The Bar Towel

Finally made it out here yesterday. This is my review on BA: B / 3.55 vibe: 3 | quality: 3.5 | service: 3 | selection: 4 | food: 4 - $$$ Came here with mrmanning on a late Sunday afternoon to enjoy some pints and dinner. Atmosphere is modern pub decor inside with about 20 tables, 10 or so seats by t...

I'd love to see what your definition of "developed nation" is - which countries you would include and which would you exclude - and why! These definitions matter when you are writing actual policy, and not just griping. You could narrow it to strictly Western nations - the U.S., members o...

Why stop at beer? Why not all meat testing, produce testing, etc? Why do we need the CSA when there's already a UL? Why bother with Health Canada when there's already an FDA? Why use hyperbole to distort and exaggerate my argument? Beer-related deaths are much rarer than deaths from contaminated me...

The Eau de Vie we mentioned came from Europe. Remember the Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal? Italy had its problems with tainted wines, South Africa too (dimethomorph and flusilazol found in some wines in 2008). The Belgians had their scare with tainted food and even Coke. Yes, but what abou...

McEwan's Scotch Ale - very enjoyable malt forward ale. Leathery, tannic, toffee-like, a tad fruity, lots of toasty roastiness, some English pudding and liqueur coming through as well. Not nearly as good as Oskar Blues Old Chub but still one of the better imports available at the 'BO.

Would we, both as importers and consumers, rather have no control and testing of imported products, relying only on the producers word - absolutely not. The stories of canned ice coffee and other products made with milk powder from China containing melamine remind us that trading inconvenience for ...

You can check BA and find out that 120min IPA is 18% when it's really 13.2% Five pecentage points right, it's not a big difference? Right? Thats not a whole "standard" beers worth less alcohol in that 12oz bottle than what the brewer claims, right? I'm just saying that for sake of argumen...

For the record it's not just American breweries that are tested and found to be way off on the ABV - the recent Half Pint Burley Wine clocked in at almost 2% less than stated on the label. And obviously the breweries are NOT testing the beer. Not that it matters much IMO, but most places do not req...

So what do you think - does it protect the consumer to subject them to this kind of testing? No. It's just more ridiculous bullshit from the 'BO. And even when they don't perform bizarre, science fiction-style tests on our products, they hold them up in the warehouse for reasons that aren't known. ...

Wow. The only beer I've tried from them is Black Cat Lager, and it's excellent, so I'm pumped to try these other ones. Come to think of it, the Black Cat is one of the best lagers I've ever had. If the 606 and Czech Mate are even slightly comparable, I'll be a happy boy!

It was probably the time it spent in transit from the brewery, sitting in an LCBO warehouse. Yep. That's what's happening with the Central City order as we speak. The importer e-mailed us three weeks ago informing us that the brewery shipped the beer within a week of receiving the order (nice work,...

Just make sure you don't discuss any of this on BA itself, especially if you have critical opinions of the new lists. The Bros will instantly jump in with some weird justification as to why they have to close the thread, then lock it down before you can respond. Fall in line, comrades!

mozza wrote: My sister brought me a case of King Dark from the brewery (still bought on licence) that is about to go in stock Thursday - so you have something to grab this weekend I guess!

Sweet. I'll definitely drop by to have a couple! Thanks for the heads up.

Hi Mark. Below are some of my comments and suggestions. I visit The Mo every other week and usually order about 4-6 beers with something to eat. Whenever I've tried the food - jambalaya, sausage platter, nachos - it's been great! The Headstrong Pale Ale is on tap as of Monday. A solid beer on tap, g...

While it's a nice ego boost to know that I've tried 44 of the new Top 50, I feel that the increased emphasis on number of ratings defeats the purpose of 'best' lists. Best means there are very few or none that are better, so to me it's an inappropriate label for a relatively good beer that also happ...