Competition tends to bring out the worst in people and for all that brewers exist in a sort of brotherhood (siblinghood, so as not to exclude the brewsters) most of the time, there is a significant amount of smacktalk that surrounds events where there’s going to be a significant amount of friendly rivalry. One such event was Barrel Bragging Rights at the Monk’s Table last night.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, Mike Warner from A Year of Beer organized an event whereby a number of local bloggers and beer writers were tasked with teaming up with a brewer in order to design and brew a beer to be served on cask at the Monk’s Table. It’s a departure for the midtown pub in that they mostly serve European imports. I wouldn’t want to say that this was the first time that they’d had Ontario beers on offer, but if it isn’t it’s a near run thing.

The thing is that objectively, I’m not sure that the event should have worked. Not a lot of beer writers and bloggers have experience brewing anything for public consumption. Oh sure, we’re pretty in touch with the brewing scene in Ontario and a lot of us have pretty good ideas, but the realization of those ideas is usually beyond us. Essentially, most of the success can be attributed to the brewers we teamed up with, who patiently listened to our ideas and then explained why they wouldn’t work. Originally, I had suggested attempting to define a new style of beer by attempting a White IPA. I think the only people that had tried that before were Deschutes and Boulevard, who had collaborated.

Between us, we had managed to come up with some beers that should probably have been untenable. Chris Grimley and Mike Lackey had a sort of peppered Saison. Matt Caldwell and Andrew Bartle ended up brewing something between a brown ale and a porter that involved date sugar and a lot of brown malt. Josh Rubin from The Star made an Imperial Milk Stout and used the two gallon wooden barrel to his advantage by soaking the insides with brandy (I think he’s the only one of us with an expense account).

In the days leading up to the event, there was a lot of infighting on twitter. I, for one, went into full on WWE promo mode, stealing heavily from The Rock. I may have even used the phrase “roody-poo candy-ass” when describing Chris Grimley. I even went so far as to troll Josh Rubin by sampling his beer at the brewery before it was casked. I took a picture of his beer and tweeted “This is your beer.” I took a picture of me drinking his beer and tweeted “This is me drinking your beer.”

By the time we arrived at the Monk’s Table, we had all pretty much given up on that line of spirited japery. There was a lot of nervous energy, mostly because some of us hadn’t tasted the beers that we designed yet. We didn’t know how they would be received. Around 4:30, the terrible thought occurred to us “what if no one shows up?” Ideally, the upside of having all of the beer writers in the city involved in an event is that there will, at the very least, be a lot of publicity for the event. If no one showed up, it would mean that our efforts were really some sort of recursive loop and we were the only audience for our writing. We can be a little backslappy and self congratulatory, but that would actually confirm our worst fears.

It turns out we needn’t have worried. By 5:00, there was a lineup of about 40 and people just kept coming. I’ve never seen the Monk’s Table that busy. If pressed, I’d be forced to admit that I’ve never seen ANY pub that busy. Judging by the looks on the faces of the staff, I would bet that they hadn’t either. I don’t know what the capacity is for the location, but we were pushing the limit. This reinforces my opinion that Adam Grant is an extraordinarily shrewd pub owner.

Here’s the thing: I was prepared for all of the beer to be at least drinkable. We were working with talented brewers and they weren’t going to let us down. Using oak barrels added a bit of difficulty, but realistically, wasn’t that big a problem even if people hadn’t used them before. After all, we’ve got google.

I wasn’t prepared for the majority of the beers to be excellent, though. It was genuinely surprising. Aside from one entry that was a little wine-y, I would have ordered all of them again. For me the standout was the Black Creek/Dick Snyder collaboration IPA, which was as good as any IPA I’ve tried in Ontario. It was balanced, nuanced, delicious. I’m not sure I’ve ever met Dick Snyder, but congratulations are due; also to Ed, the brewer. I got the dregs of the cask on that one, and felt absolutely no regret in preventing other people from trying it.

The winner was Pantalon Saison brewed by Chris Grimley and Mike Lackey, and it probably should have been, given that it was a public judging. Not only was it of really high quality, but it had a small advantage in that there was enough of it that more people got to try it and probably derived more votes because of that. It likely would have won even without that advantage. I must therefore retract my assertion that Chris Grimley is a “roody-poo candy-ass.” His status is hereby upgraded to “Jabroni.”

The competition does make me wonder. Since beer writers tend to have some pretty good ideas, and local brewers are clearly able to run with them, I don’t see why this kind of thing shouldn’t happen more often. This time we ended up with Sumac, date sugar, and brandy as ingredients. I’m not sure that would have happened organically without the competition. It seems like it could be a good ongoing resource.

I tied for third place with Josh Rubin, whose beer was great, if heavy for the season. This means that the eternal battle between The Toronto Star and The Toronto Sun continues.

Next time, Rubin. Next time.