St. John's Wort

In this week’s column, I answered one of the most frequently asked questions that I get, which is “What do YOU drink.” I imagine that anyone with a beer blog or column gets that question quite a bit. Most people go with the tried and tested answer “a lot of […]

The Twisted Kilt

Probably the most interesting thing about the currently available LCBO brewery feature is the fact that many of the beers from Brasserie Dupont are not as easily quantifiable as past featured breweries. If you look, for instance, at one of the first brewery features from Tree Brewing in British Columbia, […]

The LCBO Dupont Brewery Feature

The other day, I was invited to a lunch launching a couple of Goose Island’s beers in Canada. Specifically, Matilda and Sofie. The Goose Island property is a contentious one, and to attempt to relate the details of the lunch without at least acknowledging some basic facts about the brand […]

Beer and Food: Goose Island and Nota Bene

I’m sitting here and I’m trying to come up with an interesting and insightful way to plug The Brewer’s Plate. I mean, you could go with “It’s one of the premiere events of the Toronto beer scene!” or “It just keeps getting bigger and better!” or “I know $125.00 seems […]

In Which I Plug The Brewer’s Plate

Infrequently, I write about things other than beer. This is one of those times. About six weeks ago, I suffered a fracture of the greater tuberosity of the humerus. That’s the sort of knurl of the bone in your upper arm that attaches your bicep and rotator cuff. I had […]

In Which I Break My Arm

Sometimes I get sent a bottle of beer that I don’t know exactly what to do with. In this case, it’s Bush Pilot Brewing Company’s Stormy Monday. I’m a little conflicted about this beer because I’ve seen most of its stages of development. Before it was brewed, I got to […]

They Send Me Beer: Bush Pilot Brewing Company Stormy Monday

When I was in Calgary last month, there was one place I visited that didn’t really fit into the overarching narrative of the beer halls that are springing up there, and this is because it doesn’t really do North American craft beers in the same way that the other beer […]

WURST Calgary

If you’ll recall, I wrote a column early in January about the Hop Mason beer that Keith’s are brewing for pubs in the Prime chain across Canada. The conclusion that I came to was that it was objectively good and that the specs for the beer put it squarely in […]

Keith’s Hop Series

There are advantages to writing a book with a guy. For instance, it’s a good bet that you’re going to get the first samples of his brewery’s new beer. I’m talking of course about Mark Murphy, co-author of How To Make Your Own Brewskis: The Go To Guide For Craft […]

Left Field Brewery

One of the things that has defined the Discount Beer experience for me is the increasingly obvious point that there is a large segment of the market that isn’t drinking beer for flavour. You would think that given 60 products of varying quality that all cost the same amount of […]