Category: Beer

Toronto’s Bar Volo closing after 28 years

Posted on by Ben

Volo

The first time I went to Bar Volo was like entering a whole new world.

Obviously I had been to bars before and had even been in quite a few that had extensive draught lists, but I had never before stepped foot in a place that so clearly and so passionately embraced craft beer as an ethos.

With the extensive list of beers I’d mostly never before heard of scrawled on a chalkboard, ordering at Volo initially felt complicated and a little intimidating.

Of course it wasn’t really and, after ordering a few rounds, I felt like an old pro. So much so that, like everyone else who visits, I couldn’t wait to come back to introduce the place to a beer-loving friend so that I could explain how the place worked like a veteran, share a flight, and likely experience something new again.

Sadly, the ability to share the experience that is Bar Volo will soon be coming to an end.

I’ve confirmed that the Morana family, the owners of Bar Volo, have received six month’s notice from their landlord and, after 28 years, will be leaving the space at 587 Yonge by the end of September. Continue reading “Toronto’s Bar Volo closing after 28 years” →

Let’s talk about glassware

Posted on by Ben

I‘ve never really been that into beer glassware.

My reasoning has always been thus: As with most things where I feel beer is being fawned over in an overly-precious way, fussing about glassware seemed to me to be just another way to detract from the best part of drinking beer, namely that it’s fun.

Whether it be contriving expensive classes that are meant to quantify our appreciation of beer, making products to protect them from the sun during the 20 minutes they’re in our glass, or inventing laser-cut crystal glasses that enhance specific styles of beer, my instinct when we put beer on too high a pedestal is typically to go a big rubbery one. “Lighten up,” I’d say to literally no one in particular. “It’s beer.” Continue reading “Let’s talk about glassware” →

This blog’s for you

Posted on by Ben

As you might be able to glean from the appearance of the website today, I have some changes to announce.

It’s something that has been in the works for some time, but for legal reasons, I haven’t been able to talk about it until today: Ben’s Beer Blog is proud to announce a unique partnership with AB InBev and, from this day forward, the blog will be known instead as Ben’s Budweiser Blog.

I know this will come as a shock to my many loyal craft-beer drinking readers but a few months ago, owing to my own increasingly dire financial circumstances, I went in search of sponsorship and advertising opportunities for the blog and, while I had some offers from larger Ontario craft brewers, none could compete with the offer I ultimately received from AB InBev through their local subsidiary, Labatt. Continue reading “This blog’s for you” →

Let’s Stop Beersplaining

Posted on by Ben

beersplain

The past few years have seen the rise of the useful term “mansplaining;” meant to describe those instances in which a man describes something to a woman in a manner that is patronizing or condescending.

(And as is always the case when I explain this word, I feel like I should now apologize to female readers who already knew the term, because irony.)

I’d like to propose that there is a beer version, and I’d like to suggest we all make a concerted effort to stop “beersplaining.”

Much like mansplaining, beersplaining occurs when someone adopts a view that they are more knowledgeable about beer than the person they are speaking to and thus “discusses” beer with that person in a manner that is patronizing or condescending. Continue reading “Let’s Stop Beersplaining” →

Some advice to Budweiser about next year’s Super Bowl ad

Posted on by Ben

Screen Shot 2016-02-08 at 6.58.46 AM

In case you missed it, last night during the Super Bowl, Budweiser opted to double down on a marketing strategy that sets its sights squarely on making craft beer seem like the drink of pansies.

Last year during the Super Bowl we learned that Budweiser is “brewed the hard way,” and this year, via galloping, muscular Clydesdales and manly men doing the hard work of brewing Bud, they proudly proclaimed they were “not backing down.”

This is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that last year’s ad (which to my mind better “pansified” craft beer than this year’s) was so roundly ridiculed in the days that followed Super Bowl 49 that it’s shocking to see the tact repeated this year, albeit less effectively. It’s also amusing to note (as others have and will again) that AB-InBev attacking craft beer (again) is profoundly hypocritical given that the strategy is paired with one that has seen them buying up said pansy craft breweries in the last few years. Continue reading “Some advice to Budweiser about next year’s Super Bowl ad” →

Moosehead threatens legal action against New Brunswick government

Posted on by Ben

moosehead

Following previous successful legal actions taken in the name of trademark infringement, New Brunswick’s Moosehead Brewery today named yet another claimant in their fight to make sure their name remains unique: The Government of New Brunswick.

On the heels of legal action in November of 2014 that forced Sudbury’s Stack Brewing to change the names of its Friendly Moose and Angry Moose brands and an ongoing opposition to a trademark filing by Regina’s District Brewing over the name Müs Knuckle Lager, Mooshead has announced they’ve now got beef with the New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. Continue reading “Moosehead threatens legal action against New Brunswick government” →

2015 Beer News Round Up

Posted on by Ben

2015 in beer
Last year, for my round up of beer news that occurred in 2014, I  summarized my thoughts on the scene generally with an uncharacteristic sense of optimism.

The “Ontario beer conversation” seemed to have leapt from blogs and bars to the mainstream and a seemingly constant series of newspaper articles and op-eds was bringing more and more of the general public into the beer world’s previously private world of fist-shaking, head-scratching, anti-monopolistic, impotent rage. At the close of 2014, change in Ontario’s frustratingly archaic retail beer system seemed not only likely, but practically inevitable.

“I really think 2015 is poised to be a big year for beer in Ontario,” I wrote, one year ago today, in a post that seems almost as painful in its earnestness as the Geocities website I once created for my high school punk band.

Because of course, as is often the case in this province, the reality of the change to the beer scene in Ontario has been painfully slow, unnecessarily complicated, and largely unsatisfying. And so, instead of the celebratory year we might have had, this year, if I had to chose one word to describe how I felt about the beer news that went down in 2015, that word would be “meh.” Continue reading “2015 Beer News Round Up” →

Loblaws set to launch beer sales

Posted on by Ben

superstore

Early next week Loblaws will announce the details of their pilot program to be among the first grocers in Ontario to sell beer.

The grocery chain’s stores are among a select 450 Ontario grocery stores who will be allowed to sell beer by 2018 and they are also among an even more select 60 stores who will be allowed to sell beer “before Christmas,” a date that grows ever closer, despite what the weather might have you believe.

Ben’s Beer Blog has learned that, with an eye to that “Christmas” launch, Loblaws will likely be hosting a press conference next week where Premier Kathleen Wynne will be on hand to help the retailer announce the details of the launch of their beer program.

I’m going to add a big disclaimer here that I have been unable to verify all of what I’m about to reveal, but for the most part, I have the details that will be announced. Continue reading “Loblaws set to launch beer sales” →

Brewer Matt Soos honoured with a memorial beer

Posted on by Ben

GroupShot

For anyone who has had much involvement with Ontario’s craft beer industry, you get to know fairly quickly that “industry” probably isn’t even the right term for this group.

Yes, they are making and selling a product and running a business, but for the most part, the people making and selling beer at small breweries in this province are much more of a community than they are an “industry.” They all know the same people, they sometimes went to school together, they usually face the same struggles, they are often sharing resources and–increasingly–they even brew their beer in the same parent facility.

And while there can occasionally be some infighting or gossip about petty things like who’s swiping kegs from other brewers, who’s “copying” someone’s latest beer style or label, etc. it is, for the most part, a community that works together, collaborates on ideas, and shares in each other’s achievements as craft beer grows in Ontario.

They also come together as a community when they are faced with tragedy. Continue reading “Brewer Matt Soos honoured with a memorial beer” →

Evil Twin Brewing coming to Toronto bars

Posted on by Ben

Evil Twin Beers

Keep6Imports, the small, Toronto-based beer import company responsible for bringing brands like Trou du Diable, Dieu du Ciel! and Howe Sound Brewing into Ontario, announced tonight via their instagram account that they would be adding another famed brewer to their lineup of imports: Brooklyn-based contract brewery, Evil Twin Brewing.

But don’t get too excited if you live somewhere outside of Toronto. Tomas Morana, proprietor of Keep6Imports, tells me that they only brought in a very small amount of Evil Twin beers so it has all been allocated to bars and restaurants–and while Morana and Co. are happy to sell to any licensee that wants to come pick up the beer in Toronto, for now Evil Twin will only be available at spots in the Centre of the Universe.

Continue reading “Evil Twin Brewing coming to Toronto bars” →