The Bar Towel

My prayers are being answered!!!! YES! Please do a "real" IPA. Now our interpretations of real may differ, I'm an American vs. British IPA fan, but if it's 50+ IBU, 6%+ alcohol with a good hop nose and flavour balanced off with a malt backbone then you and I are definitely talking the same...

Brakspear, it so happens, is located in my birthplace Henley on Thames in England. I lived a stone's throw from the brewery until I was twelve. My Mum was a barmaid at the Rose and Crown thirty yards from the brewery down New Street. You'll not get a fresher pint of Brakspear anywhere than at the R&...

Interesting! I wouldn't get your hopes up for the Storm King though. According to the Victory website they only brew it August through October. By the time this order is likely to ship, and providing they will do all the special labelling Peter described, I doubt they will have any Storm King left i...

Fantastic news! Is there any chance of ordering a few cases through Esprit either beforehand or during the big LCBO order???

Regards,
Jon Walker

Any update on whether Esprit have convinced the LCBO to bring in Victory Hopdevil????

There was one other notible absence Lyle, not of a brewery but of a beer. Great Lakes Brewing didn't bring their Burning River Pale Ale despite it being listed in the guide. Regardless I had a wonderful, if too brief, time at the fest. I thought it was very well organized, the weather cooperated and...

Thanks Lyle,

Quite an impressive list most of which I've never sampled. Can't wait.

If you were thinking of ordering tickets in advance for the festival through Tickets.com...don't bother. With the service charges the total for two tickets was $37 U.S., that's a dollar more that it'll cost to buy them on the day at the gate.

Very exciting! Can't wait...may kill some time that morning by doing some shopping at Premier Gourmet before heading over to the fest.

See you there!

I know it's been out for a while now but, what with the recent discussion of Hopback Summer Lightning, I thought it was worth reminding folks of this hoppy beer again. At 6% and 50 IBU's it is a powerful English IPA. I had some in the back of my beer cellar and recently dug back there and sampled a ...

I'm calm...and relaxed and YES I will be at Dunn's Tire Park (or whatever it's called) on September 1st getting bludgeoned over the tastebuds by those IPA's you teased us about. Subtlety and complexity are lovely terms but that day I wish to wallow in the unrefined trough of American IPA's...I'll sa...

Lyle, I think your assertion that those of us who expressed dissappointment with Summer Lightning have uneducated palettes is unfair. Granted I am a "hophead" and IPA is my preference but I am sophisticated enough to be able to appreciate the complexities and subtleties of other types of b...

I bought a case and with friends we drank most of it this past weekend so this opinion is given after tasting more than just a single bottle. I too would concur with the other reviews posted above. The beer has almost no hop nose either in the bottle or after pouring. It has a pleasant murky golden ...

I was briefly in the Queen's Quay liquor store and a clerk was busy clearing shelf space and putting up product labels for Marston IPA and Hopback summer lightning. He seemed to think the product would be shelved before the official Saturday release, maybe as early as Thursday. It's speculation at t...

It would seem from the tone of Peter's lengthy reply that he's a little annoyed. Let me redirect. I do appreciate your efforts Peter to bring in rare and exceptional beer at a reasonable price. I also respect your efforts to contribute to this forum and explain the economics of beer importation. Wha...