The Bar Towel

So all in all just about 30% of the emails bounced, either since the addresses are long dead or blocked for various reasons. I kind of thought it would be higher, seeing that the list goes back 20 years (!) I find it funny that a few cranks would unsubscribe after never having received an email fro...

It's a touch anemic, isn't it?

All classics, and many worthy of being there, but there's not a lot of curiousity.

You can lobby all you want, but grocery isn't going away, young people don't want six of something let alone 24 of something, and if no one shows up there's nothing you can do about it.

Besides. There are ~400 brewing entities also lobbying that the beer store excludes.

Walkin' dead.

To be fair, no one else was either. Everyone is told that they are allowed to list up to eight beers and given the recommendation that they should probably choose things that are going to be available again in the future so that people aren't looking for a one off that never shows up again. We don't...

Hard to tell with a can. You might go a couple years on it, but really I'd want a stronger dopplebock for longer aging.

On the other hand it will make tasting exams for cicerone and bjcp easier having it in the market.

For those of you curious about the top ten list and how we arrive at it, it's fairly simple, but there are a few caveats that should probably be mentioned. Essentially, this time around we revisited a number of breweries and retasted a lot of beers. The window in which we did that was July 2016 to D...

Does Old Credit Brewery fit that description? I went to visit Old Credit at approximately 5:30 on a Saturday last year for the book, popping off the go train and figuring, "well, this shouldn't be a problem." That's 5:30 on a halloween Saturday night. Open, but didn't even have anyone man...

The thing people forget about is the temporal dimension. What we noticed last year going around is that quality is, on average, improving. While it's easy to say "oh well, the smalltown brewers are mediocre" it's not necessarily going to continue to be accurate. I think that they probably ...

It is as people above have said. They're not quite there on system knowledge yet, but I think they will be eventually. Give 'em a couple months and they'll be very solid. I like it when brewers know what the problems that they have are and are willing to own up to them. In Halo's case, they already ...

There's nothing wrong with having large brewing experience. By now, though, people should have probably realized that transparency is key to this industry. You craft a narrative for your brand with the actual facts you have at your disposal and you can spin just about anything any old way as long as...

Oddly, was talking to the dude from Stanley the other day. You might see some of the Stanley ones popping up at various breweries around the province.

Bellwoods also makes some really great beers that aren't necessarily to style. Remember that judging categories reward conformity to a mean, not groundbreaking.

so how is the mill street west coast ipa? anyone had the chance to try it? seems like it is getting solid reviews It's quite tasty, but to me it played more like an exploded Witbier than an IPA and I think the food pairings at the launch bear that out. Quite fish heavy, which is not traditional for...

I get the political ramifications more than you know. I'm just expressing my frustration as a beer consumer in this province at the regime we live under (as has been done countless times) and it seemingly thinking that they're doing us a favour by bringing in a SKU every now and then of something g...

I know I keep saying this, and I figure I will continue saying it anyway: The LCBO is not designed for Beer Sales and never was. It's like criticizing a subway for not reaching 30,000 ft. I think what is most frustrating, then, is that every now and then we get teased and tantalized by great produc...