fiction – Ben's Beer Blog

The Great Ontario Beer Freakout

Posted on November 17, 2025 by Ben

Or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Drink Lager

Maybe it’s old guy navel gazing. Maybe it’s romanticizing a certain period of my life. Or maybe it never really happened at all. But I feel like craft beer in Ontario really did have a hey day.

It was brief, but it felt like something cool to be part of. It felt like something great was happening. Brewers were pushing the boundaries of what beer should look, sound, smell, and taste like and it was this fervent and fertile time period that made this industry blossom.

Maybe it was a decade ago? I’m not sure. I was drinking a lot at the time.

But Ontario craft beer was briefly a special sort of crazy. Controversy over cartoonish bombs on cans? Why not? Fuck the LCBO! Dry-hop everything until the air tastes like Citra. Dismantle The Beer Store and salt the earth so nothing owned by the big guys can grow back. Death to AB InBev!

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The 9-9-9 Challenge: A Savage Journey of Baseball, Beer, and Hot Dogs

Posted on July 8, 2025 by Ben

“Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

Some say these words were uttered by George Herman Ruth, aka The Babe, while other historians maintain it was my friend, Leon Melville, speaking to me whilst sitting in the 500 level of a Toronto Blue Jays game in 2011.

What historians can agree on, however, is that whether it were the Bambino or Leon, the phrase was definitely uttered in regards to embarking on the famed, 9-9-9 challenge: consume nine hot dogs and nine beers over nine innings of baseball.

Whoever said it, as someone who attempted it, I can tell you that it shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a grind. It takes courage and resilience and the fortitude and determination to force down roughly 10 pounds of substances proven to make your life shorter.

What I’m saying is you really have to want it.

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#111 - Hellfire and brimstone - Beer and Bullsh*t

This week, two old beer-scented ink-slingers chop it up as Jordan St. John returns and joins Ben to reflect on his days as a nationally-syndicated beer columnist, editor of the beer magazine The Growler, and beer instructor at George Brown. They dig into just how incestuous big beer in Canada is, BJCP certification for the dreaded Ontario Pale Ale, and why no one cares about anything any more. Plus: Jordan mentions upstart Bickford Brewing so many times it seems like he might be on the payroll.