The Bar Towel

I am really rooting for these two brews, but our Loonie's dependence on shaky oil prices may fuck with the whole plan. OK Stone, if you can build a brewery in Berlin then why not Quebec or Ontario? I am no expert on international trade, but my understanding is that producing beer in Berlin, means y...

Too bad they just closed a crapload of Starbucks locations. Having a beer while my wife shopped at Target would have been awesome.

gotta love the LCBO website. gives you up-to-the-minute inventory updates. not. I know this comes up a lot, but do you really expect the LCBO to maintain a real time inventory of every product? Even the ones that cost a couple of bucks? Does any store do that? I mean I can't go to walmart.ca and fi...

gotta love the LCBO website. gives you up-to-the-minute inventory updates. not. I know this comes up a lot, but do you really expect the LCBO to maintain a real time inventory of every product? Even the ones that cost a couple of bucks? Does any store do that? I mean I can't go to walmart.ca and fi...

This article has what seems to me to be a reasonably good explanation of what went down. http://www.brewbound.com/news/inside-b-inbevs-acquisition-elysian-brewing I imagine these sorts of thoughts go through many small brewery owners minds when they start considering moving on from the day to day r...

I think we all knew this was coming, but Wynne confirmed they're not going the corner store route: http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/02/kathleen-wynne-says-no-to-beer-in-corner-stores-as-ontario-reviews-rules-on-alcohol/ Sounds like the changes are going to be lame. Might even just be a fee for ...

So I am curious what people think about this. If you are Elysian and you want to sell, who could you sell to other than someone huge like A-B (assuming you don't have family or employees who could take over)? Not sure how much they sold for but for reference Goose Island sold for around 40 million d...

counting on it coming and going, just like dogfishhead/founders/saranac/victory/greenflash/etc. ? Didn't those other breweries pull out of Ontario because they couldn't produce enough beer to keep up with US Demand. Stone is opening up a brewery in Virginia next year and one in Germany. Not sure th...

I agree with this. We may like these beers as beer geeks, but I predict their impact on the overall marketplace will be relatively insignificant. I can see Stone being more of a specialty product, because that is kind of how they brand themselves, with Arrogant Bastard and their products not being ...

I think branding is going to become a lot more important too. Which goes to what I said you can't just be a new local guy anymore and expect the sales to come to you. And with shelf space at the LCBO being harder to come by you need something to stand out. I think along with that you need to have so...

In Toronto, sooner rather than later breweries making mediocre products and relying on 'being local' will start to struggle. Especially with the influx of Stone, Sierra Nevada, brewdog, etc. The beers that are apparently coming in from these guys are not world beaters, but are going to draw a lot o...

Jul to September. I've never had it before and was in rush so I grabbed it. . That's usually the problem I run into. If we go to watertown or something, getting beer is usually the last place we stop. Wife and kids are waiting in the car, so it usually takes too long (in their opinion) just to find...

My problem with both of those places (bear world/bottle caps) is the ridiculous markup they charge on the singles if you break up a 4/6 pack. Bottlecaps isn't as big as bear world, so I'm sure they have an easier time moving inventory, but there are still some out of date bottles around. Also, from...

Forget bear world, Bottle Caps is better.... Was there this past weekend and picked up: Bells Two Hearted Ale green flash palate wrecker Lagunitas Lil sumpin ale Founders double trouble And dfh 90 min Plus it just off the 81 on Arsenal St. http://www.bottlecapsbev.com Any issues with expired beer f...

yes, Buffalo, that magical far-away land. Probstk is in Ottawa (as am I). Buffalo is pretty far from us. Of course, we can go to Bear World to get different brands of months old IPAs... Or you could go to the Walgreens in Ogdensburg(where I was last weekend) and if you really want buy some Sierra N...