What is a brewery to do when the opening of your much anticipated second location is being repeatedly delayed by unforseen circumstances?
The answer, it seems, is to go ahead and just open a third location while you wait. At least, that’s the approach that Toronto’s Bellwoods Brewery has opted to take. Continue reading “Bellwoods Brewery announces third location”
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”
Back in November I shared a story about the passing of Matt Soos, a 2014 graduate of Niagara College’s Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program. Matt passed away just a few months after commencing work as a brewer at Muskoka Brewery.
In that post, I wrote about Natterjack Toad, a 7% ABV Belgian Strong brewed with pistachios and created from one of Matt’s own recipes. Matt’s friends and family traveled to Muskoka Brewery in Granvehurst to brew the beer and the proceeds of its sale were to go toward a scholarship in Matt’s name.
A few days ago I received an email from Dan Soos, Matt’s older brother, letting me know that on February 19th, Matt’s family presented a cheque to Niagara College in the amount of $31,800 for the creation of the Matt Soos Project Brew Memorial Fund. Continue reading “Update: Matt Soos Project Brew Memorial Fund established”
Big beer companies appear to be coming for our beloved craft breweries.
In the United States we’ve seen big brewers buy up Pyramid, Magic Hat, Anchor Steam, Kona, Goose Island, Blue Point Brewery Co, 10 Barrel Brewing, and Elysian. Much closer to home, through Labatt, we’ve just seen AB InBev make what will almost certainly be the first of at least a couple moves into the Canadian “craft” market by buying up Toronto’s Mill Street Brewery.
And while our instincts may be to arm ourselves and barricade the doors of our favourite local brewpub–or worse, take to greasy laptops in our collective mothers’ basements in order to fill the internet with cries of “sell out,”–we really probably shouldn’t panic. Because whatever big beer’s designs might be, I don’t think they’re going to work.
Continue reading “Bigger isn’t better: The philosophical currency of craft beer”
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”
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”
Charming 45,325 sq/ft brewery is the ideal spot for a mid-sized craft brewery looking to upgrade or an adventurous entrepreneur who loves beer and has more money than sense.
Gently used by a pioneering Toronto craft brewer who needs to vacate the space in a hurry thanks to a business offer they simply couldn’t refuse, this luxurious space on a 2.62 acre lot features roughly 20,195 sq/ft of new construction, a sunken living room and hardwood throughout. Steps to transit and the the shops of Scarborough Town Centre.
OK, the above listing isn’t real, but it’s pretty close to the interesting “property for lease” notice recently posted by global real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield.
Yes, the brewery at 300 Midwest Road in Scarborough, better known as the production facility of one Mill Street Brewery is currently up for lease. Continue reading “Mill Street’s production brewery is for lease”
Last week I rounded up some of the biggest developments in beer in 2015 and it got me to thinking about the year ahead. Here are some of things I predict what we might see in beer in Ontario for 2016.
Small scale innovation
Grocery store sales are not going to be the tipping point for Ontario beer. As I noted in last week’s post, that development doesn’t seem all that ground-breaking for me. I think it’s possible that, as the grocery store program rolls out over the next couple years, there might be some outlier chains and independent grocers who opt to support local and craft beer exclusively; however, given that Farm Boy, who were rumoured to be aiming at 100% craft beer on shelves, has opted to stock big beer on store shelves, I think it’s more likely that grocery stores will simply bring us more of the same beer we already have access to through the Beer Store and LCBO.
Instead, I think 2016 will continue to bring interesting and innovative solutions to Ontario’s unique legislative problems by way of small businesses and entrepreneurs. I predict a rise in home-delivery services that bring unique craft offerings to people in areas where distribution is difficult and I predict the coming of increased numbers of niche-market bars and restaurants that can offer rare imported beers given how hard it can be to bring in beers from other markets. The forthcoming new bar from the family behind Bar Volo that will focus on barrel-aged and sour imports, to my mind, could be the first of many. Continue reading “What’s in store for Ontario beer next year?”
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”
If you’ve been paying any sort of attention to craft beer in Canada for the past decade or so, you already know the name Luc “Bim” Lafontaine.
Bim started working at Montreal’s famed Dieu du Ciel! Microbrasserie in 2001, became the head brewer in 2007, and made a name for himself making beers that were fairly universally considered among Canada’s, if not the world’s, best.
He’s known as something of a “brewer’s brewer” if there is a such a thing, and has earned a level of respect in the industry such that Hill Farmstead gets excited when he stops by to do a collab. Continue reading “Former Dieu du Ciel brewmaster opening east Toronto brew pub”
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