Ontario – Page 16 – A Good Beer Blog

Origins Of Ontario’s Beer Wholesaling Cooperative

Jordan has posted an excellent article this evening on the current state of the sale of beer in Canada’s biggest province, Ontario. Thirteen and half million Ontarians are served their beer through two large entities: (i) The Beer Store which is owned by the big brewers and (ii) the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, a provincial Crown corporation. Sure, you can buy your beer at a microbrewery, you can home brew and you can even still go to a brew-your-own place. But you really buy beer from the big two outlets. Brew-your-own or “U-brew” businesses are good to keep in mind as we think of how to move forward. In our book Ontario Beer, we pointed out that in the mid-1990s, “brew your own beer” businesses held a position comparable to small breweries today until they caught the attention of big beer. At a 1996 Federal hearing on taxation of major Canadian industries, Sandy Morrison, President of the Brewers Association of Canada complained about the lack of any imposition of taxation or regulation on these businesses:

These brew-on-premises outlets now have an 8% share of the British Columbia market and a 3% share in Ontario, which is the largest beer market in Canada. In total, they account for about 10 million dozen-cases of beer a year. The production from these unlicensed, unregulated mini-breweries exceeds that of the micro-breweries across Canada, and certainly in the two provinces concerned.

Brew-on-premises business were full-scale commercial operations that focused on government alcohol tax avoidance. Lost tax revenues in Ontario and BC totaled $69 million according to Morrison. Soon thereafter the law was changed. Regulations as well as taxes were applied. As can be expected, market share collapsed. The interests of the government and big brewing aligned to pressure the young upstarts.

There are echoes of more than the mid-90s in the situation today. The immediate origins of both the LCBO and The Beer Store date to the mid-1920s. After a series of elections and referendums, in 1927 Ontario’s experiment with prohibition ended with the repeal of the Ontario Temperance Act and its replacement with the Liquor Control Act. Along with the new law, the Liquor Control Board was founded. The province was once again drinking full strength booze in their homes – albeit after purchasing their drink at a government controlled store and transporting it in a sealed package. In the same year, Brewers Warehousing Co. Ltd. was founded as a brewers’ distribution collective. The provincial government retained control of the sale of wine and spirits through the LCBO, but beer was retailed by hundreds of mom-and-pop stores. Initially, the brewers were involved only in wholesale operations, jointly warehousing and distributing their product to stores operated by private contractors. In 1940, the brewers bought out the retailers and took over the stores, changing their name to Brewers Retail Inc and, more recently, changing again to The Beer Store.

Another thing was happening at the end of the 1920s. A corporate giant was starting out his career. Starting with next to nothing other than a few years in the financing business, E.P. Taylor had a plan to acquire and merge a large number of regional and local brewers with the goal of controlling half the brewing capacity in the province. Virtually all Ontario’s firms but Labatt and the breweries controlled by the Doran family in the north were his targets. His goals made perfect sense for the times. Breweries were operating at under 25% capacity. They were technological dinosaurs. By 1931, Taylor already controlled 27.5% of all Ontario beer sales. By 1950, he controlled 50% of the provincial beer market compared to 20% for Labatt. His deal making reached beyond Ontario. He shared a correspondence with H. William Molson, president of Quebec’s most famous brewery which dated back to 1932 and, in 1942, Taylor suggested quite an arrangement:

Don’t you think for the duration of the war we should arrange to divide the business in the two provinces in a fixed proportion and cut out most of the waste? I fully realize that your Company is not as extravagant in Ontario as some of the rest of us and you are certainly in an enviable position in that regard. At the same time I think that if you gave leadership to a proposal for pooling the business until after the war, everyone would feel inclined to work something out.

“Waste” was a theme for E.P.Taylor. In September 1939, he spoke to a meeting of the Brewers Warehousing Company. As war had just been declared, the tone was certainly patriotic but it was also entrepreneurial. Taylor argued that the lowest price possible for beer should be established to decrease “wasteful selling expenses” while increasing sales, volume and taxes for the war effort. Profits would also rise. While not the start of the concept of commodity beer and radically controlled distribution, this statement certainly places it at the centre of Ontario’s way forward. When you think of The Beer Store today you need to hear E.P. Taylor’s words from 1939 – “wasteful selling expenses” – ring in your ears. As Jordan put it today:

The Beer Store’s organization is such that it works in your favour if you are a very large company. The fact that your beer can only be sold in predetermined locations and that the organization that runs those locations stocks those stores from centralized warehouses means that you don’t have to pay for delivery, storage or a sales force. It’s a gigantic savings. The large breweries don’t generate profit from owning and running The Beer Store and this is something critics frequently fail to understand. The monopoly is not profitable for the owners because it extracts profit on sales. It is profitable for the owners because it saves a frankly ridiculous amount of money on outlay.

By the late 1950s, E.P. Taylor was arguably the most famous Canadian before Pierre Trudeau came on the scene a few years later. His positive effect on the economy of Ontario and Canada cannot be underestimated. But he stepped away from his role as corporate leader before 1970. In another ten years, loyalty to ale and even Ontario’s beer brands was fading fast. We now live in a marketplace where the best selling beer is Coors Light and The Beer Store is owned by foreign brewing corporations. That all being the case, why retain a distribution model set up in the late 1920s to balance the needs of local brewers with the majority of the population which still had strong preference for temperance principles? None really. None at all. Unless, like in the mid-1990s, the interests of big beer and government revenue are all that matter.

Ontario: Bar Hop, 391 King St W, Toronto

Being in the Big Smoke for proper reasons, I took the chance to let Jordan pick someplace that I hadn’t been to before. He chose Bar Hop. Over a couple of hours we talked about writing books, the neat and younger crowd, the beers and other gossipy things like who has the unpaid social media interns.

Standing at the bar as we waited for a table, I was handed a pint of County Durham Session Ale. It was in very good form at 4.4%, $6.95. I say pint as it was thankfully in a nonic but I noticed later that the pour was called 18 oz. Which is open and fair and transparent. It also was what most other pubs would serve as a full pour. Soon we sat in the dark and sorta noisy back of the bar. An unidentical pint of the County Durham Session Ale was then placed before me. Jordan leafed through the menu and picked out favourite. A rye saison was very nice. Sawdust City made it. My beer turned out to be another lovely lighter sort of beer but not cask at all, not what I thought I had asked for… or as I saw later was billed for. Nutty, nitro head even… perhaps. It was also quite nice.

The nonic emptied over a half an hour, We had starters. Jordan had almost half a pint of olives placed before him. I had cod cakes. He had a lot of olive. I had just enough cod cake. Then I had a gose. Very light at 3.8% was a slightly salty Sunny D but in an OK way… sorta… he said politely. I mentioned that Toronto seems to like a fruit flavoured core to a beer judging by this and my last trip. Jordan recommended a beer by a very reputable brewer that tasted like bubblegum dissolved in an IPA to me. I handed the rest to him. Sometimes it’s an added ingredient, some sauce. Sometimes it’s that heavy hand with the mango flavoured hop. I prefer beer to have graininess of one sort or another. A beer where the ingredients come together to make flavours composed of them but not of any one of them. Not a fully popular view apparently in Toronto these days but it’s a blip.

We then both got into our main meals, flank steak with salad for me, and both tucked into Kingston’s Stone City wheat ale called Sons of Sydenham. Seeing as Lord Sydenham had, we are told, a pretty debauched life during his short term as Governor General of the newly United Canada of the 1840s, it seemed an odd name for such an evening of light beers. It was, however, clearly the best. You could taste all the beeriness of the beer. It’s was intended in fact to taste of beer which is handy in, you know, a beer. Made the night along with the service, the food, the hum of the room and the strange table manners of the neighbours.

We left Bar Hop and talked some more as we walked. About the impending crisis which could not quite be defined. About the need to have a car. The architect behind that church facade. The idea of having unpaid social media interns.

My Weekend With MacKinnon Brothers Brewing

I visited a brewery today. Barns filled with brewing equipment. No one was there. Walked into the keg storage building and saw kegs. Tried a door with a padlock on it. Padlock was open as it turned out. Even had the key still in it. Went in and looked at all the fermenters. Shouted hello a few times just in case someone was up a ladder. It was quiet. Good looking stainless steel. Outside a dog was looking at me from across the road. A big dog. Didn’t bark but, still, I thought I better get out of there.

You may have guessed this was MacKinnon Brothers Brewing to my nearby west, on the north side of Bath Ontario. Well, I suppose you should be expected to read the post titles. Anyway, I’ve taken today off work to make a four day weekend and spent mid-day roaming in the next township. Had a face full of fresh Wilton cheese curds before heading over land with no real idea of how to get to the brewery. Then we remembered the iPhone thingie. Turning onto the country road, we passed the family farm. The MacKinnon lads come from a seed farm. Above is a picture I nicked from their Twitter feed showing them harvesting the malting barley crop. Know any other breweries with their own combine harvester? Given they are a seed grain operation, I expect that they will be making some special ales over the next few years. But I hope it still reflects the
relaxed country life approach seen in the security system, too.

mack2 They already do. As part of the long weekend, we’ve been eating out a bit. Friday night, I went to Harper’s, a great local burger place where the MacKinnon’s English Pale Ale was on tap. Had a couple. Tastes like a grain field on a hot August afternoon. Has that husk of the barley roughness that I love. But also honey notes and maybe some weedy jag. Had a portabello mushroom burger with a slab of Seed to Sausage bacon on it. The next night, we were at Bella Bistro. Our anniversary dinner out. Up on the chalkboard it said MacKinnon Wild Peppermint Stout. I hadn’t planned this sort of thing happening, getting all beer and food… but I ordered one. The herbal edge made me thing that the beet and arugula salad was the right call. Stout and salad. The best pairing advice is to avoid the pairing advice. Pumpkin seeds and goat cheese made it work. Was the mint from the farm fields? Maybe 5,000 other beers would have been just as good. Likely the case. But the stout was mighty fine with dinner.

After that dog looked at me at lunchtime today, we thought that the feed of curd was not quite enough. We headed to Bath itself. At the Loyalist Grill, we split a salad and a chick wrap. More salad. Must be making up for a summer’s worth of hot dogs. The beer today was MacKinnon’s Crosscut Canadian Ale, an amber beer with a bit more sweetness than the EPA but, still, that husky jag of grain that tells you the beer was brewed with real stuff. Like the rest of the food at the Grill. I have great hopes for this brewery. Just the idea that it is an additional operation to the family’s successful grain seed business – not to mention the family farm was established in 1784 – gives you a sense that they have the time and resources to get it right. Rural brewing reflecting local reality right in the beer. Stan would be proud.

Certain Georgian Drinking Habits In Pre-Reform Upper Canada

As a careful reader of this blog may have picked up, I have a certain preference for the pre-lager pre-Victorian world of British Empire beer – if only because it’s so widely ignored. As beer writers and nano brewers are now painfully aware, too many claims against too little content makes for thin rewards. Always best to specialize where no generalists have yet trod as far as I’m concerned. In our book Ontario Beer, Jordan and I came across many such areas of unexplored history – much to our surprise. Turned out that no only had the province’s brewing history been little explored but there was no set of competing books, no library shelf filled with books even on the topic of this colony and province’s general history. A shame. But a gap we were happy to take some small steps to help fill.

Through our research, one thing I really came to understand was how what is now Ontario not only has a Victorian past but also Georgian, Stuart and even Baroque ones. One favorite book I came across was The Annals of the Town of Guelph, 1827-1877 by Charles Acton Burrows. In that book there are a few passages, one of which I mentioned here, that describe the pre-lager pre-Victorian drinking habits on the Upper Canadian frontier. Here is a more complete description of the events of 12 August 1827 at Guelph:

It was now the month of August, and the 12th being the king’s birthday, and also the anniversary of the formation of the Canada Company, he determined to celebrate it by a general holiday and public dinner….On the Monday morning the town was in a state of the greatest excitement, it being determined to roast an ox whole on the market place, and have a right jovial time generally, in which they appear to have succeeded. Early in the morning four huge posts, which remained as a memento for many years, were let into the ground, from which, by means of logging chains, the carcase was suspended, an immense log fire being kindled on each side. While the ox was roasting a large number of guests, who had been specially invited by Mr. Galt to take part in the festivities… When dinner time had arrived the roasted ox was carried into the market house, and placed upon a strong table, where it was carved ,and the guests, to the number of about two hundred, enjoyed a right royal feast… the first thing to be done to lend an air of refinement to the meal, was to provide forks, which each man did for himself, by going to the lumber pile and selecting or cutting a suitable stick, whitling a fork out of it with his jack knife, which indispensable article every man of course had with him, and with which he afterwards cut up his beef. Plates being somewhat scarce, and the few possessed in the town being far too valuable to risk at such a gathering, each selected as clean a shingle as possible, from the pile, which remained after the market house roof had been finished, and with keen appetites all sat down and enjoyed a hearty meal. “After the cloth was removed,” toasts were drunk to everybody and every conceivable thing, the liquors, of all imaginable descriptions, being passed round in buckets, from which each man helped himself by means of tin cups, about two hundred of which had been supplied for the occasion…

…those who remained continued to celebrate the day in an exceedingly hilarious manner, most of them, who had not succumbed to an overpowering somnolency, celebrating the night too, many of them being found next morning reposing on the ground in the market place, in loving proximity to the liquor pails, in which conveniently floated the tin cups. This celebration was taken hold of by the fault finders, not on account of the quantity of liquor consumed, for that was a mere trifle in those days, and an indispensable adjunct to such an occasion, but because they asserted that the health of Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Lieutenant Governor, had been omitted from the list of toasts.

And here is another from the celebration of the laying of the foundation of the community’s first school house:

A few fights brought the public proceedings to a close, when the elite adjourned to the Priory, where a dinner on a somewhat grand scale had been prepared. Mr. Galt presided, the vice chair being filled by Dr. Dunlop, and about eighty guests being present. What followed the removal of the cloth it is not necessary particularly to describe, but

“The nicht giew on wi sangs an clatter,
“An* aye the ale was growing better,”

As the “wee sma hours” approached some of the guests grew a little pugnacious, and Thomas Brown, the father of Miss Letitia, acting as constable pro tem, was called on to quell the disturbance, and in his attempts to restore peace had his hand badly cut by a carving knife in the hands of one of the rioters. He was consequently disabled from working for some time, and was therefore appointed to the honorable position of “grog boss” among the Company’s workmen, the duties of which he filled to the entire satisfaction of the men.

Such times. Such foreign times. Dr. William “Tiger” Dunlop is among my favorite early Ontarians. He was born in my father’s home city of Greenock so I was raised on stories of his life… or at least I was in the room when things were stated even if I only paid half the attention I should have. In 1827-28 when the stories above unfolded, Dr. Dunlop is in his third year as a senior official of the Canada Company. John Galt is the enterprise’s founder, corporate secretary and first superintendent. When these men were carving farming settlements out of the forest which had fed the Ojibwe who had lived there, here was a great deal of strong drink in Upper Canada – including a wide range of ales if you could get your hands on them. As we noted in the book, the roads were bad and beer was heavy. Much of it was strong. Thirty years later, in 1858, courts ruled in nearby New York that lager was not intoxicating because of its lack of a strength. Which means what came before most likely was quite intoxicating.

All of which is presented to you in response to one point Jordan made in relation to his recent and by all accounts excellent recreation of an 1832 mild ale from Helliwell‘s, a brewery located in what is now Toronto. In his weekly article, Jordan also states that the function of the 9.1% beer was its caloric strength and

it explained why Helliwell only ever mentions having “a glass of beer” in his diaries. Two of them would put your lights out.

This my only quibble. While Helliwell the brewer may have liked a glass and the calories were important, I am pretty sure that what we now consider intemperate drinking was common and socially acceptable – even perhaps socially required and welcomed. Soon, the scales would tilt as the new settlers become established and by the 1850s are creating a middle class with its new values and interest in spawning reforms. Temperance starts to become a measure of one’s virtue. But even at the highest levels it is many decades before that is the new normal. Even in the mid-1860s, Canada’s founder Sir. John A. Macdonald, whose law career began in the last Georgian years, led a debate on constitutional changes needed to bring Confederation into being while being “on a spree” and “half drunk” as well as “quite drunk with potations of ale.” It is hard to imagine a century and a half later. It is probably good that it is hard to imagine. But there is every reason to understand that a fair share of those who created this create land were half schgoggled from what can only be considered wild-eyed barrel draining a significant part of the time.

Thank God for the temperance movement. It saved us all from our forefathers’ ways. Jordan has more of the story in his new book Lost Breweries of Toronto. You really need the whole set, right?

How I Feel Now That I Have Nickelbrook’s Wet Hop Ale

That’s a new photo for me. It is from Halifax’s Victory in Europe Day parade in 1945 apparently before it became the VE Day Riot. Click for more of the photo. I have mentioned the Halifax riot of 1945 somewhere around here but can’t find the link. [Later: here it is.] If you don’t believe things got bad, here is an image of the spot later in the day when the jeweler had been hit by looters.

Why do I mention this? Because above is about 10,000 times how I felt when I saw Nickebrook’s Ontario Wet Hop Ale finally on my local LCBO shelves this morning. I say 10,000 times in the best sense as the guy is clearly ecstatic from the destruction of fascism, the coming years of peace along with the successful defense of freedom. I just found a beer in a store. It is, however, a very good beer. It pours a light greenish-gold. On the nose, a very attractive mix of spicy, bitter and sweet greens. Romaine lettuce, arugula and honey. In the mouth, a light crisp body. More honey with a nip of hoppy heat. Bitterness both on the roof of the mouth and under the tongue. A little lighter finish. Reminds me of one of those confident light white wines in the sense that it makes its case calmly.

Local in the sense of 100% Ontario grown ingredients. Ontario is rather big, however, so you will have to judge what local might mean accordingly. $7.95 for 750ml of 5.3% ale. Unduly tepid praise from the BAers. RBers have a little more sense. PS: a post I wrote in 2006 about wet hop beers.

A Good Beer News Roundup For An October Tuesday

“Ah!” That’s what I hear you all say… “aaaaaahhhh!” Feet go up. Glasses get adjusted and you tuck yourself in for another fabulous edition of the unscheduled beer news roundup. See, Stan may post a round up every Monday while Boak and Bailey do the same most Saturdays. But it’s that unscheduled aspect that brings that extra zest to these particular news items.

=> I am really bored with the anti-shaker glass stuff that is still going around. Strikes me as the next phase of some concerted effort towards the snobbification of beer rolled out to justify supplemental price hikes above inflation. In 2008, a strong argument was made for just sticking one’s nose in the glass rather than letting the glass do the work. I described the same thing over at Stan’s in 2012. Can’t handle a simple beer glass? Already pint-sized Nonic letting you down somehow? Boo hoo. What next? What’s it mean? First craft v crafty. Next, local is unreliable. Now, large measures for low prices are bad. Sooner or later beer drinkers are going to realize they can’t afford all these big craft demands.

=> The New York Times has jumped into the discussion with an editorial today which includes the assertion “the big brewers have used their clout to try to slow the growth of craft beer companies by offering distributors and retailers incentives not to carry smaller labels.” This is really interesting as last night in Massachusetts on Twitter… or is that Twitter broadcast from Massachusetts… Dan Paquette, the co-founder of Boston’s Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, a craft brewery, called out not only bars but other craft brewers who appeared to be offering retailers incentives to get placed ahead of craft brewers who didn’t pay to play: “The Mass Brewers Guild has no opinion on buying lines since they have many members who do it as a policy.” Jeese, I thought they were steamed over the whole “sandwich tongs” thing. So… if a lot of craft brewers are doing this… what was the NYT’s point saying it was a big beer thing? More here on Boston.

=> In case you were wondering, here in Ontario such things are also specifically against the provincial liquor law known as the Liquor License Act. See, section 21 of Regulation 719 states: “The holder of a licence shall not directly or indirectly request, demand or receive any financial or material benefit from a manufacturer of liquor or a representative or an employee of the manufacturer.” And section 2(1) of Regulation 720 states: “A manufacturer of liquor or an agent or employee of a manufacturer shall not directly or indirectly offer or give a financial or material inducement to a person who holds a licence or permit under the Act or to an agent or employee of the person for the purpose of increasing the sale or distribution of a brand of liquor.” Those two laws ban both sides of the “pay to play” cash for draught lines diddle that was complained about by Pretty Things last night. Ben’s already established it goes on in Toronto’s craft scene.

=> I never thought I would say it but I am with Paul Mangledorf. Who? The guy quoted at the outset of this piece by anthropologist John W. Arthur thinking out loud about the origins of grain growing being cause by brewing or baking. Why one or the other, says I! Why can’t it be both beer and bread concurrently? One interesting nugget noted by Ian S. Hornsey in Chapter 4 of Alcohol and its Role in the Evolution of Human Society, published by The Royal Society of Chemistry in 2012, is how wheat had long been considered the finest grain for the brewing of beer. Evidence of wheat brewing in the Celtic culture of Bavaria dates to 800 BC. It is described as being the basis for the finest beers well into the relatively recent Baroque era in Europe. In North America, wheat held sway until the early 1800s. Barley has been with us for as long as wheat has but, as the poorer foundation for bread, inherently poses a question about the reason for its co-existence. Maybe… just maybe… the two worked to create a range of options. Why wouldn’t they?

There. That’s likely more than you can handle on a Tuesday. Take it in small bites… or sips I suppose. Stick your nose in deep if you take my advice.

A Summer Sunday Beer News Roundup

News round ups are sort of the sweat pants of blogging. A pal calls sweat pants “give ups” and I suppose that might apply to my links posts. Yet, sometimes there are actually a number of things worth noting but not really worth going into in any depth around here. And, yes, I wait with rapt attention every Saturday for the BB version and Monday for Stan’s. So, you decide. Am I watching a baseball game and doing laundry as I write this post half heartedly or am I really paying attention to the top news in the brewing world and sharing them with you… [ooh, Giants on first and second… game might get away from the Dodgers…]

=> I suppose we need to acknowledge the big craft botch of the week. Jordan and Maxand Craig all posted about it, the co-author triumvirate. Me, I think of two things. First, I have not bought a Rogue beer since I read about their employment practices. Second, I stood in a Price Chopper in NNY last Wednesday trying to understand why a Stone mix 12 pack was $24 when all the other excellent craft mix 12 packs were 15-19. Needless to say, I passed. I may not be worthy (like anyone should give a crap) but that was simply not worth it – especially as, when you strip away all the noise, it is for the most part just very decent gas station and grocery beer with hundreds of siblings. I am sure they did not want to come away looking greedy and insulting but they sure have found a way.

=> Not a lot of people who have not earned the right have drained beer from the Stanley Cup. Note the Habs player respected the voodoo by using a straw.

=> By my count, ATJ has been writing an increased number of his wonderful vignettes on the experience of beer and pub lately. His finest so far is last week’s “Brewery fresh” in which a cask arrives and then another.

=> Best news related to opening of Stone City Ales in my own hometown this past Friday goes to Jordan’s tweet: “Mom is already dropping off beer to Stone City Ales in Kingston to get them to brew things she wants to drink. I’ve created a monster.” I had a half-growler of their 12 Star session ale. Delish.

=> If you are going to compare beer and wine, you had best understand the wine side of the equation but seldom seen amongst the chatting beery consultant class. One example of many. The fact is that fleets of bulk cargo carriers’ worth of sauvignon blanc have been delightfully downed with forest of asparagus since, well, since the Romans rules the known world. Wagner points us to the better approach.

There you have it. The weekend is winding up and I thank my lucky stars that I once again missed the TFOB. I love Mr. B’s succinct comparison with the new fest in nearby Buffalo, NY. It’s good getting past such things, now thinking myself too old to, say, hang food about one’s neck… well, at least in public. Not that it’s the worst thing in beer this week. No, this might be that. Or the botch. There. List’s done. Stan’s up tomorrow morning. When there isn’t a distracting ballgame on.

Ontario: Uber, Nickel Brook Brewing, Burlington

What a minefield this beer presents me. Not only do I know and like the brewer but his mother lives nearby and his auntie works where I do. How could I possible give an opinion unbouyed by positive thoughts? Then again, it’s not like I am all Jim–junkety or anything. No need to stop using the bathroom mirror. Then, besides that, there is the question of what others might think of me – which can be odd and disconcerting – not to mention likely wrong. How dare I try something not conservative? But more importantly, what does it mean about this style? What does this beer in this place and time mean?

You will recall the the best expression of what style is was Jackson’s first go at it, before he went bad Aristotelian creating the mess we live with today. Originally, a style of beer was stylized after an example, a great beer. I think it is fair to say that practically speaking that example is the Weihenstephen Berliner Weiss I wrote about for Session 19 – if for no other reason that for a long while this was the only example you were going to lay your hands on in North America. That is until micro went craft. So, is this homage or dommage to the style? Should I care?

The beer pours an effervescent clear light gold. No head at all. On the snort, you get apple cider and cow poo of the nicest kind. In the mouth, a light and lightly astringent texture holds flavours of apple, meadow grass, minerals like a good Mosel, fresh lemon juice, a little cream of wheat like a good gueuze and a little little something vegetative like fresh cabbage or cauliflower. A really lovely sipper and at 3.8% a beer you can sip for a good long time.

What a relief! No ethical qualms!! Priced at $7.95 for 750ml, this is about twice as much as the brewers hefty IPA Headstock, one of the best values in beer in Canada. The BAers give it lots of positivitay… which is good.

Ontario: Conductor’s, Junction Craft Brewing, Toronto

This was the beer that caused a slight rift in the fabric of that great evening three weeks ago with Ron, Jordan and Peter. We were at the end of the middle act of the night at 3030 when we all had this same one last beer, brewed within walking distance of the bar. “Mmm… sweet malty goodness,” says I. “Yik, crystal malt,” said another. And we were off. The brewery says of this beer: “Our signature brew is Conductor’s Craft Ale, a ‘hopbacked’ hybrid ale utilizing British, German and American brewing techniques.” I can see your furrowed brow. Me, too.

The beer pours a pleasant clear filbert paper brown under a rocky egg white head. Plenty of nut aromas. In the mouth, this is quite interesting. More nut than dried fig along with a crusty brown breadiness and a touch of dry cocoa. The whole thing is framed by a really clever hop choices: black tea and twiggy, then a bit of steel and then spicy pine resin at the end. There is a lot going on. When I described some of these flavours, Ron suggested disapprovingly it sounded like Wells Bombardier, a beer I wrote positively of a a decade ago. This one has more acidity and complexity than likely you would find in Bombardier now.

The main thing I thought the beer illustrated were the off pale malts, maybe the lightest of the crystals. In certain circles, these are unfashionable flavours in beer right now. Beery flavours. Boethius would understand. Perfect match for a plain Snappy Griller with its white pepper jag on a billowy bun. I look down at the average BAer’s view.

Last Night I Heard The Jet Planes Land

Somehow, Toronto achieved a late spring evening without humidity or auto exhaust or heat or crowds or any of the other things that make me not love going to Toronto in the warm months. Maybe they were all at other events or at the cottage. Whatever it was, it was a great night for walking from bar to bar with good company. A good night for taxis, too, as the only hotel room I could get was out by the airport. The planes land every 45 seconds through the night. In case you were wondering.

We met in the mid-afternoon at Stout, a pub off Parliament on Carleton. Ron was drinking Nickle Brook’s imperial stout. He must have liked it because he had another. Jordan was drinking a sensible Muskoka Detour. We were joined by home brewer Peter Friesen who had arranged Ron’s presentation the next day at Toronto Brewing Co. Ron is on the Great Lakes portion of his global tour. We then drove about 25 miles to drop off my car and then taxi back into the Junction district via highways showing their age, past 1970s concrete office towers with neon signs proclaiming things like “Canada Bread” where, according to Jordan, Carol works in accounting. We stopped at Indie Ale House and 3030 in the Junction before finishing at Bellwoods.

I won’t play by play the consumption but a couple of things stuck with me. One thing was a lot of of the people out and about were loud mixed groups of friends with, especially at Bellwoods, almost half being young women. Sure people were on dates, too, but there was solid representation of the genderless interest in good beer and good food that gave me hope for my school-aged daughters’s future. Also, a difference between Indie Ale House and Bellwoods was primarily in their brewing choices. In many other ways, they were very similar. The food at both places was excellent and reasonably price… and both served their meals on those individual slabs of lumber which will one day keep cottagers toasty as these burn in their fireplaces after this trend passes.

What set them apart was how at the Indie the beers were decidedly leaning towards the added flavours school of craft brewing while at Bellwoods there was a bit more of a traditional approach. Both were largely excellent. The IPA at Indie was extremely fruity, even more fruit cocktail than, say, Kipling. But it was cut neatly by the arugula side salad next to my smokehouse burger. At Bellwoods, an undoctored guest cider from West Avenue went down exceptionally well with a rabbit on toast thingie. OK, it was rillettes de lapin which I have only bought in Quebec so I translate it as thingie so you will understand. The unadorned brown beer there was also really good. Jordan convinced me to eat a duck heart. You should eat a duck heart.

A good evening out. But for the lack of hearty north woods plaid chic, you might have even thought you were on Duluth in Montreal. Which is a very good thing.