On Thursday, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Craft Beer Festival at Hart House at the University of Toronto. I don’t get down to Hart House very much. In fact, I think the last time I was there was to see a production of Guys and […]
This morning, when I logged into Bar Towel, I read a very distressing piece of news which had been linked from the Globe and Mail. A tragedy has occurred at the Okanagan Springs Brewery in Vernon, BC. Apparently, a gas buildup in a fermenting vat resulted in an explosion, causing […]
The Wreck of the Okanagan Springs Brewery
Regular readers will have noticed by now that I tend not to review individual beers for my blog. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which are down to mechanics and some of which are down to personal taste. In mechanical terms, I find that I don’t […]
On Palate and Limitations
This weekend at Bar Volo, they’re having a series of tastings and events based around the launch of a number of Products from MicroBrasserie Charlevoix. This is the second such launch from Bar Volo, who are also the brains behind HMH Negotiants, which is dedicated to importing quality beers from […]
Charlevoix @ Bar Volo
One of the main problems in brewing extreme beers is that it goes completely over the head of your primary market. The two examples that I touched on last time are Brew Dog’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin and the Hart & Thistle breweries Hop Mess Monster. Tactical Nuclear Penguin weighs in […]
Tactical Nuclear Penguin and the Hop Mess Monster
One of the best things about craft brewing is that it tends to reward innovation. New developments are typically welcomed by the consumer and indeed talked about online ad nausea. This is as it should be. While there was certainly a period in Ontario during the last twenty years where […]
The Ontario IPA Challenge
Today, I’d like to talk about marketing: Specifically the most recent ad campaign for Molson Canadian. If you watch prime time TV, you’ve probably seen this one already, but the link to the commercial is here. “We Canadians see things a little differently. We don’t see cliffs, we see diving […]
Molson Canadian – Made Up Canada
If you’ve been to the LCBO or beer store in the last year, you’ve probably seen large standees advertising Light Lime beers which have been designed to be tasty summer beverages. I thought about buying a number of them and sampling them and making elaborate tasting notes in order to […]
Lime Flavoured Beer – A Sociological Experiment
One of the things that makes sites like Ratebeer and Beer Advocate work is the fact that, by and large, human physiognomy is a bit same-y. We’ve all got approximately the same number of arms and legs and we’re fairly similar in terms of the amount of sensory data we […]
On Personal Preference and Favorite Beers
Bar Volo has acquired quite a reputation for itself. Between the annual Cask Days festival, the rotating tap selection and continued importation of rare and interesting bottles, it has managed to rank 61st in Beer Traveler Magazine’s 150 Perfect Places to Have A Beer. I can tell you right now […]