July 2019 – Ben's Beer Blog

This piece originally appeared in print and online for in the December 2018 edition of The Growler, Ontario’s Beer Guide.

As a paying customer in a bar, you might think that the beer on tap is chosen to suit your tastes. It feels like a safe assumption that not only the food but also the beer pouring from the gleaming row of taps is selected to appease you, in order to make you spend money, return, and maybe even invite friends along.

But it usually isn’t. Those beers are there for different reasons and that bar isn’t actually a really big fan of the 12 very similar lagers that Labatt offers.

The truth is, most bar and restaurant owners treat their draught taps, and often their fridges of bottles and cans too, as not much more than prime real estate, available to the highest bidder. Brewery sales reps come into bars with an arsenal of free shit in order to “influence” their way onto these tap lines. They’re flush with “swag” like t-shirts, patio umbrellas, bar mats and chalkboards. They have budgets to offer keg deals, buy five get one free, for example; and they often simply hand over cash or offer to pay for a bar to install draught lines so that the brewery can make sure their beer is always in that line. There is no loyalty in the hospitality business. A bar manager’s love for a brewery is really only as good as the last rep who walked in the door with free tickets to a Ti-Cats game and a fucking snapback hat. Continue reading “From Graft to Glass” →

This piece originally appeared in print and online for in the November 2018 edition of The Growler, Ontario’s Beer Guide.

I recently had occasion to visit a nearby outpost of a franchise steak restaurant.

It was one of those rare moments in our lives as parents when my wife and I realized that we were out, childless, hungry at the dinner hour and could actually sit down and enjoy a meal together.

This is, of course, what franchise steak restaurants are for. They are a known entity: You will have a large and decent piece of meat that you will pay a large and decent price for. You will have the same two appetizers you always order at their other locations. And you will enjoy timely and courteous service. Deep booths, dim lighting, these are all things you are familiar with.

I like an independently-owned, funky, and unique restaurant as much as the next casual food snob, but when you’ve got 90 minutes and no margin for error, give me the comforting sameness and uniform service standards of a reasonably solid franchise every time.

Of course, the one unknown at places like these is always the beer selection.
Continue reading “When is it OK to send a beer back?” →