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Contract brewing has proved to be a grueling, merciless, low margin, joyless and difficult way to make your way in the beer industry. Consider how hard it is to operate as a physical brewery in Ontario. You’ve got to fight for shelf space in the LCBO and grocery chains or […]

Ace Hill, Lost Craft and Contract Brewing in Ontario

When we were coming up with a rating system for the Ontario Craft Beer Guide, we had a lot of material to work with. We’re familiar with BJCP style guidelines, but the simple fact is that they don’t actually reflect reality terribly well. They are good guidelines for competition because […]

The Ontario Craft Beer Guide: Ratings and Expectation Management

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About two weeks ago I got an email suggesting that a package was being sent to me with a variety of ciders inside. Yesterday a package full of cider showed up at my door with the Strongbow branding on a hamper. I had forgotten entirely about the email by this […]

Macro Cider Reviews and a Stunning Conclusion

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A couple of weeks ago I was sent a few of Sawdust City’s one offs to review. This was, by and large, a good thing. I like having new beers around to try and that can be a hard thing to do at this point. While there are a lot […]

Sawdust City Spring Seasonals Redux

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The best Ontario made beverage that I tasted over the course of the last three years wasn’t a beer. It was a cider. I had been signing copies of Lost Breweries of Toronto at the Only Café’s Winter Beer Fest in 2015 and I’d been sat next to the cider […]

Malus: A Forethought

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It sometimes feels as though I shall be inexorably writing about the launch of a brewpub at 75 Victoria Street. This will be the third time that I’m covering exactly that topic in the space of five years. Originally the building housed Michael Hancock’s Bavarian backed Denison’s brewpub, which lasted […]

In Which I Visit Batch

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Molson Coors has become more interesting as a company of late. This has to do with unpredictability. In previous years (as little as half a decade ago) they were locked in mortal combat with ABI’s Labatt in terms of their release schedule and vice versa. Bud Light Lime Mojito? Coors […]

John H. R. Molson & Bros 1908 Historic Pale Ale

Growing up I was terribly serious. I was 50 when I was 16. I read Hobbes and Marco Polo and Boccaccio and Cervantes for fun. That said, my favorite book, the one that I returned to more often than not, was an odd graphic novel that I’ve never seen in […]

Book Review: The Comic Book Story of Beer

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(Ed. Note: It is probably a conflict of interest to review a book by the guy who has just written a foreword to your own upcoming book. I’m still going to attempt to do it without favoritism. Hopefully he won’t alter the foreword to include phrases like “tubby, flatulent drunkard” […]

Book Review: The Beer and Food Companion by Stephen Beaumont