this is 26 years of experience?” I said to Bim. “Is that what it is? “It’s what you’re doing with it.” “If I had more money, it would have been bigger.” Godspeed Brewing is an odd phenomenon, because so much of it is bound up in expectation. One of […]
A Star To Steer Her By
“Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society— the social ramble ain’t restful.” That was Satchel Paige that said that and while he may have been a good pitcher, his way with a witticism was probably better than Berra. That comes of knowing who you are. […]