Beer, Beats & Bites

Half a Year of Beer

December 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Holy crap – I’m posting here two days in a row! Can’t remember the last time that happened.

Although to be fair, this one is a bit of a cheat, as it’s just going to be a list of links to all of the beer & booze-related articles I’ve written for Taste T.O. in the six months since the last time I did this sort of round-up. Which means that some of them aren’t especially timely now, but at least it’s proof that I actual do something useful with my time for at least an hour or two each week:

Dec 15th: Spread Some Christmas Cheer With The Gift of Beer
Dec 8th: Beer of the Week – F&M Stonehammer Oatmeal Coffee Stout
Dec 1st: Beer of the Week – Rogue Yellow Snow IPA
Nov 24th: Beers of the Week: OCB Discovery Pack No. 3
Nov 17th: Beer of the Week – Rickard’s Dark
Nov 10th: Beer of the Week – Denison’s Weissbier
Nov 3rd: I Can Has New Liver? – A Drink Writer’s Diary
Oct 27th: Beer of the Week – Dieu Du Ciel Corne du Diable
Oct 20th: Beer of the Week – John Sleeman Presents Bock
Oct 13th: Beer of the Week – Trafalgar Hop Nouveau
Oct 6th: Beer of the Week – Frankenheim Alt
Sep 29th: Beer and Brawn at The Bar and Bench
Sep 22nd: Beer of the Week – Victory Prima Pils
Sep 15th: Beers of the Week – Moosehead Light Lime & Red Baron Lime
Sep 8th: Beer of the Week – Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale
Aug 18th: Brewing Up Some History at Black Creek
Aug 11th: Beer of the Week – New Grist Gluten-Free
Aug 4th: Pub Crawl – The Ceili Cottage
Jul 28th: Beer of the Week – Creemore Springs Kellerbier
Jul 21st: Beer of the Week – Nickel Brook Organic Lager
Jul 14th: Craft Beer, Charcuterie and Cheese: 3 C’s at c5
Jul 7th: Beer of the Week – Amsterdam Oranje Wit
Jun 30th: Beers of the Week – Pump House Fire Chief’s Red Ale & Blueberry Ale
Jun 23rd: Pub Crawl – The Queen and Beaver Public House
Jun 16th: Beers of the Week – Cameron’s Cream Ale & Muskoka Cream Ale
Jun 9th: Beers of the Week – Innis & Gunn Blonde and Innis & Gunn Canadian Cask
Jun 2nd: Beers of the Week – Mill Street Sampler Six-Pack

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Taste T.O. · beer reviews · pub reviews

Innis & Gunn Rum Cask

December 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

This is one in an occasional series of posts reviewing various beers from Innis & Gunn. For the previous post in the series, covering Innis & Gunn Original, click here.

When I wrote my first in this series of Innis & Gunn reviews back in mid-October, I didn’t expect that I’d be posting them on such a glacial schedule. But as is usual for this blog, it’s taking me longer than hoped due to the thousand-and-one other things to which I’ve got myself committed. (Which reminds me that it’s been ages since I last posted a round-up to my beer-related posts on Taste T.O. – I really should get around to that sometime as well…)

Anyway, in the nearly two months between then and now, one of those “other things” that I was lucky enough to do was  attend a dinner presented by the secretive underground dining club Charlie’s Burgers that featured Innis & Gunn beers paired with food prepared by Jonathan Gushue and Victor DeGuzman, the Executive Chef and Executive Sous Chef respectively at Langdon Hall, one of the top restaurants in North America. The food was absolutely stellar, one of the most memorable meals I’ve had in my life, and I was especially impressed by the pairings given that the chefs admitted that they’d never done a beer dinner before. While not every match was absolutely perfect, most were excellent, and there were no train-wrecks.

With so many great dishes and solid pairings to choose from, it was hard to pick a favourite. The poached Colville Bay oysters paired with I&G IPA was a surprisingly solid match, and the pure decadence of the Atlantic lobster in hand-churned butter with pig cheek and foie gras torchon would’ve blown me away even if the beer on the side, I&G Original, hadn’t been such a good accompaniment.

Since it was a multi-course tasting menu, there was traditional “main” course for the dinner, but the final course before dessert was an outstanding elk tenderloin served with smoked tongue (better than it sounds!) and several sides, all paired with Innis & Gunn Rum Cask. It was a great match, and while the bottle I had at home a few weeks later wasn’t paired with such an exciting dish – just a couple of pieces of good chocolate – it was still enjoyable.

I&G Rum Cask  is currently available in Ontario as part of the I&G “Connoisseur’s Oak Collection” holiday gift pack along with bottles of I&G Original and IPA and a nice branded glass. It’s apparently slightly different from the version that was available in single bottles last December, but my impressions were so close to what I wrote about the 2008 version on Taste T.O. that I might as well quote myself:

It has a much darker reddish hue than [I&G Original], and a deeper and richer aroatma with strong notes of spice, rum and sweet toffee. Rum also comes through prominently in the flavour, along with sweet malt and a bit of oak, and a mild spiciness in the finish. It’s a warm and flavourful beer that could be enjoyed with many desserts and sweets, or just on its own as a pleasant nightcap.

My only criticism, which is the same one I’ve lodged against other I&G beers, is that the fairly light body doesn’t quite hold up to the flavour, although I’m sure that my strong appreciation for the barrel-aged imperial stouts and barley wines that are becoming more and more common in the US craft brewing scene may be influencing my opinion in that matter. To others, it may seem just right. Either way, it’s a tasty winter treat.

Next up: I&G Triple Matured. Watch for it sooner than two months from now, hopefully…

→ Leave a CommentCategories: UK · ale · beer dinners · beer reviews · food pairings

Movember: The Evidence & A Final Plea

November 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Only one more day in the month of November, which means one more day of Movember, which means I’ll be able to shave this goddamn beer-foam-catching thing off my face in 24 hours or so.

In the meantime – I need to make one final plea for donations. ‘Cause I didn’t grow this ’stache just for the fun of it. And all those cancerous prostates ain’t gonna heal themselves!

If you’d like to make a donation, please click here to support me and my mustachioed team, and help to raise awareness and money for the fight against prostate cancer. If enough of you come through for me, I promise that I’ll try and actually write a couple of proper blog posts later this week!

→ Leave a CommentCategories: administrative

Movember

November 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

If you’ve noticed a number of your usually clean-shaven male friends and acquaintances growing moustaches in the last couple of weeks, it’s probably not a coincidence. While some of them might just be getting ready to keep their upper lips warm this winter, most are probably participating in Movember, an annual event where men worldwide help raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer by growing a moustache.

Yes, really.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of facial hair. When I was young(er) and stupid(er), I did have something on my chin for a few months that I called “a goatee” and my girlfriend (now wife) called “that fucking thing on your chin”. But until a couple of weeks ago, when one of my co-workers convinced me to join in on the Movember fun, I’d never considered growing a ’stache.

Now that I’ve done so, I understand why, as it’s started bugging the hell out of me and looks kinda ridiculous. Although that latter problem is mostly due to the fact that I’ve foolishly opted for the full-on trucker/porn star/Hulk Hogan style. But what the hell, it’s only for a month, and it’s for a good cause.

Speaking of which – the main point of me growing this monstrosity is to raise some bucks for prostate cancer research, so I’d be much obliged if you click here and donate. If enough of you do so, I might be convinced to post a photo of myself at the end of the month when the mo’ should be getting nice and shaggy.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: administrative

A Pair from Propeller

November 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

propeller_pumpkinandhefeweizen

Yes, I know that  promised a series of Innis & Gunn review posts, and they’ll be coming soon eventually, and more as well. But I wanted to get this post up quickly while at least one of the beers is still in season.

The trigger for this was a package I got from Propeller Brewery in Halifax a couple of weeks ago with some bottles of this year’s batch of their Pumpkin Ale. It’s a beer that I liked a lot when I tried the 2006 version, so I was happy to give it another go, and even happier to find it just as good as I remembered it. In fact, based on this tasting notes from back in ‘06…

Hazy light gold with a massive rocky white head. Big pumpkin pie aroma – cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mutmeg, pumpkin – very nice! Body is quite aggressively carbonated at first, but mellows as it warms and flattens a bit. Flavour of a pleasant, well-made golden ale laced with pumpkin and spice, and a dry finish with an interesting lemon cookie note. Very refreshing brew that lacks the cloying character that taints some other pumpkin beers I’ve tried.

… it appears that it hasn’t changed much since then. Which is perfectly fine.

And since I was in a Propeller mood tonight, I reached further into the fridge for the bottle of Propeller Hefeweizen that my friends Jeremy and Karen passed on to me a couple of months ago. I really should’ve had it sooner, as it was already 4 or 5 months old by then, and hefes are always better fresh. But it was still in OK shape considering:

Cloudy golden with a medium white head that recedes to a thin film that sticks around through the whole glass. Lightly yeasty aroma with hints of lemon and pineapple. Good mouthfeel with a nice level of carbonation. Flavour is a bit muted, but what’s there is pleasant, with nice tropical and citrus fruit notes, some crispness from the wheat, and a mildly spicy and yeasty finish. Based on the label, it looks like this was bottled back in April, so drinking it six months later I’m obviously not getting it at it’s prime. It’s still a decent hefe, though.

I briefly considered making it a Halifax trio and cracking the Garrison Hop Yard I’ve got chilling in there, but it’s getting late. So I decided to hold off, and will perhaps bring it out along with a bottle of the Ol’ Fog Burner Barley Wine that I’ll be reviewing later this week for the next issue of TAPS.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: ale · beer reviews · seasonals · spiced · wheat

Innis & Gunn Original

October 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment

innisandgunn_original

I have too much beer.

Well, OK, that’s not entirely accurate. I only have about 100 bottles on hand right now, which is a small drop in a large bucket compared to a few people I know who have beer cellars that are large enough to be worth more than the GDP of a small country.

The problem, though, is that between the ol’ day job and a deluge of dinners, tastings and other things I’ve been attending recently, I’m rarely drinking any beer at home. And when I do get the chance to do so, it’s usually when I’m taking advantage of having a bit of down time to watch TV or a movie, and I don’t want to drink anything that I need to think about or take notes on.

As a result, I’m faced with a backlog of brews that I’ve received or picked up to write about. And in the case of the stuff I’ve been sent, I’m starting to feel guilty about letting the bottles sit and wait to be consumed and reviewed.

This is especially true of the assorted Innis & Gunn beers that their Canadian rep Nicol Rennie passed on to me a couple (or more accurately, a few) weeks ago. Nic was kind enough to give me a couple of bottles of their Triple-Matured version which recently hit the shelves in Ontario, as well as their upcoming holiday gift pack which has bottles of I&G Original, IPA, and Rum Cask editions along with a lovely glass. So having them sit undrunk for so long is making me feel like a bit of a schmuck.

Keep reading →

→ Leave a CommentCategories: UK · ale · beer reviews

Chill Out

October 12, 2009 · 2 Comments

miller_chillA few weeks back, I did a write-up for Taste T.O. on Moosehead Light Lime and Red Baron Lime, a pair of beers that hit the shelves in Ontario in the dying days of summer, attempting to ride to coattails of the incomprehensibly popular Bed Light Lime. You can click through to read the whole thing if you’d like, but the condensed version is that neither of them is especially good when judged purely as a beer, but the Red Baron was at least a drinkable and somewhat refreshing beverage.

Soon afterwards, I got an email from Adam Moffat, a rep from Molson who I’ve met a couple of times, with an offer to send me a sample of Miller Chill. While not available in Ontario, Molson has recently introduced it into the Alberta market, and Adam was curious to know what I might think of it, even given my general dislike for the lime beer gimmick. I took him up on the offer, making it clear that he shouldn’t expect a glowing review, and he followed through with a delivery a couple of days later.

In my typical fashion, I stuck a bottle in the fridge and then promptly forgot about it until this evening when I found it stashed in the back. With the temperature outside hovering down near the freezing point, it’s certainly not ideal weather for what’s supposed to be a summer quaffer, but I’ve never been one to worry about that sort of thing. So let’s get this done…

It pours a pale gold with a small white head that disappears remarkably quickly. The aroma is initially not so pleasant, offering that stale malt and wet corn husk smell that I get from many mass produced lagers, but that slowly clears and is replaced with notes of candyish lime. The body is thin and crisp, as expected from a light lager, and the flavour holds very little that can be described as “beer-like” – it’s more reminiscent of Sprite with a very, very faint wisp of malt.

Bottom line: Like the three aforementioned products, this is not a brew for serious beer drinkers. It’s for people who want to throw back a few lightly flavoured and slightly sweet alcoholic beverages on a patio, or at a party, or in other situations where people drink a lot without really thinking about what they’re drinking. Regardless of how much it may offend my pretentious beer geek sensibilities, there obviously is – and always will be – a large market for such beers, and for better or worse, Miller Chill serves that market well.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: beer reviews · fruit beer · lager · macrobrews

A Taste of Niagara’s Best

August 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

niagarasbest_gianttap

As I’ve mentioned previously, the wife and I don’t get out of the city very often, so we were glad to have the chance to take a quick day trip down to Niagara Falls earlier this month with a couple of friends (and fellow beer geeks) to check out the recently opened Niagara’s Best Brewery & Pub.

Folks familiar with the very mainstream and somewhat unexciting Blonde Ale and Logger Lager brewed by Niagara’s Best at their previous brewery-only location in St. Catharines might wonder why we would drive for a couple of hours to visit the new place, and if that’s all they had on offer, we surely wouldn’t have bothered. But brewer Ian Watson has taken full advantage of the increased flexibility offered by a brewpub operation and has developed a line-up of nine regular brews plus a rotating “Brewer’s Special” tap, so there was much more incentive to make the journey.

Keep reading →

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Ontario · brewpubs · travel

Five Reasons Why Toronto’s Festival Of Beer Didn’t Totally Suck This Year

August 8, 2009 · 3 Comments

LEFT: One of the few reasons that Toronto's Festival of Beer doesn't completely suck - RIGHT: Two of the many, many reasons that it mostly does suck

LEFT: One of the few reasons that Toronto's Festival of Beer doesn't completely suck - RIGHT: Two of the many, many reasons that it mostly does suck

Several years ago, I accepted that I’m not in the target market for Toronto’s Festival of Beer. Despite assurances in the program that the event caters to the “beer enthusiast” with “an astute palate”, it really is a ridiculously overpriced celebration of swill that is oriented more and more towards fratboys and douchebags every year. From the stupid “hats” made out of six-pack boxes being handed out by Steam Whistle (seriously, folks – penises and boobies? Are you all in Grade 5 or something?), to the booth girls who are hired based on their breast cleavage rather than their beer knowledge, to the massive and obnoxious “Brand Experience Areas” offering such fine beverages as Budweiser and Tecate, the Festival manages to represent pretty much everything that is offensive and embarrassing about the mainstream beer market.

That said, I still take up the offer of a media pass every year and go check it out, and I always manage to find at least a couple of things that save my visit from being a complete waste of time. Here, then, are my five reasons why this year’s Festival wasn’t a total write-off…

Keep reading →

→ 3 CommentsCategories: Ontario · beer festivals · cheese · events

Urpiner Ležiak Svetlý

June 21, 2009 · 3 Comments

Due to the unique (or in less politically correct terms, fucked up) nature of alcohol legislation in Ontario, there are several different ways for beer to enter the marketplace. There are two retail chains – the government-owned LCBO, and the Molson & Labatt owned Beer Store – but getting on the shelves of the former requires approval by the powers-that-be, while listings at the latter are quite expensive.

Because of the time, money and/or red tape involved in getting beers into the province’s retail market, much of the beer imported into Ontario, especially from smaller breweries, is sold straight to bars, restaurants and individuals by import agents via the LCBO’s Private Order and Consignment programs. The result of this is a larger selection of beers being available than store stock suggests, but beer hunters often have to be intrepid to track them down, especially the lesser known beers that are brought in for specific ethnic communities, and that end up at bars and restaurants that aren’t necessarily known for having varied beer selections.

urpinerIt helps, of course, when the importers do some outreach to try and spread the word about their goods. An example of this is an email I received a few weeks ago from James Tubaro of Oxford Imports, an agency that usually deals with wine, but that recently started carrying Urpiner Ležiak Svetlý, a pilsner from Slovakia’s Banskobystricky Brewery. He dropped off a few bottles for me soon after, and while drinking the final one tonight, I thought I should share some thoughts on it.

My main thought is that it’s a pretty nice beer, comparable to many of the European pilsners that are easily available at the LCBO. It has a beautiful golden colour and a snow white head, and an aroma that’s a touch too sweet for the style, but with a nice bready character and a herbal hop edge. The flavour is very pleasant – fresh bread, some toasted grain, a hint of honey, and very nice, lingering herbal hops in the finish. Again, it’s a bit on the sweet side for a pils, but still a nice little brew.

Tubaro tells me that he’s submitted the beer to the LCBO for retail consideration, so perhaps it will some day join Golden Pheasant on the shelves to make a grand total of two Slovakian beers easily available to Ontario drinkers. For now, though, he’s got it in a number of bars and restaurants around Toronto. So be alert, beer hunters.

(PS: For those who are curious, the “12%” on the label isn’t the alcohol percentage. It represents 12° on the Plato scale, a measurement that I don’t completely understand, but which seems to be commonly used by Eastern European breweries. As far as ABV goes, it’s a perfectly reasonable 5%.)

→ 3 CommentsCategories: beer reviews · lager · pilsner