Sometimes, even in a pandemic, things work out. 

You may remember, way back in 2019, Fullers was purchased by Asahi. I had been to London in 2018 and had been told by Tim Holt and Pete Brown and just about everyone that Fullers’ was “more of a pub company now.” This turned out to be prescient and the pub chain expanded precipitously when it made the deal with Asahi.

I was not worried about Fullers because typically your large Japanese brewing consortium is going to purchase a property and then allow it to breathe. In Ontario, though, we lost ESB and Porter from the LCBO shelves overnight. 

As someone who had been to the GBBF in 2018 and had tried the John Keeling recreation of the original Fullers’ ESB with Moor both in cask and in bottle, the loss of ESB from the LCBO hit me hard; mostly the part of me that plans lessons. Every eight weeks or so I would stand in front of a group of twenty or so people and explain that they referred to it as liquid marmalade. With that beer unavailable, I’ve been looking for a replacement. (The Vintage Ale is in stock now, just in case you were wondering)

Now, exclusive of that having happened, you may know that my Mom is something of a beer person. When I was about thirteen and brew-on-premise started up in Ontario, she made a cracking batch of Czech Pilsner somewhere in a Swansea strip mall and served it to her hospital softball team at the annual picnic.

She had always wanted me to do a collaboration. The idea of cask beer at, for example, a St. George’s Day dinner in Kingston at the cathedral was tempting, but you can’t really just make one cask. Besides which, you need the firkin and the hardware and the willingness to really make a mess out of the carpet in the great hall if things go wrong. I’ve seen casks explode without provocation. It happened to me once mid-bookstore and I had to launch Lost Breweries of Toronto covered in Brown Ale.

My younger brother, Blake, ended up in charge of the lunch program at St. George’s. It’s called Lunch by George and they feed somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred and twenty five people a day. Sometimes they are able to give out clothing or other useful items depending on what’s to hand. He’s doing a great job and I’m very proud of him.

Food insecurity is big with me. On March 15, 2020, I lost something like five jobs. While I had writing work, you can’t really live on sporadic writing work in Toronto. I worked in education, tourism, and event logistics at the time and everything was trending up until about March. I remember the feeling of abject panic standing in front of a room of students and suggesting that there might not be class the next week, but that I’d keep them informed. I ended up scrounging marked down groceries for six months. For several weeks I knew the contents of the change dish down to a nickel.

I can’t say that I understand every crisis that people go through. It’s a complicated world and there are all sorts of problems in it that come in many different flavours. I do understand hunger and worry about it. I understand the pressures you’re placed in by not having very much money. I had a crash course in it.

When I suggested to Spearhead Brewing that I would like to do a collaborative beer and donate some of the proceeds, something like a quarter a can, to Lunch By George, Josh Hayter didn’t even hesitate. He just asked when I was available. He’s like that; big hearted and willing to say yes. 

With the lunch program being at St. George’s Cathedral, the story of St. George and the Dragon seemed the obvious choice for the name. It’s a knight! With a spear! Slaying the embodiment of hunger! The can text pretty largely wrote itself. The can art is tremendous. It will be available on t-shirts in case you fancy one!

Dragon Slayer was designed with Tomas and Jacob Schmidt and is attempting to be homage to Fullers’ ESB from the 1970’s. It ended up a little lower in alcohol, but we’ve got Maris Otter, a little Dark Crystal, and some Black Patent Malt for colour correction. We’ve got Challenger, Fuggles, and East Kent Goldings which should give it some verisimilitude. 

I don’t know that it will be perfect but it might be close to the original. For one thing, we don’t have whole cone hops. For another, I’m not sure we’ll be able to get it into a cask, but we might try for an event at Red House in November.

The brewing system at Spearhead is so advanced that there are not a huge number of pictures you can effectively take of the brew day. I have raked out enough mash tubs on camera over the years and I always feel I look a little silly doing it. I also felt silly posing next to the console with my finger over the transfer button so I made Jacob do it. I feel like I look a little silly most of the time.

Dragon Slayer should be out sometime around mid-November and I hope people will like it. It represents a lot of loose threads being tied together in a neat little package. Most importantly, it’ll help people who need some lunch or a warm coat, and it’s hard to ask for more than that. If that sounds good to you, you might buy some beer when it comes out or find a local program to help out if Kingston seems too distant.