We complain a lot about beer in Ontario. We complain that the LCBO’s monopoly means that we can’t get anything interesting. We complain that The Beer Store is run by huge multinational companies primarily interested in maintaining their control. I am now literally complaining about the fact that we complain, […]
Ed. Note: Sometimes, just sometimes, you realize that there are topics other than beer available to you to write about. Periodically, they may show up here. We will almost certainly return you to your regularly scheduled beer blogging in the next couple of days. A couple of years ago, one […]
A Brief Interlude from Writing About Beer
Sometimes, I’ll just flat out over think things. Like, with the Barley’s Angels launch, I ended up over thinking a lot of the questions that I was going to ask in order to put together an article. Initially, my thought process involved questions like “Is the appropriation of the idea […]
Barley’s Angels: The Drinking Habits of the North American Human ...
If you’re new to being a nationally syndicated beer writer, like myself, it’s easy to dramatize things unnecessarily inside your head. Deadlines tend to loom larger in your mind than they have any right to, possibly due to the ominousness of the term. The Sun column is 600 words, after […]
Molson M
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
You may well have noticed that it has been a while since my last update here. That’s mostly due to the fact that last week I was writing sample pieces for Sun Media. You can imagine my surprise when I actually got the gig yesterday. That’s right: I’m now officially […]
Recent Developments
If you’re an amateur brewer, you’re probably familiar with the phrase, “Relax! Have a homebrew.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this to be the comforting mantra that it is no doubt intended to be. In the back of my head when I’m brewing beer I’m mostly […]
Great Lakes/St.John’s Wort Collaboration #2 – Adequacy Prevails!
Recently, I had an email from the nice folks over at Media Profile, who have sent me a release saying that public documents from the histories of the Molson and Labatt families are now available online as part of a promotion for Ancestry.ca. This is no time to pause and […]
The Molsons, The Labatts and The St.Johns
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
There’s been quite a bit of enthusiasm recently for a new program that has been airing on the Discovery Channel in the states. Brew Masters is hosted by Sam Calagione, who is the man behind Dogfish Head in Delaware. It begins broadcasting on the 17th on Discovery Canada and will […]