Looking for the original Bar Towel blog? You can find it at www.thebartowel.com.
We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.
Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!
nickelass wrote:I moved just around the corner on Lisgar, and Bellwoods is a nice five minute walk away. We've been a few times over the past two weeks, and the service is always fantastic. Rumour is that growlers will be available this week!!!
I think I hate you! (Not really man.) I'm just jonesing to sell house and move HERE before the 'still affordable' million-dollar houses become Steve Austin-priced houses. This is a great central area to live.
Yes "still affordable" is nice. The house two doors down is currently up for 1.2 million if you want me to put a good word in for you
I think I could use that info to bargain the price down! Just kidding I'm sure you're great or at least OK neighbor.
Belgian wrote:
I think I hate you! (Not really man.) I'm just jonesing to sell house and move HERE before the 'still affordable' million-dollar houses become Steve Austin-priced houses. This is a great central area to live.
Yes "still affordable" is nice. The house two doors down is currently up for 1.2 million if you want me to put a good word in for you
I think I could use that info to bargain the price down! Just kidding I'm sure you're great or at least OK neighbor.
Housing prices are rising way more rapidly than incomes, and very high-ratio mortgages are putting people in homes they might soon not afford. It's good they are starting to control the damage with regulation (easy to say, owning most of my Birchcliff house after 10 years with <> a 100% increase in value.)
I'd hate to see much of a price drop locally, but I'd hate worse if it became impossible for typical earners to buy any central TO house. This should be a city of Ontarians not monied investors. Even selling and moving could beome harrowingly expensive (thanks, special land transfer tax we pay double here, yes here in a city with no real transit system!)
Housing prices are rising way more rapidly than incomes, and very high-ratio mortgages are putting people in homes they might soon not afford. It's good they are starting to control the damage with regulation (easy to say, owning most of my Birchcliff house after 10 years with <> a 100% increase in value.)
I'd hate to see much of a price drop locally, but I'd hate worse if it became impossible for typical earners to buy any central TO house. This should be a city of Ontarians not monied investors. Even selling and moving could beome harrowingly expensive (thanks, special land transfer tax we pay double here, yes here in a city with no real transit system!)
We talk about after we get more equity into this house in Brampton, that we might buy in the city-proper...either that or buy in downtown Brampton...That area reminds me of older areas of Kitchener that I grew up in. But we'll see what the prices and rates are like in 5 years.
"What can you say about Pabst Blue Ribbon that Dennis Hopper hasn’t screamed in the middle of an ether binge?" - Jordan St. John
Guy there's so many factors, for me it's short travel to work and manageable debt. And Toronto offers so much 'life value' that keeps prices firm, and it makes homeowners insanely optimistic about their resale values (hey as long as delusional buyers keep paying for 'em.)
* -edit- * I guess I'm sayng the sooner you buy in, the greater your potential gains AND the sooner you can enjoy it here, so why wait. You do need equity though and hopefully prices don't run away before then.
Well we were talking about real estate that would be CLOSER to beer!
bu yeah - bellwoods is nice! Still haven't made it to a bottle sale though.
Only reason we're talking about buying in that area is to drink the city's best beer, many places as possible within walking distance. Houses still suck wherever you buy them.
Stopped in for dinner and a few pints on Sunday. What an awesome place! Beer was shockingly good (wife had the wit, I had the Bim Collab), atmosphere was really cool, service awesome.
Dinner was fugly though. We should have just stuck with the snacky food, but they had two bigger items (flat iron steak and saugage/corn) and we were hungry. The steak was decent, albeit unremarkable, but the sausage was so salty it was nearly not edible. The corn was tasty but cold, and not lukewarm, actually cold.
I'd gladly go back and just order bread or one of the plates, but food was a huge letdown after having such a great time sitting enjoying the noise and goings on there and tasting the beers.
Anyone try the Bellwoods Hellwoods at Sessions in June? Like Greg says, top notch. My friend lives near there, he raves about them. I'm going next weekend.
We had the Hellwoods aged on cherries on cask at Castro's and it was probably the best beer I had this year. Just intense and complex and everything you might want. Best part was they named it "3 Minutes to Midnight" as we were commemorating the Cuban Missile Crisis. I must confess to having drank a few pints, despite serving it in 330s to everybody else. Membership has it's benefits.
chris_schryer wrote:We had the Hellwoods aged on cherries on cask at Castro's and it was probably the best beer I had this year. Just intense and complex and everything you might want. Best part was they named it "3 Minutes to Midnight" as we were commemorating the Cuban Missile Crisis. I must confess to having drank a few pints, despite serving it in 330s to everybody else. Membership has it's benefits.
Membership in the bar owners club? Yes, that has benefits IN SPADES!
Even though the Hellwoods was a cask offering, I was going to say that it would be impossible for you to improve your fridge at Castro's but in reading your posts you seem to have done the impossible!
Hellwoods w/ cherries is yummy! Would've been my favourite beer this year had it not been for Stalin's Choice.
Was there (Bellwoods, not Castro's) last night and didn't know they were doing casks every sunday!!! Good times. $6 all in for a 16oz glass of whatever they have on cask.
And what did they have last night? A second runnings of the Hellwoods that came out at over 7%!!! And then they added a bunch of coffee from Crafted across the street.
Oh, it was so delicious! Very smoky with a ton of coffee flavour and the biggest creamiest head I've ever seen come out of a cask (they did just tap it, but still). I was late meeting up with someone to wait for it, but so worth it.
Nice to see them doing casks.
"What can you say about Pabst Blue Ribbon that Dennis Hopper hasn’t screamed in the middle of an ether binge?" - Jordan St. John
Ah, I wish I was a bar owner. I'm just the cellarman at Castro's, but that's membership enough. Thanks for the kind words. Since Anthony and Stephen bought the place, we've been slowly going over our selection, refining, reducing, and generally trying to make things better. Used to be, we sold more Stella tall-boys than any other package beer, we've moved most of that business to Kronenbourg, but I'm pushing to get rid of that too, and let the lager drinkers have Steigl or Lowenbrau. We're stoked to have some cool Saisons and a really neat Oud Bruin in right now. And also the "silly" big stuff, like Westy, the BNL Imperial Stout (I think we're down to 3-4 bottles....), Unibroue 17 (which we won't let anybody buy for the next 3 years), etc. It's been a fun ride, and we've got some more changes coming down the pipe in 2013.
Just kidding I'm sure you're great or at least OK neighbor.
