A Good Beer Blog – Page 75 – Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )

Unlike Most Gimmicks Fog-Based Beer Is Real

I like the gimmick that are also based on something actual, a rare sight in the craft beer scene these days. Stuff like when thirty years ago I had a beer from the Falklands. And it really was. Fog based beer is apparently real as well:

Since a particularly bad drought in the 1950s, now-retired physics professor Carlos Espinosa Arancibia has been testing nets that could help capture water in Chile’s driest regions, the BBC reports. This current iteration of the net has openings less than one millimeter across around which water droplets condense out of the fog. The drops accumulate and grow until they drip into a pipe at the base of the net, from which it flows into a container, so clean that it’s immediately ready for human use. One of Espinosa’s test centers is near the town of Pena Blanca, home of the Atrapaneblina (fog catcher) brewery. The beer–a golden-amber Scottish ale with brown foam–is made only with the water collected from the fog nets. The brewery produces a meager 6,300 gallons of beer per year, but its owner says the water gives the beer a unique taste and quality.

OK… a golden-amber Scottish ale with brown foam? What the hell is that supposed to be? The brewery’s website only has images of the beer in bottles. Images online show a rather more comforting off-white head. There is just one lonely BAer review.

But what about the science? The Daily Mail published some respectable images of the fog nets of Chile a couple of years ago. The eggheads over at MIT are apparently involved with Chilean fog harvesting and have promised a five-fold increase in production. Their studies of the carapace of the Namib beetle, native to the Namib desert of southern Africa have led them to that conclusion. [Ed.: how many times have I heard that!?!?] Apparently, at certain times of the year a square meter of the better mesh might yield up to 12 liters per day or more. Which means only a ten by ten meter net might be needed to get you that litre of beer a day.

Given the Californian drought, a net of 41,650,000,000 m² is all they need to support current craft beer statewide production. That’s 41,650 km² of netting or about 10% of the state’s total land mass. So… it’s possible.

Thoughts On The Introduction To The Anthology

Maybe I am a morning person after all. Again, I am up, wanting to write. The niggling thought in my head about how too much beer writing is sadly like what’s found in the auto section, to quote a newspaper editor I know. I was thinking about this as well as the wee hidden essay I found in the e-book… ebook… “Eeee! Book!!” Boak and Bailey put out. No, I have written them back and forth enough that by now we should be on a first name basis. So it’s Jessica and Ray’s new wee ebook. [Ressica? Maybe.] It’s just a compendium of old blog posts [“Just!” tisked Ressica] but its got this new introduction. Not unlike the “best of” records with that one new hit. Hittish thing. Bonus track? Extra content, perhaps. It’s just 12 paragraphs long but in it they consider the “why” of thinking a lot about beer and then, extraordinarily, writing about it.

The suggestion is that drinking is an experience diminished by involving the brain, or perhaps even that the very point of drinking is to shut the blasted thing down for a couple of hour. Maybe sometimes, that’s true – no-one wants to be the plum on a hen or stag party asking for tasters of ale and taking notes later – but surely the two activities, thinking and drinking, are not always mutually exclusive?

Aside from the questions of punctuation that I as a minimalist would spot, it’s an interesting question. Are they? I wonder. Alcohol briefly might heighten the senses and open the mind but with any extended experience both those effects rapidly crash as the door to the outside closes and the mind takes over with its newsreel of past associations, the recollections of things past. Are you fully thinking when even on a semi-lash? One half-sentence alludes to the experience: “[t]here is also something special about walking down a street and seeing a vision of a long-gone pub, or even the ghost of a vast but vanished brewery.” I might argue that there are somethings special about that experience which may be fairly distinct depending on a number of variables including how many pints you’ve downed to that point. A dentist pal used to have a modest amount of beer when studying and then one before the exam. He knew how to leverage alcohol’s power of ripening the recollection.

But then there is the other problem. Is the experience transferable? In addition to exploring historical context, BB asks us to consider the examples of greater mindfulness and even meditation as answers to the “why write about beer” they pose at the outset. While awareness of one’s beer a part of one’s life is rightly considered a good thing – if only due to the dangers it also carries – does this person’s appreciation of this sort of experience have anything to offer that person over there… keeping in mind that person is concurrently going through a grab bag of subjective experience of their own already. Again, another hint: ‘[t]hey are the posts on which we worked the hardest and cared most about.” An excellent and honest observation. We write to tell. Admittedly, many write mainly to sell but that’s not always the most thoughtful stuff. The human need to fill a fridge has left much on the cutting room floor. Finding those who write to actually tell regardless of return is key. They will be most honest in the endeavor, no?

But, lastly, have they skill enough? Once the author has observed and, then, observed honestly, does the writing convey the observation well? As you might expect, Jessica and Ray demure. They thank and hope at the introduction’s end. They hope the reader will enjoy. They hope other writings will be explored next. This is good. I have noticed an ugly trend recently in the tightening pack of beer writers jostling for attention. The use of the words “trust me” – surely an admission of guilt. The writer who asks you to “trust” them has just told you that they are incapable of expressing something compelling enough for your to actually read. Fortunately, Ray and J. need not worry. Their writing entertains and expresses themselves inherently. Not only are their observations keen but the slightly reserved style they employ hints to their own nature. English reticence balanced with… perhaps even struggling with a touch of hypomania. Likely minds irritated by those seeking to stick them with nicknames yet minds that are, as they say, perhaps prone to causing trouble. Too rare a thing.

“Back of a Beer Mat: Bits from the Blog” can be found here and, tah-dah, it’s free. Worth exploring.

Session 99: A Little Mild And A Little Excitement

This month’s edition of The Session is hosted by Velky Al who asks us to consider American mild. Mild of the Americas? Pan-American mild? I am game. After all, the Western Hemisphere is the happeningist hemisphere if all.

Mild. I actually have had two glasses of the stuff over the last few months. Here in the central section of the hemispheric upper quarter. That is an upgrade from most years here in Ontario where mild is rare as… as… a very rare thing. That glass above? I had it in Toronto in early December. After the day of sitting in a strange city studying the difference between a semi-colon here and a comma there, considering whether “shall” or “must” is better placed in that sentence. Seriously. Contract drafting skills are not particularly thrilling. So, a stop at C’est What, a bar I wrote about a decade ago, was needed. The venerable basement tavern has always struck me as Toronto’s rec room and the pint or two of mild fit right in and washed away the classroom, the grammar and the concrete landscape of 90 degree angles before I jumped on the train back home.

Two months later I was in small town Ontario – Collingwood on Georgian Bay – and we stopped for a great dinner at Northwinds Brewhouse. Again, a reviving hit of malt and lush fluidity framed rather than cut but modest hopping. And under 4%, the drink didn’t hamper my ability to take on the last leg of the trip to the hotel another hour down the road. Brewmaster Bartle had three beers on under that level of strength – the mild, a grodziskie and a farmhouse ale – the details of which you can see on the chalkboard if you squint at that photo… yes, there… way in the back. Yup.

But that is it. Good news? Well, I’d like more but at least this all represents and improvement over Session #3 which was also about mild ale. Back in 2007 I really couldn’t find one. Had to post a picture of a book to find something to talk about. I was a bit naive, too. I wrote “you are never going to see a flavoured mild or an extreme mild.” AHHAAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHA. Had I but known how stooooopid craft beer was going to get over the intervening years. What a fool I was.

Your Saturday Morning News Not From Boak And Bailey

Six thirty Ay Hem. That’s what you get when you go to bed early on a Friday. After having a nap around supper time. That’s how I think of myself on this sort of Saturday. Okocimiski.

Three elections in a row this week plus, you know, the life of a desk jockey did me in. The first election last Monday in my former tiny jurisdiction of PEI saw my old law school prof get in as Premier. The next on Tuesday in the western Canadian home of the conservative puritans saw a landslide by the socialist hoard. And in the Old Country Thursday the nationalist lefties beat out the unionist pinkos to send the aysmetrical quasi-federation into a dither. The combined effect of many split votes in the last one caused the astounding “great victory of no more votes” – quite an accomplishment. What’s this got to do with beer? Not that much. But I work in governance so am aware that some things do actually matter. What else has been going on?

=> Jim Koch is cashing in some of his shares. Note that his balance of equity seems to be worth around 63.4 million. Sure, it’s a small brewery. Sure it is.

=> In one post, Ron has explained the point of Asheville NC far more clearly than the output of 1,000 subsidized junkets. That he got there via a milk run back country bus was a deft bit of contextualization even if he had to sit on his luggage… no, his actual luggage.

=> It’s been three weeks since beer retailing in Ontario was reformed and absolutely not one thing has actually changed. Classic boondoggling. And no one is complaining. Classic Ontario. Perhaps by 2028 we’ll be allowed to hold our beer bottles with our left hands in public. After all, what really matters is the posing. Like calling something “a game changer”, Toronto has a wee problem calling itself “world class” like the needy kid back in kindergarten who told you his uncle went to space. The phenomenon is described by the term world classy.

=> Go read BB. And then do it again. Where don’t their tentacles reach? It’s like they are becoming a vast industrial complex. [Thankfully, we can trust they did not write “here’s how to unearth the ‘ultimate’ session beer” in that header.] Note: their post on May Day celebrations at Padstow in North Cornwall is one of their best ever.

=> This is funny. In far western British Columbia:

The final report of the B.C. Liquor Policy Review recommends the government consider establishing a quality assurance program for craft beer and artisan-distilled spirits, similar to the VQA, or Vintners Quality Alliance, program — which currently guarantees wines are made in B.C., with 100 per cent B.C. ingredients.

Trouble is no one checked that “local” and “craft” in beer bear scant relationship to wine so… they are left with the same sort of fibs and platitudes we always see – which led to the refreshingly honest admission: “that’s kind of thrown a wrench into the ability to focus on what the next level would be.“

=> Just realized that if I started my own periodical I could name it “Al About Beer.” I would have to work on my ra-ra superlatives so maybe not.

=> Might I suggest unless one is extreeeeemely certain that a surprise beer and brunch pairing for Mother’s Day is only one thing: a quick route to the dog house. Don’t be stupid. Just because the love of your life puts up with your dependency / “hobby” it does not mean she likes it. Not at all.

Saturday. And maybe a stinking hot one as well. It was +25C¹ after deep into dusk last night. That means gardening. Letting more lettuce seed buried. Or drinks in the yard. Might get a bit Okocimiski. Jest Sobota Okocimiska? Może. Or I could just go get a growler. You have to remember that they sell lettuce at the grocery store in July, too, you know. Enjoy your Saturday. 7:45 am. People are starting to get up. Better make coffee.

¹ Disclosure: in Canada in spring there are a few days when you have to still make clear you are talking about +25C and not -25C.

“Selling Beer and Keeping Houses of Rendezvous”

One of the good things about being in my job is the records one comes across or co-workers with an interest in history share with you. I got this tidbit below in my email last week. That’s from the first document I came across in a larger scanned file called “Tavern Inspectors Records 1849-1853“.

To the Honourable the Municipal Council of the Township of Pittsburgh in Session aforementioned, We the Undersigned Tavern Keepers of the Village of Barriefield humbly and respectfully sheweth – whereas that there are persons residing in the said Village or premises adjoining Selling Beer and Keeping Houses of Rendezvous against the Law and to the great Desparagement of Her Majesty her [maybe “Crown”?] and Dignity seeing that we have to pay to the [?] the sum of Eight pounds with additions whereas these are paying [odd symbol for “zippo”] therefore we humbly beg your Honours will be pleased to look into the prayer of this our petition and dispell all such Houses unless they pay the same apportioned as in the City of Kingston vis [?] and we humbly beg that if such is granted that this shall be [?] for seeing that if such is not stopped we Your Petitioners will not be able to pay the Monies apportioned. But trusting that Your Honours will be pleased to looking into the prayer of this Petition and as In duty bound.

Barriefield is a small village in a largely rural township that was amalgamated into the City of Kingston in 1998. It was originally set up in the War of 1812 as an officer’s residence area associated with nearby Fort Henry. The document seems to be dated from 18 April 1850. It’s title on the back page is blurry and ink blot messy but seems to state Petition of [blah, blob, blur] for Beer Shops. It looks like the Tavern Keepers of Barriefield were not happy with the informal competition. I like the suggested threat, too: shut them down or we will maybe not pay our fees. That is the “zippo” emoticon circa 165 years ago in question up there, by the way. Click on it for a bigger bit of the document. I would also attach the whole file but it’s an 80 page pdf. Oh, what the hell. Have a look. By the way, a notation in the petition states that the matter was referred to the next Session and a bylaw was to be prepared… in case you are keeping track.

The beginning of the well regulated marketplace. What follows in those 80 pages is the licensing of all sorts of establishments in the community over the next few years. Afrirmations that the applicant is an honest, steady and sober man. The Township of Pittsburgh hadn’t been long in existence on the date of that first petition of April 1850. In the emails I was sent, there was also another file with the Minutes of the Midland District Municipal Council, a larger regional jurisdiction that was only abolished in 1849. So, one of the first things the new government has to deal with is the standardizing of licensing of the taverns and beer shops. Maybe it was just the fact of a thirsty British military base down the road. Or maybe it was the need to provide regulation as the Georgian ways of the century’s first have gave way to new Victorian expectations.

Is The Data Overload Becoming An Issue?

It was a bit of a revelation. Well, a joke and a revelation. I have a brother who is a bookman who sends rare finds for birthdays and holidays. This year for my 52nd I got this book on cheese. Published in 1960, it is a simple thing. More like a long magazine article than a full book. The author describes one trip taken in a car traveling from farmhouse cheese maker to farmhouse cheese maker. Cheeses are gathered in the back seat and the trunk… sorry, boot… and the taken back to London where they are eaten at dinners and parties with guests like Dame Margot Fonteyn and Stirling Moss. It’s all very light and comforting. It’s not all that unlike Everyday Drinking – The Distilled Kingsley Amis which I reviewed six years ago now. Yes, a voice from another era and one imbued with class and cultural distinctions which don’t matter anymore. Yet it is filled with discovery:

Mrs. Roberts DOES still make Caerphilly but not in her cool dairy, which I had foolishly asked to see. That is only used for storing milk and cream! Her cheeses are made in the kitchen, with vats and presses a hundred years old, and they mature in the bedroom. As these ancient, heavy wooden vats are irreplaceable, she may soon have to give up her cheesemaking.

OK, like Amis perhaps without the ever present danger of arrest for driving whilst intoxicated. Perhaps. There are still bottles consumed as she goes about. But there is nothing snobbish about any of it. In the second paragraph, snobbery is the word used for the one who sniffs contemptuously at the mere mention of the cheeses of ones own country. It’s an essay about the pursuit of the real in a world where imports and processes have become the norm. Sound familiar?

This is a voice like the one in my head when I became interested in beer. Not a voice I hear very much of anymore, sadly. Between the quantity chasing tickers and the off-flavour seminarians and the worshipers of the next ever so slightly different hop strain, there seems to be little being left to individual discovery. Too much expertise in the beer to be assimilated from above. Not enough simple pleasure in the experience of it. The current bleat about poor quality in new craft is just the latest twist. The hand of industrial process now reaches down as one’s betters warn that if you eat that cheese matured in the bedroom you might encounter something unexpected, unplanned.

This is not to suggest all was better. The second half of the book is filled with recipes which range from the traditional – like that very attractive cheddar biscuit – to the weirdly experimental. I will not, for example, take up the recommendation to wrap eight bananas in ham and bake them in a sauce made with a whacking pile of grated Lancashire cheese. But there is a joyfulness about it all which big craft seems to be drumming out of me, drumming out of good beer. I don’t care. The errors and trials and surprises of all these new actual small brewers are too interesting to care about their elders and betters, the self-appointed senex with the standard operating procedures, marketing staff and strategic plans for the annual trade show.

The Process Of Reforming Ontario’s Beer Sales

Well, the members of the editorial board of The Globe and Mail are not impressed. At least that is reassuring:

Politicians will be, more than ever, deciding who gets to sell beer and who does not, and which beer, where, when, how and at what price. Competition will still be largely forbidden. But, good news: If you are unhappy about anything, please write to the new Beer Ombudsman. He’s there to listen.

Ah, the Beer Ombudsman. What a silly idea. I eat a lot of toast and sometimes it doesn’t turn out. I want a toast ombud, too. It’ll never happen. But so might any number of bits of the policy… plan… ideas set out in the announcement. We all remember what happened to the LCBO Express stores idea. What exactly did happen yesterday anyway? As the Toronto Sun reported, the Premier put it this way:

“The days of monopoly are done,” Wynne said Thursday. “This is the biggest shake up to the sale of beer in Ontario since we repealed prohibition in this province and that was in 1927.”

Well, not exactly. Ontario never had much of a prohibition and the final centralization of retail stores happened more like in 1940 or so through the actions of Mr. E.P. Taylor in his gathering up of many of small breweries and their wholesale and retail divisions into what would become Carling-O’Keefe, one of Canada’s largest breweries until Moslon snapped it up in the 1980s. And Ontario was never really dry as humourist Stephen Leacock lampooned in his 1917 essay “In Dry Toronto“:

“…will you please tell me what is the meaning of this other crowd of drays coming in the opposite direction? Surely, those are beer barrels, are they not?” “In a sense they are,” admitted Mr. Narrowpath. “That is, they are import beer. It comes in from some other province. It was, I imagine, made in this city (our breweries, sir, are second to none), but the sin of selling it”—here Mr. Narrowpath raised his hat from his head and stood for a moment in a reverential attitude—”rests on the heads of others.”

See, when I was researching and writing the section for from 1900 to 1980 in our cult classic Ontario Beer, I came to see that Ontario went through a number of very intense shifts in its beer retailing rules and restrictions in little over a decade mainly starting in the middle of WWI, even though smaller changes had been coming for decades. What Leacock was lampooning was the situation in the early part of the regulatory temperance experiment in which Ontario brewed at a large scale for export only but then imported beer came in from intra-provincially brewers direct to the drinker through a process of individual purchases and delayed deliveries that – on paper – occurred outside of the province. The law literally allowed that the sin was only in the local sale of local beer.

And even when the rules were tweeked to stop that nonsense, there was still plenty of drinking going on. A Federal Royal Commission did the rounds on the question of tax evasionduring the years of official temperance and found out masses of beer was going out the back door of the “exporting” breweries for local consumption. As we stated in the book, in the spring of 1927, Labatt was implicated in kickbacks to customs officers in testimony before the Federal Royal Commission on Customs and Excise as it took evidence in hearings across Canada. When a shipping clerk called Aikens admitted he sold strong ale in London and vicinity, he explained that he only sold to people that he knew. He was congratulated for having such a host of friends. Labatt did, however, insist to the Commission that it had stopped shipping by camouflaged rail car in 1924 and, unlike most of its competition, had accounted for all taxes due. Such honesty.

All was forgiven as what replaced the process of tight control through regulatory temperance (and its really light ales along with some Ontario wine unless you had a cousin in the distillery in which case you got rye) was a succession of market control systems, laws and agencies which will be continued under the next new system announced this week. Don’t think so? Consider these aspects to the process leading up to the report issued by the Premier’s Advisory Council on Government Assets (the rather gutturally acronymed “PAC-OGA”) yesterday:

1. In the original announcement starting up this project in April 2014 it was stated that “will recommend how to maximize the potential of these government enterprises to ensure that Ontarians receive the value they deserve.” Note recommendation to the Premier is the goal.

2. An interim report is presented by PAC-OGA in November 2014 which explains how stakeholder (but not public) consultation had taken place:

We structured our review in two phases. Phase I, the results of which are included in this report, incorporated detailed reviews of the subject entities, stakeholder consultation and the development of our initial thinking on proposals for the future direction of each company. Phase II will incorporate further discussion and consultation on the proposals. This will further our goal of reaching agreement among the appropriate parties, leading to definitive recommendations to government for consideration in the 2015 Provincial Budget.

Note that discussion and consultation was to occur in Phase II.

3. But when the final report is announced yesterday, a deal has been struck. It even has at page 47 an “execution copy” of a document titled “Modernizing the Distribution of Beer in Ontario Framework of Key Principles” which has been worked out by Brewers Retail Inc. Molson Canada 2005, Labatt Brewing Company Limited, Sleeman Breweries Ltd., the Premier’s Advisory Council on Government Assets and the Ontario Ministry of Finance. It is also more of a transitional agreement than a simple non-binding memo of understanding. At section 10(c) it states that the parties agree to ” to negotiate the New Beer Agreements on terms acceptable to TBS and the Province, with the view to entering into the New Beer Agreements between the relevant parties as soon as possible and in any event before June 30, 2015.” Done deal. Recommendations and consultations finished. Working out the fine print as we speak. We are well on our way.

But to what? We’ll find out sometime in July, I suppose. Sure, the wish list has been published and will likely fall in place roughly as outlined but it is still a control system. The interests of big beer have been protected for at least a decade as have been enhanced revenue streams to the province’s coffers. There is lip service to concepts of “social responsibility” but no explanation of what that really means in this new world. Good reason. It means the same old thing as the same old structure still sits at the heart of the deal. If you have any doubt that that is not the case, that this is somehow a great leap forward for liberty, have a look at page 31 of the final report where it actually states:

The Ontario taxpayer is better off because they enjoy the same low prices as the Quebec taxpayer, but substantially more revenues go to the government.

Let that sink in for a minutes. No public discussion and locked in for a decade or more PLUS the report explains away how Quebec prices are the same as Ontario’s even with their 8,000 outlets because distribution costs are higher. See, Ontario is better off because instead of spending that money on beer delivery truck fleets – and instead of enjoying lower actual retail prices – all that money is scooped up by Ontario’s Ministry of Finance. Wonderful. Surreal but wonderful. What would Leacock have said about this sort of reform?

“To Search For What Is Best For The People Of Ontario”

I am not thrilled. Not really all that moved. The cornerstone of the big beer retail reform announcement that by two years from now there may be 150 grocery store licenses to sell beer to 13,000,000 Ontarians can quickly be boiled down. The reality is that as my town represents 1% of the provinces population that is an average allocation of 1.5 licenses for this city. On average.

If you have a look at the report issued by the Premier’s Advisory Council on Government Assets chaired by Ed Clark you see the other problem. At page 33 we see that licences “will be granted in urban areas”; “will be granted in a manner to ensure a fair representation of privately owned grocers”; and most importantly “will be issued through a competitive process based on the discount off the retail price at which grocers will purchase the beer from the LCBO.” So, there are no rural stores getting anything, it’s an auction that everyone gets a shot at but those with the deepest pockets will win. So most will end up in Toronto and maybe Ottawa because that’s where the best return will be made for the few holders of these licences. I am expecting little local change from the grocery store in initiative. Your grocery list is not “about to get a whole new look.”

But that is only one element of the whole. If you look at that headline up there, it is a quote from the introduction from last November’s interim report from the Advisory Council. It literally smacks of paternalism given there was no real public input in the process – but, despite that, there are still there are other other new initiatives that will create more interesting change. I think I will look at those bit by bit. There is a lot to look at. First, however, I think I am going to look at the process, how we got here – including how historically only the temperance movement from the 1870s to the 1920s triggered actual broad public input in the reform of alcohol sales. That was the only time that our betters were not firmly in control. Those times of referendum after referendum were very unOntarian. Ontarians actually like being controlled by their betters. And that won’t be changing anytime soon from the look of yesterday’s announcement.

Still Off, Five Wineries, A Flag And A New Brewery

See that there? That’s a bit of a winery with a brewery popping up rapidly behind it. I raced through the east end of nearby Prince Edward County again today as I was getting itchy feet on day four of this week off. Itchy feet from reading all of Stonch’s posts about a Londoner’s country hiking lifestyle, wandering from pub to pub and glass to glass. Well, that sort of thing doesn’t happen much around here but, as he was giving me the gears over this and that on the chat app yesterday, I decided to do the next best thing and head to our nearest neighbouring grape growing region. And I found a new brewery in the works or at least a roof four walls and a newly poured concrete floor for County Road Beer Co., an offshoot of the makers of pretty grand sparkling wines, Hinterland. More in a bit about that but first a little history.

As I mentioned the other day and Craig set out in more detail in a press release today, in one month’s time there is a recreation of the sorts of beer that may have been familiar to combatants on both sides of the American Revolution on the central New York Frontier. And I have one job – get a flag. As you can see from the historic plaques, they take this flag thing serious in Loyalist-settled country. Just as the other side did after the war and the re-settlements, they had to recreate their lives anew. Farms were cut out of forests. Mills were built to service villages with names of the towns, like Cherry Valley, from which their ancestors fled in the 1770s and ’80s. I took that photo of the sign standing by the side of Schoharie Road. These days the flag is everywhere. A bit surprising that it is. When I went into a hardware store and asked if they had the old version of the Union Flag, they said no. Then the old guy at the counter added “we do have the Loyalist flag” which, when they checked, was the old version of the Union Flag. Within seven seconds of my explanation – about when I mentioned 1606 – eyes were glazed and mouths even smirked. I shut up and took the flag to the check out. “That will be $75.” Not a chance. I put it back and walked away.

I was actually more interested in the fruit of the lands than the damn flag anyway. As Jordan described in one of his bits in Ontario Beer, Prince Edward County was a hot bed of barley sales to nearby northern New York from the US Civil War until a tariff was slapped on the trade in the 1890s. Be sure not to say good things about President McKinley next time you visit. Anyway, the fields are all there now diversified into hay, corn, soybean as well as more and more grape vines. I got out of the car and onto the land and you could see why. Amongst the old cedar rail fences, the soil in the fields was rocky as anything. Chunks and sherds of limestone everywhere, just the sort of thing grapes love.

After first doing a gravel doughnut in the parking lot of Barley Days to read a sign that said the retail shop was shut, I aimed the old van at the Greer Road all the way over at the west side of the County. I picked up a rose, Riesling and Bordeaux red blend at Rosehall Run as well as some Black River cheese curd, one of the greatest things ever to come out of a cow. Across the road and about 500 yards to the east, I stopped at Norman Hardie for another Riesling and a Pinot Noir. I talked with Johannes Braun, the winery’s operations manager, for 20 minutes about the season, his love of beer and how he makes 100 loaves of bread most Saturdays on top of everything else it does. Hit wineries in April on a Thursday and you get to chat. And he mentioned that Hinterland was setting up a brewery, told me to stop in.

Next, I headed to Karlo Estates where I was again the only customer in view. Bought another Riesling as well as another Bordeaux red blend. The very helpful staff person in the re-purposed barn mentioned that Hinterland was setting up a brewery, told me to stop in. So, I thought, I better go to Hinterland which I now understood was setting up a brewery. When I go there it was a crowd of one at the tasting room and I had a couple of short sips of their bubble before buying a couple of versions. As I was about to go, a guy walks in and I mention something about plans for a brewery. Mark Andrewsky stuck out his hand and we talked for half an hour about what was going to be brewed as a guy worked on the concrete floor of the new building next to the re-purposed old barn. Local, local, local. The family behind the winery had connections to grain farmers, there was a hop farm down the road – Fronterra Farm – and a new maltster coming on line an hour’s drive north. Stan would be pleased. Like with MacKinnon Brothers of the Loyalists of Bath and Church-Key farther north, one county over to the east, this is arguably looking a bit like beer with terrior. Mark mentioned maybe a 4% saison and how he had an excellent chance of laying his hands on a barrel or two for some aging experiments. Before heading away, I stopped at Closson Chase for a couple more Pinot Noirs. It’s also just around the corner.

The curd was gone by then. Time to head back to the ferry and then on home. An hour each way. Unless you get to the ferry just as its pulling out like I did. Twice. I try to make it at least once a year but with the promise of beer and now 45 wineries it’ll likely be sooner. And if they figure out how to build a hotel or even a decent motel or two around there it might even not be a day trip. The flag? I am checking the internet.

A Week Off In April To Get Things Done

It’s either a sign of a well organized life or one with not enough in it. The spring holiday to get the taxes done, straighten out the gardening, fix the step and have some naps. And opening week baseball. Maybe some first round playoff hockey, too. The one thing I am not doing is writing a book. This time last year I was in the middle of writing three books each of which has turned out to be, err, cult classics. Happy readers. Low sellers. Good reviews. Niche huggers. I should have known. Beer writers are either fat or thin. Both from the same cause – anxtity yips. Told a pal once his mistake was doing for a job what I do for a hobby. Beer may still pay for itself. It just doesn’t take me all that far anymore when it does. That’s fine. Been since 2010 that the prospect of a truly idle summer lay before me. I was reading about brainy books back then five years ago today. Probably gave me ideas. Planting some carrot and lettuce seeds will help with that. Tiny seeds in the cold early spring soil don’t give you ideas. Just salad.