By Rebecca Whyman Recently, gruits—that ancient, hopless beer style flavoured with herbs that seems to be all the rage right now—got me thinking about the elusive line that divides fads, trends, and gimmicks from creative innovations and emerging styles. How […]
Win tickets to SOBDL’s 5th Lady Beer Fest at Henderson
The Society of Beer Drinking Ladies is marking their 5th birthday next month with their 5th Lady Beer Fest (formerly known as the Birthday Bevy). That means that North America’s largest women beer organization will bring together 10 breweries, one […]
Final Draught: Kingpost ESB by Collingwood
Do you remember the time before every beer style was a something-IPA? I do, but just barely. ESB is one of the styles that have swamped by the need to make every beer unsubtly hoppy. (Or a kettle sour, but […]
Montreal: Probably the most walkable beer city in Canada
I bought my very first beer in Montreal. My friends, Mickey and Senwung, and I were there to kick McGill’s tires. It doesn’t matter what the beer was (er, a sixer of Molson Canadian) because the point was that we […]
Do you really drink beer? A discussion with Renee Navarro about diversity in Ontario’s craft beer industry
“If I had a dollar for every guy who asked me ‘do you really drink beer?’ we’d be on my private island right now,“ Renee Navarro says as we sit down on my local patio at Clinton’s to talk about […]
Brewer vs. Brewer: The Cask Days Edition
There are a few big weekends in the Ontario craft beer calendar. May 2-4, Canada Day and the rest of summer’s long-weekend gang come to mind, but none is really as important as the one after Thanksgiving when Cask Days […]
Beer festivals: What are they good for?
A few days before Christmas I found myself at the annual Indie Alehouse Stout Night. It’s hazardous and flawed to think a particular beer style belongs exclusively to a certain season — that goes especially for stout where many low-ABV […]
Shake the LCBO, stir the Beer Store
The Ontario government wants to know what you think of their system for selling alcohol. A long list of Ontario beer players, from Indie Ale House to Keep6 Imports, have used their social media feeds to support the idea of […]
Last minute holiday gift guide for beer lovers
Did you lose track of the date and find yourself scrambling for a last-minute gift for the beer lovers in your life? That’s understandable. Maybe you were otherwise occupied with your beer advent calendar or embroiled in a time-consuming debate […]
From graft to glass: Why it’s a bad thing that craft breweries have to pay to be on tap
As a paying customer in a bar, you might think that the beer on tap is chosen to suit your tastes. It feels like a safe assumption that not only the food but also the beer pouring from the gleaming […]