Monthly Archives: January 2009

Blotto in Buffalo

Posted on January 27, 2009 | 4 comments

blottoinbuffalo

Being a (relatively) mature 40 year old, I’m well past my years of regularly drinking to the point of extreme inebriation, and subsequently bragging about it to my friends. (Or anyone who will listen, for that matter.)

But man, did I get fucking hammered on Saturday night!

The occasion: a road trip to Buffalo to attend the Rare Beer Festival at Cole’s. It was a trip that was almost scuttled, as one of our foursome had issues with his paperwork (he’s an Irish citizen in Canada on a work visa) and was refused entry into the US. It briefly looked like we’d be heading back to Toronto for an evening of drinking not-so-Rare Beer, but luckily (for the other three of us in the car, at least), several friends were down at the Festival for the afternoon and just happened to be heading back around the time that we were stuck at the border. So Jeff, Paul and I we were able to dump the troublemaker (sorry, Al!) and make it down to Cole’s after all.

Here’s what awaited us…

TAPS:
Troegs Nugget Nectar
Victory Yakima Twilight
Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA
Dogfish Head Fort
Dogfish Head World Wide Stout
Oskar Blues Whiskey Barrel Aged Gordon
Oskar Blues Bourbon Barrel Aged Old Chub
Oskar Blues Whiskey Barrel Aged Ten Fidy
Ommegang Obamagang (Inauguration Ale)
Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock

BOTTLES:
Lost Abbey Gift of the Magi
Lost Abbey Inferno Ale
Jolly Pumpkin Weizen Bam
Dogfish Head Zwaanendale
Brooklyn Brewing Black Ops
Sonoran 100
Flying Bison Blizzard Bock
Malheur Brut Reserve

And that was just the “official” list. More goodies came up from the cellar throughout the evening, including:

Samuel Adams Utopias
Harviestoun Ola Dubh 12 Year
Harviestoun Ola Dubh 16 Year
Harviestoun Ola Dubh 30 Year
New Glarus Belgian Red
New Glarus Raspberry Tart
Troegs Scratch #16
Captain Lawrence Captains Reserve

I’m not sure how, but I managed to put back samples of something like 75% or 80% of the beers on the list – basically, almost every one I hadn’t tried before. Even more amazingly, I took coherent tasting notes for almost all of them.

After that, the three of us – along with our Buffalo buddy, Rudy – decided it would be a good idea to go next door to Mr. Goodbar and split several pitchers of Dale’s Pale Ale. That’s where the grainy cellphone photo above was taken. A photo that I have absolutely no recollection of taking, by the way.

(And y’know, come to think of it, I believe that last time I got so smashed might’ve been on my previous trip to Buffalo. Something about that city…)

Anyhoo – thanks to Mike at Cole’s for throwing a fantastic event, and Rudy and Ang for housing our soused asses for the evening. It was a bit of a rough drive back in the morning, but the hangover was a well-earned. Although I hope not to inspire another similar one any time soon.

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Posted in bars & pubs, beer festivals, travel

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I'm The Granite Man

Posted on January 21, 2009 | Comments Off on I'm The Granite Man

granite_beers

The latest in my bi-weekly “Pub Crawl” series went up on Taste T.O. yesterday, featuring a profile of  The Granite Brewery, which is one of Toronto’s very small number of brewpubs.

Well, except it’s not a brewpub, because Toronto doesn’t have any real brewpubs. But it’s still a restaurant with an on-site brewery.

Yeah, it’s kind of confusing. Just read the article, and it might make more sense.

Also, a cookie for whoever knows the origin of the title of this post. (Hint: I also killed Louie the Fly.)

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Pimpin' For Pump House

Posted on January 14, 2009 | 2 comments

pumphouse

One thing that I’m going to try and do more of in ’09 and beyond is posting beer review features here on the ol’ blog. As a beer rating whore, I’m taking & typing up notes for all of the new beers I try, anyway (although I’ve currently got about half a notebook full that need to get entered). So while I won’t be posting here about every single beer I tip back, I’ll be aiming to do themed posts when I get a number of beers in the same style, or from the same brewery, etc.

Which brings us to this li’l round-up of five beers from  Pump House Brewery. My exposure to the beers from this New Brunswick brewery has been fairly limited, since only their Blueberry Ale has ever been available in Ontario, and even that was quite limited. But when the lovely and talented brewmaster Greg Nash headed there after being turfed from Garrison Brewing in Halifax, I made a point of trying to get my hands on more of their brews, and soon lucked into the five pictured above.

I actually received and drank all of these beers a few months ago, but I just came across the photo that I took of them back then, obviously with the intention of doing a post like this one. And thanks to the magic of RateBeer, I can cobble one together now:

Pump House Special Old Bitter (S.O.B.)
Caramel-amber colour with a small off-white head. Aroma and flavour are both quite hop-forward, with strong grapefruit notes, and a sweet malt backing – simple, but very good. Medium bodied, and quite sessionable.

Pump House Dementia Double IPA
Hazy dark golden with a small, lacy white head. Aroma – sweet sassy molassy, that’s HOPPY! Seriously, this is one of the hoppiest smelling beers I’ve ever come across. Big notes of citrus, pine, spruce, pot – crazy! Flavour is SLIGHTLY more subdued, but still pretty powerful. There is a sticky character to the body, but it’s also surprisingly crisp, especially in the finish, making it remarkably refreshing.

Pump House Raspberry Weizen
Dark pink-amber with a minimal light pink head. Aroma and flavour are all about the raspberry – big and fresh, and really, really tart. Completely one-dimensional, but if you like raspberries (which I do), that one dimension is a really good one.

Pump House Pail Ale
Golden amber with a large white head. Aroma starts malty, with notes of chocolate and caramel, with citric and slightly woody hops coming up behind. Medium bodied with light carbonation. Flavour is great – mild caramel, candied orange peel, lingering hop bitterness. Solid!

Pump House Cadian Cream Ale
Light gold colour. Sweet & grassy malt aroma. Light body. More sweetness in the flavour, with a bit of honey & orange. Not much bitterness in the finish. The most mainstream – and most disappointing – of the bunch.

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What'd You C'est?

Posted on January 12, 2009 | Comments Off on What'd You C'est?

cestwhat_room

I’ve been neglectful in posting links to my beer-related articles over on Taste T.O. (although they’re showing up in one of the funky little widgets in the right sidebar over there, for those who pay attention to such things).

Rectifying that, here’s a link to my profile of Toronto’s oldest craft beer bar, C’est What, which was posted last week as part of our Pub Crawl series.

While I’m doing the linky thing, you might also be interested in my Beer of the Week posts on Samichlaus and Innis & Gunn Rum Cask that went up before the holidays. And if you’re reading this after 7:30 AM (Eastern) on Tuesday, my review of Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen should be available.

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Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty!

Posted on January 11, 2009 | 1 comment

birthdaybeerIt’s my birthday today. The Big Four-Oh. I guess I’m supposed to be starting my mid-life crisis now – or does that start at 50 nowadays?

Like most big events in the Clow-Kirby household, it’s being celebrated fairly quietly. Friday night, we got together with Joann and Rodger, a lovely older couple who we’ve gotten to know over the last couple of years at Harvest Wednesdays, a series of dinners and tastings at the Gladstone Hotel where they and we are regulars. They both work at the Royal Ontario Museum, so they gave us a quick tour of a couple of current exhibits featuring diamonds and gemstones (oooh, sparkly!), and then we went for dinner at Dynasty, a nearby Chinese restaurant. The food was good, albeit about twice as expensive as a similar meal would be over on Spadina, but that’s Yorkville for ya.

Last night, it was dinner at beerbistro which is always a treat, birthday or not. We started with duck confit corn dogs and blonde ale veggie pakoras, followed by an astoundingly huge serving of rabbit & bacon fettucine for Sheryl, and the succulent applewood-smoked suckling pig special for the birthday boy, washed down with the always enjoyable Durham Hop Addict IPA. Manager Dayna somehow found out that it was my birthday (oh, alright, I bragged about it on the way in…) and sent over a bomber of Lagunitas Imperial Stout for us to enjoy with our dessert of flourless chocolate cake – but wait, before the cake arrived, chef Brian stopped by to see if we’d like to try something he’d been “playing around with”: foie gras cured in Rochefort 6 served with a banana-cherry chutney. Well, twist our rubber arms, and ohmifrickingod, best foie gras EVAR!!!

Today, it was brunch at The Beaver, one of our favourite little brunch spots in the ‘hood, and tonight, dinner and drinks with my usual beer drinkin’ posse at The Rhino, the best beer bar within staggering distance of our apartment.

Yeah, I guess 40 is turning out to be pretty OK so far…

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The Obligatory (and slightly late) New Year's Post

Posted on January 4, 2009 | 1 comment

On January 1st, 2008, I took a look back at my beery adventures of 2007 by using posts to this blog as my guide. It’s a common way of wrapping up the year – Troy, for example, did it for 2008 – but due to the Three Month Gap and other periods of sporadic posting for me last year, it’s not really gonna work for me this time around.

Instead, I’ll just give some quick thoughts on a few highlights from the year recently ended:

Beer Dinner of the Year: As much as I would love to put the Southern Tier dinner at the top of the list (mainly because I helped out in the planning and promotion and acted as a co-host for the evening.), I’m afraid that there’s no competition with this one – the winner is clearly the Dogfish Head dinner at beerbistro back in May. I can only hope and pray that Sam Calagione was serious when he said that he’d like to make it an annual event.

Beer Event of the Year: This is a tough one (especially since I never got around to writing about a lot of ’em – links will be provided elsewhere where applicable). Cask Days 2008 is an obvious choice, since Ralph and co. at Volo outdid themselves yet again with an absolutely stupendous weekend. There were some great new events, such as the Hart House Craft Beer Festival & Summer BBQ and the Victory Summer Cask Ale Festival. But I’ll have to give the nod to The Brewer’s Plate, a tasting event that partnered local fine dining chefs with local breweries in support of Green Enterprise Toronto. It was great to see such a wide array of people enjoying great food with great beer, and I really look forward to this year’s edition.

New Bar of the Year: While they don’t really promote themselves as a ‘beer destination’ per se, I have to give props to The Cock & Tail. The tap line-up is solid, with lots of local favourites, and the bottle selection of (mostly) imports is quite impressive for what is essentially a neighbourhood hangout and watering hole. A lot of new bars are lured over to the dark side with promises of discounts and kickbacks, and end up with the standard line-up of bland macros and shitty imports available at so many other places, so it’s great to see that some owners are willing to stick with their principles to serve the good stuff. (Runner-up: The Football Factory)

New Local Beer of the Year: There were probably a few new beers that I enjoyed more last year, notably festival one-offs and the like. But my favourite new brew that’s regularly available is Granite Hopping Mad. As a hoppy pale ale, it’s a beer that would probably seem pedestrian to many, especially any Americans reading this. But here in a province where hop-forward beers are still a bit of a novelty, it’s nice to have another addition to the few that we have.

I’m sure if I stewed on this a bit longer, I could come up with a few more things to add to the list, but I’d like to get this done before the next new year comes around. So let’s leave it at that.

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Posted in year in review