brew dog – Ben's Beer Blog

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Something that has been a poorly-kept secret among gossipy Ontario hop fiends for a while can now finally be officially confirmed: Escondido, California’s Stone Brewing Co. is coming to Ontario.

I spoke with Rob Hern, the Retail Sales and Marketing Manager for Horizon Beers, the agency that represents Stone in Canada and he confirmed that, yes, I can finally actually publicly state that Stone’s award-winning, West-coast-style, hop-forward beers will be here in February.

Stone IPA, one of the best-selling and well-respected IPAs in America will be joined on draught in the province by Arrogant Bastard, a beer that you probably don’t have a refined enough palate to appreciate. Hern says there will be a handful of launch events in the province the week of February 23^rd (with obviously a majority here in Toronto, the centre of the universe) and, while he’s keeping the exact details under wraps for now, he suggested that visits from brewery officials and even a collaboration brew with an Ontario brewery might be in the works to publicize the beers’ arrival. Let the sexual favour offers from local brewmasters to Rob Hern begin.

The news of Stone’s arrival comes fairly recently on the heels of the news that both California’s Sierra Nevada and Scotland’s Brew Dog will be infiltrating Ontario’s beer market so this adds even further speculation to the oft-debated question of how Ontario beer will fare in competition with more established craft brands. For their part, Stone brings the credibility of not only being the the 10th largest craft brewery in the United States, but also one that was actually rated “the #1 All Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth” by the readers of Beer Advocate. No, seriously. Continue reading “Stone Brewing Co. is coming to Ontario” →

Innovative Scottish brewery, Brew Dog, who have become famous across the pond as much for their beer as for their antics–having participated in the race to make the world’s strongest beer, winning that race by brewing a 55% beer that they packaged in road kill, made a beer at the bottom of the ocean, projected themselves naked onto the British Houses of parliament, sold shares of their company online to over 14,000 “shareholders” and, in just a few short years have become Scotland’s largest independent brewery–have announced their next adventure: they’re coming to Ontario.

I spoke to Stefan Milo Cornish of Premier Brands, the agency representing Brew Dog, who confirmed the rumours about which Ontario beer nerds have been speculating. Draught offerings of a handful of Brew Dog beers will be available here as early as next week. Continue reading “Scotland’s Brew Dog is coming to Ontario” →