craft brewing – Ben's Beer Blog

When I first started reading the press release for the “iCraft Brew” app, “available for free for both Apple and Android devices,” and “geared toward that person who has dreamed of starting a craft brewing business,” I’ll admit my reaction was something along the lines of “Oh god. Really?”
Frankly, I’m skeptical of anything that refers implicitly or explicitly to the craft beer boom in Ontario as a “business opportunity” because I think it invites people to craft beer who aren’t so much into beer as they are interested in making a buck. The “craft beer business opportunity” mentality, to me, is what’s leading to an influx of less-than-stellar contract-brewed beer in cans that aren’t really helping the market so much as crowding it. To generalize: People who get into craft beer because they like beer are good, and people who get into craft beer because they want to make a buck are fuckheads. Continue reading “Starting a craft brewery? There’s an app for that” →

As we rapidly approach the long weekend that unofficially marks the start of summer here in Canada and one that quasi-officially requires that we drink beer in order to celebrate it, we are also faced with the looming threat of an LCBO strike.

As has been repeated in the media ad nauseum as of late, the LCBO is urging us to “stock up” now lest we be caught without any other options for booze this weekend.

I’m growing fairly tired of this refrain for a couple reasons. First, I’m inherently suspicious of any solution being offered by an organization that stands to profit massively from said solution. Perhaps they really are just being nice, but hearing the LCBO say “You better come spend a lot of money at our stores ASAP!” really turns me off actually doing it and, given my tendency to leap to unlikely conspiracy theories, is almost enough to make me think that maybe the whole strike is just a massive, brilliant marketing campaign to get us all hoarding booze (Whether or not the ghost of Elvis is involved remains to be seen). Continue reading “Never mind the LCBO strike, here’s the local brewers” →