November Great Lakes - Project X

The November edition of Great Lakes Project X was last Thursday. Two special casks were tapped – a Winter Ale with Bourbon Soaked Raisin Flambé and a Swampwater Pale Ale (60% Pompous Ass, 30% My Bitter Wife, 10% Tenish Anyone IIIPA?)


The SwampMaster, an copper-coloured IPA that poured a bit foamy, was deliciously hoppy and yet surprisingly smooth and drinkable (My Bitter Wife was much more aggressively hopped, the SwampMaster was more subtle..)

The Winter Ale with Raisin Flambe was very unusual. Also copper-coloured, it was sweet, but the sweetness wasn’t cloying, and didn’t linger. I could both smell and taste the raisins. I’ve never had anything quite like it – sweeter beers are usually stronger but the Winter Ale cask didn’t have particularly high alcohol content. It was very interesting.

Apart from that, Great Lakes’ regular offerings were on tap – the Golden Horseshoe lager, the Red Leaf and the current seasonal, the Winter Ale.

According to their website, the Winter Ale has cinnamon, honey, ginger and orange peel. I’ve got to re-taste – I thought it had cloves and nutmeg, and I certainly couldn’t taste the ginger or the orange peel. However, the spices combine together to make this a delicious sit-by-the-fire-and-drink-all-night-long beer.

Good times were had by all.
I'm posing with John from Great Lakes.


What can I say? The beer was good, and some silliness happened. We closed the place down.

Cask! November Social

1.45pm yesterday found me queuing up at Dora's to attend Cask's November social. What a blast!

3 casks were on offer. I started with a half-pint of the Mill Street ESB, followed it up with a half-pint of the Black Oak Hop Bomb, and finished with a full pint of the Black Oak Nutcracker Porter. All very tasty beers, but my personal favorite was the Nutcracker Porter, which had a beautiful peat/charcoal smokiness, a lovely dark color, and was just honestly perfection. (The Nutcracker Porter should be amazing with cheese as well. Mmm, drooling.)

I also met a whole bunch of Toronto beer celebrities! Very cool.

Next month's social is at the Victory Cafe, which is good incentive for me to move the Beer Lovers monthly event there. All good!

In Mourning

Wednesday is supposed to be a List day, and indeed, I started writing my article on the best places in the city for cheap pitchers, leading with that old standby - the Green Room.

Then, I came across these articles from the Torontoist.

Lights Out for the Green Room? - October 13, 2010
The Green Room Stays Closed - October 14, 2010
How the Green Room Got Closed for Good - October 15, 2010

And so, I mourn.

Look - I'm not a fan of rat droppings in food, or whatever the heck the Green Room got shut down for. But you know what else I'm not a fan of? Paying $8-$9 for a pint of beer, no matter how excellent it is. Which is what I routinely end up paying at Dora's or at C'est What. (Actually, at-least Dora's and C'est What have excellent beer, a lot of crap-beer places seem to charge $8 as well.)

In Toronto, beer seems to be a rich-person thing, which is appalling. There's a legislative price floor on bottled beer. (Here's some reasons why.) The Beer Store is owned by brewers - an staggering conflict-of-interest in a monopoly. Pints are expensive. Happy hours are relatively unknown.

I made up a beer affordability index, if you will. I took the minimum wage in a country (in international dollars), divided it by the price of a pint, and came up with the number of pints you could drink with your minimum-wage money.

The results match my gut-feel on this - it is expensive to drink in Canada.

Country	Price of a Pint (CAD)	Minimum wage per year (Intl $)	Number of pints I can buy with my minimum wage
Canada	$5.49	16,710	3,044
Australia	$5.49	20,027	3,648
UK	$5.18	22,597	4,362

(Price of beers from PintPrice. Minimum wages from Wikipedia.)


And so I mourn the demise of a place where pitchers of beer were $13 (tax included) every single day.

Good-bye, Green Room.

Cheese + Project X + Cask! = Good Beer Week

It is a good week in Beer-Land.

Tomorrow, I'm heading to the Leslieville Cheese Market for their Beer + Cheese class. The Toronto Beer Lovers are going there as a group in January, but I couldn't wait. (C'mon. Cheese? Beer? You had me at hello.)

On Thursday, I head to the November edition of Great Lakes' Project X. They have promised two beers, a Winter Ale with Bourbon Soaked Raisin Flambé and a Swampwater Pale Ale. Drooling in anticipation.

And on Saturday, the Cask! Social beckons, with three(!) featured casks, Black Oak Hop Bomb, Black Oak Nutcracker Porter, and Mill Street ESB. I'm yet to meet a Black Oak beer I didn't love. (Almost. There was one solitary exception.)

My cup of beer-joy runneth over.

Saturday Night at C'est What

Saturday night found me at one of my favorite bars - C'est What.

I drank my way through Great Lakes' My Bitter Wife and Beau's Night Marzen and finished with Durham's Black Katt Stout. All delicious in different ways.

(Ok, let's be honest here. This is the morning after - I drank 4 pints last night. I'm trying to remember what stuff tasted like, but can't. The best description I'm going to come up with is drinkable. Next time, I'll write stuff down as I'm drinking it.)

My Bitter Wife won Volo's Cask IPA challenge this year, and it is pretty good. Very, very hoppy, but surprisingly drinkable.

Night Marzen was described as a dark lager - and was voted the staff favorite. Also very nice.

And then there were the two pints of Black Katt. What can I say? I love Black Katt. (I also love Hop Head and Hop Addict, which suggests that I need to take a trip to Pickering to visit County Durham.)

My Top 5 bars for draught beer in Toronto

Every Wednesday is a List Day, in which I do some kind of beer-related list. Lists are good.

Since I run the Toronto Beer Lovers Group, I'm often asked by newcomers what my favorite beer bars are. And - these five below are typically always on the list, for the sheer awesomeness of their taps.

Listed in no particular order:

1. C'est What
67 Front Street East, Toronto. Closest TTC: King or Union.

The pros: A massive tap list, mostly local taps, fantastic food, live music, and an amazing beer tasting festival twice a year.
The cons: Pints aren't cheap, plus the basement location is a bit of a downer in summer.

2. Bar Volo
587 Yonge St, Toronto. Closest TTC: Wellesley.
The pros: Volo tends to carry at-least one or two beers that you just can't find anywhere else. Monday nights, the pints are slightly cheaper. Nice outdoor patio and good food.
The cons: Like C'est What - there are no cheap pints in this place.

3. Dora Keogh
141 Danforth Avenue, Toronto. Closest TTC: Broadview.

The pros: Fullers London Porter on tap, enough said. In my experience, by far the best Guinness pour in the city.
The cons: Loud music on weekends, and no place to take refuge, and no food to speak of.

4. Victory Cafe
581 Markham Street, Toronto. Closest TTC: Bathurst.

The pros: Again, an all-local, excellent tap list, plus Victory always carries a special cask. Twice a year, they do an amazing cask festival which is well-worth standing in line and going to. Very nice outdoor patio as well, and great food.
The cons: Victory Cafe is crowded, unfortunately. Patio seats are pretty hard to come by...

5. Sin & Redemption
136 McCaul St, Toronto. Closest TTC: St. Patrick

The pros: An extensive Belgian/Belgian-style beer list, with prices about $1 cheaper per pint than the Bier Markt.
The cons: I've found the overall experience here inconsistent. Some nights are great, others - just too crowded.