You will not be surprised to know that with the impending celebration of Father’s Day, the inbox at The Growler has been inundated with suggestions about what Fathers might want. Breweries from Toronto, Ottawa, and London paint a picture of a gentle urbanite who is as content to visit a farmer’s market as he is to bat the pickleball around. Breweries from rural Ontario depict a capable fellow who is elbow deep in oil filters and who might have opinions about this year’s corn. Both of these men wear plaid and desperately need you to buy them a beer.
The emails telling me what Daddy wants mostly go to the spam folder. That’s an entirely separate genre.
NEWS AND NOTES
I’m going to level with you. I was in Montreal and Chicago for most of the last two weeks, and for that reason, I’m mostly going to be focusing on upcoming events for this issue of News and Notes.
However, I should address that a lot of the mainstream news outlets are going to be dominated for the next several months by the fact that there are going to be additional shelves for beer in stores across Ontario. With Doug Ford’s decision to move up convenience store sales to September and the resultant hustling everyone is going to have to do in order to get those shelves built and hire staff with Smartserve, the contents of those shelves are going to take a back seat for a while.
Check out this link over at the Canada Convenience Store News, which explains what criteria you need to meet in order to apply for a convenience store license with the AGCO on Monday, June 17th. It’s clear that this will still be a loss leader for Convenience Stores, especially those with significantly less than 4,000 sq. ft. of space. Still, the ability to apply for a license comes barely four weeks after the announcement of the possibility, meaning some chains will rush in and begin offering the products that cause them to do the least amount of work on short notice.
Have your planograms ready, is my advice.
EVENTS
While the events Calendar is filling up for the latter half of the summer, the highlights for this weekend include the Guelph Beer Bus (which will be making the rounds between breweries) and the Petawawa Craft Beer Fest (for those of you who like staying in one place).
At Red Barn in Blenheim, there’s Dare to Pair on the 18th of June, which features 7 courses at $125 and which requires business casual attire. They don’t go in for Crocs and ripped t-shirts in Blenheim. Not to be outdone, Gillingham Brewing Company has put on their Corks & Casks event on June 20th, with tickets going at $325 a pair. Although they do not stipulate a dress code, I am assuming that at that price point you need a white tie, tails, and opera glasses. Both events will feature jazz music.
Ridge Rock Brewing in Carp is also having a beer dinner on June 18th, hosted by Calvin de Haan of the Tampa Bay Lightning. It will involve four beers and four plates since his number is 44. In this particular instance, failing to meet the dress code for the event will result in a major misconduct and five minutes in the box, and your table will face the next course a player down.
THE SIX PACK
FLUX VULTURES RUSTIC PILSNER
“Our take on a German pils. Vultures is naturally carbonated and hopped exclusively with Comet from Hayhoe Hops. It’s floral on the nose with some good bitterness on the way down the hatch.”
Scott Hayhoe grows some pretty nice hops, and Flux is traditionally very good with Pilsner, so this is a solid choice and probably very refreshing. Look for supplemental florality chat in the coming days.
GRAIN AND GRIT GOOD TIMES IPA
You’re not going to sit there and drink last week’s Hazy IPA like some kind of chump are ya? This has new stuff in it. So new it doesn’t even have names. So new that when they do name it you won’t even know what it was before and your context for it will disappear completely. Hip as hell.
“Good Times is a collaboration with BSG and Rahr Malting, featuring Amarillo, El Dorado and NZH214 hops and Gambrinus IPA Malt. This brand new IPA features aromas of nectarine, apricot, lemon sorbet, and mandarin orange, with flavours of pine, steeped green tea, grapefruit pith, lemon zest, tinned pineapple, and peach rings. It’s full-bodied with balanced bitterness on the finish.”
SLAKE BREWING SUPER SUNSET
It’s not just a sunset. It’s a subset of sunsets. It’s a super sunset whose equal is unmet, since Slake never upsets, although that could be unsaid.
“Super Sunset is an easy drinking Pale Ale that is made exclusively with Ontario malts and some of our favourite fruity hops. It’s loaded with citrus and tropical fruit aromatics but is low in bitterness and has a hint of sweetness. It’s sunset in a can!”
MERIT REAL REAL AMERICAN SOUR SAISON
Some teams are unbeatable. Tango and Cash. Hobbs and Shaw. Spinney and Nad.
“This American Sour Saison (a style we made up because process-wise this one doesn’t like neat boxes) was originally brewed for our opening lineup with our pal Jen Nad! A few years ago we started adding different fruits to shake it up, with this batch seeing heaps of Raspberry, Banana, and Dragonfruit added! This one’s every bit as electric as it looks and a perfect sipper in the sun on the patio!”
GODSPEED ARBEIT RAUCHWEIZEN
Michael Hancock has stepped out of the Georgian Bay region, bestriding the world like some kind of mustachioed colossus in order to bring us the great taste of Bamberg in collaboration with the fine people at Godspeed Brewing.
“This new version of Arbeit features vibrant notes of banana bread, clove, and distant cigar smoke in the finish.”
GREAT LAKES MIAMI WEISS
Listen, not only do they sponsor this here hootenanny, but Miami Weiss is legitimately a marvel. It’s one of the longest running seasonal beers in Ontario and maybe the only successful version of a dry hopped American Wheat Ale in the province. It makes Three Floyds Gumballhead look a little anemic. Try it! Ben Johnson likes it, and he’s got a podcast!
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