Muskoka Brewery celebrates 20 years

Posted on by Ben

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Muskoka Brewery was probably part of your discovery of Ontario craft beer, even if you don’t think they were.

Since they opened the doors in 1996 with a cream ale and steadily became more adventurous as Ontario beer drinkers’ palates evolved, their growth as a company has essentially mirrored the growth of Ontario’s craft beer scene. It’s almost certain that they’re responsible for bringing people on board with the idea that supporting local beer is rewarding and then, by degrees, that beer can be a little more adventurous than the shit people typically buy at The Beer Store.

This year Muskoka Brewery is celebrating their 20th anniversary and, to mark the occasion, they have a handful of cool things going on. Continue reading “Muskoka Brewery celebrates 20 years” →

Why is craft beer so white?

Posted on by Ben

Be forewarned: This is a super long post. Like annoyingly long. Like “Really, Ben? Ever heard of editing?” long. But this is a topic with a lot of angles to be covered and a it’s one which I felt required fulsome exploration. Also, it’s my blog and you’ve been reading my shit for free for five years so I can do whatever I want. K, thanks. 

Canada’s craft beer industry is a friendly and welcoming scene.

Spend any amount of time in the company of the people who are making and drinking craft beer in this country and you’ll quickly be drawn in by the engaging events and the comradery that exists even among so-called competitors. Craft beer is fun and this inclusionary atmosphere (along with the interesting beer) is likely a big part of the reason more people are discovering craft beer and why estimates put small breweries’ share of Canada’s beer market at around 10%.

So why then, in an industry that seems implicitly welcoming and inclusive, are almost all those friendly faces white?

Scan a newspaper for news of a brewery opening in your town, check out local website coverage of the latest craft beer festival in your area–heck, just do a stock image search for “people drinking craft beer”–and you’ll see pretty quickly that Canada’s craft beer scene is whiter than a country club fundraiser for sustainable organic mayonnaise.

Toronto in particular, where Canada’s craft beer charge is arguably being led, is ranked among the most multicultural cities in the world, and is the most diverse city in the country with the last available census data stating 47.7% of the city’s population comprises “visible minorities.”

So why don’t any of these people of colour seem to be drinking, making, or selling beer? Continue reading “Why is craft beer so white?” →

Andrew Peters: The Proost Questionnaire

Posted on by Ben

The Proust Questionnaire is a famous questionnaire about one’s personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses once given by the French writer Marcel Proust. Ben’s Beer Blog has co-opted this format in order to provide a revealing look at people making beer and working in the beer industry in Ontario. As such, I’ve renamed it The Proost Questionnaire, since “proost” is the Dutch word for cheers. Clever right?

Andrew Peters is a co-founder of Forked River Brewery. Here’s why he likes survival stories and wishes he could sing.

Andrew PetersWhat is your idea of perfect happiness?

A crisp autumn day hiking with the family, back to the campsite for a cold beer, music around the campfire, then gentle rain on the tent roof.

What is your greatest fear?

Disappointing people–friends, family, customers.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Building a life here in London with a wonderful family, and helping to foster the craft beer scene here.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Procrastination (I got these questions a month and a half ago….)

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Disrespect and arrogance. Continue reading “Andrew Peters: The Proost Questionnaire” →

Haiku reviews: Wanderoot Craft Cider

Posted on by Ben

Haiku reviews is a feature wherein I invoke the brief and impressionistic style of poetry to devote exactly 17 syllables to reviewing a beer.

 

Wanderoot Craft Cider
threatening, bees circle
over-ripe fallen apples
smooshing underfoot

What they have to say: “We take our time crafting this great-tasting cider—so you can take your time savouring its full, complex flavours. Classic Apple offers plenty of freshly peeled apple skin off the top, with bright, ripe apple notes in the background. The full fruit flavour is complemented by a pleasant crispness that creates the perfect balance of sweet and dry, mellow and tart. The natural carbonation clears the palate and gets you ready for the next sip on your journey. The result is a lively, refreshing cider—one that’s full of flavour and far from ordinary.”

Where you can get it: Available in select markets.

Want to send me a beer for the haiku review treatment? Drop me a line.

Food and Beer, the book

Posted on by Ben

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On the short list of things I’m really enthusiastic about, beer, food, and books all rank fairly highly.

That’s why I was pretty excited to check out a review of copy of the book “Food & Beer,” by Daniel Burns, Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø,and Joshua David Stein.

Burns and Jarnit-Bjergsø share space in Brooklyn where their respective attached homes, Luksus and Tørst, elevate beer to the status it deserves as they pair it with both casual food and fine dining in two environments that rank among the coolest places to drink a beer I’ve ever seen. Tørst is humbly self-described as a neighborhood bar, but it is in fact a barnboard, white-marble, and mirrored shrine to good beer where serious beer enthusiasts come to drink from Tørst’s custom wine glasses and beer is the only beverage served. Essentially, Jarnit-Bjergsø is overseeing the physical embodiment of the happy place from my dream journal (Incidentally Jarnit-Bjergsø is also the evil twin who founded Evil Twin Brewing).

Daniel Burns oversees the menu of casual fare at Tørst where, at the back of the bar is a “secret” door leading to Luksus, a 16-seat tasting menu restaurant that Burns helms, where diners are “transported to a Nordic-inspired evening, influenced by the chef’s time in England and America, and his childhood in Nova Scotia.” Each dish at Luksus is paired exclusively with beer chosen by Jarnit-Bjergsø. Wine and cocktails are not available. Because fuckin’ eh, man.

Burns and  Jarnit-Bjergsø have written this book with Joshua David Stein (the food critic for New York Observer) and, as you might have guessed by the flurry of credentials I’ve already thrown at you, the book is dope, as the kids say. Continue reading “Food and Beer, the book” →

Top five Ontario beers for numbing the unceasing pain of your existence

Posted on by Ben

Suicide pact!

There are many great reasons to drink Ontario craft beer these days!

With no shortage of new and exciting beer being produced by the province’s ever-growing number of small breweries, there truly is a style of beer for virtually all tastes. Working your way through the many varieties available–from a dark, chocolaty coffee stout to a tart and fruity barrel-aged sour beer–can be a fun adventure and a way to experience new things.

And it feels good to support local companies. Buying beer from your local craft brewer means you are supporting a small business that is creating jobs in your backyard. Often, buying craft beer means getting an opportunity to meet the very people who made your beer and learn all about the businesses and the people you are supporting with your purchase. Buying Ontario craft beer isn’t just fun, it can also be rewarding!

Of course craft beer, like all beer, contains alcohol; and so consuming these exciting and interesting beers that you’ve purchased directly from your local craft brewery is also an excellent way to try to quiet, even momentarily, your constant and unrelenting thoughts about the fact that we are all ultimately totally alone and that life is essentially meaningless. Continue reading “Top five Ontario beers for numbing the unceasing pain of your existence” →

Haiku reviews: Sleeman’s Railside Session Ale

Posted on by Ben

Haiku reviews is a new feature wherein I invoke the brief and impressionistic style of poetry to devote exactly 17 syllables to reviewing a beer.

Sleeman’s Railside Session Ale
in dust-blown ditch weeds
in the damp sulphur of Guelph
the racoon goes pee

 

What they have to say: “As the legend goes, back in the late 19th century, a railway route through Guelph was used to deliver hops to the original Sleeman Silver Creek Brewery. While riding on the rickety rails, loose hops fell overboard onto fields lining the track. Over time the fallen hops began to grow naturally along the rail line. These hops still grow wild there today and are the inspiration behind Sleeman Railside Session Ale.”

Where you can get it: Available in 341mL bottles and 473 mL cans and 30L Kegs at The Beer Store.

Want to send me a beer for the haiku review treatment? Drop me a line.

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” →

The Ontario Craft Beer Guide is for geeks

Posted on by Ben

Despite what virtually all of the Ontario breweries, beer writers, and various beer-scene hangers-on that I happen to follow on social media have been telling me for the last week or so, Jordan St. John and Robin LeBlanc have not written a beer book.

I mean, technically, of course, they did “write a book,” the soon to be released Ontario Craft Beer Guide, but what the authors–one a former nationally syndicated beer columnist and the other the current beer columnist for Torontoist, both of them prolific bloggers–have actually written is a unique and thorough snapshot of the beer industry in a region that is on the cusp of a very large boom.

Craft-beer sales in Ontario rose a whopping 26.6 per cent between 2013 and 2014 according to the last available data from the LCBO and, according to the Ontario Craft Brewers, their share of beer sales has increased nearly 220 per cent since 2010. “Craft” is by far the fastest-growing segment of beer in the Ontario market. The Ontario Beverage Network formerly known as Mom n Hops has 300 breweries on its list of beer-making-operations that are either currently open in the province or are in the planning phase, and that number is up from just 100 three years ago. To put it bluntly then, craft beer in Ontario is going fucking gangbusters.  And so it’s an extremely interesting time for the arrival of The Ontario Craft Beer Guide which, in effect, will serve as an excellent and ridiculously detailed archive of Ontario craft beer essentially right as it’s coming into its own. Continue reading “The Ontario Craft Beer Guide is for geeks” →

Matthew O’Hara: The Proost Questionnaire

Posted on by Ben

The Proust Questionnaire is a famous questionnaire about one’s personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses once given by the French writer Marcel Proust. Ben’s Beer Blog has co-opted this format in order to provide a revealing look at people making beer and working in the beer industry in Ontario. As such, I’ve renamed it The Proost Questionnaire, since “proost” is the Dutch word for cheers. Clever right?

Matthew O’Hara is the brewmaster for Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co. and is clearly a man of few words. Today he gets efficiently philosophical with a look at why he lies at bedtime and has no love for The Donald.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Being so immersed in a pleasant activity that you forget to think about it or anything else.

What is your greatest fear?

Mirrors.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Earning the love and respect of my daughter.

What is your favorite occupation?

Brewmaster.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Socrates.

Which living person do you most admire?

The Dalai Lama. Continue reading “Matthew O’Hara: The Proost Questionnaire” →