The Bar Towel

No, not your wet moustache, your beer cellar! I need a hi-res pic of a well-maintained and organized beer cellar, with most if not all bottles standing rather than laying down. This would be for The World Atlas of Beer, to be published in a minimum of four languages and available around the world. I...

You may scoff, but trust me, Moses' "quaffs" can indeed be quite intricate, and very tasty! Incidentally, the man knows his beer, too, so don't be surprised to see some decent taps and/or bottles being stocked. I expect this to be a great improvement on the Bohemian and a welcome yin to Fr...

Good to see that my BotY post is generating discussion; better to see some people actually agreeing with me. :D To add a little to my already stated reasoning, Beau's was definitely another contender, as was the not-yet-mentioned King, which boasts as solid a stable of regular offerings as does any ...

I believe, after financial difficulty, the brands were bought by another brewer. Forget which one. I think the Dragon's Breathe Pale Ale was actually a brand of the Kingston Brewing Co (brewpub) that Hart brewed and bottled under contract. Yes, and also no. The Dragon's Breath brand was owned by th...

Achel didn't start brewing until the late 1990's, shortly after which Koningshoeven was denied permission to use the Trappist designation for a number of years, reverting the number of Trappist breweries to six. The Dutch monastery got its designation back in the early to mid 2000's sometime.

Here's another piece of history, from Niagara Falls Brewery, their beer brochure. http://bartowel.com/history/NFBrewery.pdf NF was truly ahead of their time in the Ontario market, as the beers listed in the brochure can attest. In fact, I still have a decade-old article up on Bar Towel: http://www....

The Summit was one of my earlier consulting gigs, Cass. The manager at the time is now a partner in FAB, who I just helped open Against the Grain. Ah, memories...

It drives me crazy that the labels for KBS, and now CBS, don't even tell you what the damn letters mean. And by "crazy" I mean slightly bothered before I forget all about it 10 seconds later. I'm not sure about KBS, but CBS is so called because of the legal implications of them putting &q...

Fascinating piece of Ontario beer history, Cass. Interesting to see the amount of detail the Board supplied at the time, even discussing the effect of Brett and naming the hop varieties used in St. Bernardus 6. Note the named importer of Duvel at the time: Bill Wickham. Perhaps not quite the Charles...

Word!! But fresh Pliny > fresh home-brewed IPA usually :-) I am not joking at all when I say that a good homebrewed IPA will almost always be better than a commercial IPA. That's a ridiculous thing to suggest, Mark, since the number of variables involved are stupidly high, beginning with the skill ...

Some kristalls will show a protein haze, Joe, although it is much more common in Belgian-style wheats. I've known versions of the latter style to be centrifuged for yeast removal and still come out very cloudy, the unmalted wheat they call for tending to throw much more protein haze than does the ma...

Not to sound like a hippie capitalist (oxymoron?), but why can't we just all get along and let the best products win? Why is it SO wrong to create a level playing field for these products to be sold AND allow the tax man to get his "fair share"? Choir, preacher. Preacher, choir. But serio...

I read the print version yesterday and didn't think it was too bad an article. He got the cloudiness from protein haze part right, which most people miss. The tasting notes, on the other hand, had me cocking my head. Clove in Blanche de Chambly? Banana in Hoegaarden? Everyone's taste buds are differ...

Not sure if you're referring at all to my turn in The Star, Len, but I'll defend all my quotes from that story . I believe the creation of that beer is marketing over brewing, and I also think it's great that Ontario brewers are starting to work outside of their comfort zones. And I hope it doesn't ...