The Bar Towel

boney wrote:No Fullers Vintage this year? Bummer.

As others have noted, it's already available in a few places. I picked one up at Cooper St yesterday.

IIRC, it's been a stand-alone release and not considered officially part of the Holiday promotion for at couple of years now.

Thanks for the updates on some of the packages, folks. I saw a couple of others myself yesterday, so I'll update those that have been confirmed.

The Queen-Brock LCBO has a few Holiday releases in stock right now (the St. Ambroise RIS and Vintage pack, Deus, Panil Enhanced, Shepherd Naeme, Cuvee Van De Keizer...), which is always quite the site when they're put out just around the corner from the rather prominent cheap sherry section of that particular store.

nickw wrote:The Queen-Brock LCBO has a few Holiday releases in stock right now (the St. Ambroise RIS and Vintage pack, Deus, Panil Enhanced, Shepherd Naeme, Cuvee Van De Keizer...), which is always quite the site when they're put out just around the corner from the rather prominent cheap sherry section of that particular store.

Similarly, the Bloor and Royal York LCBO has the same on display. I totally lucked out today. I've been dying to try the Cuvee Van De Keizer.

Has anyone here had the Panil Enhanced yet? I quite like their sour but have been reading not so great stuff about it.

What a piece of shit release. I will be buying a grand total of zero of the gift packs. Maaaaaaaybe the Stiegl depending on the glass.


Hopefully it's this glass:



...and not some shitty carbon copy of say, the stemmed I&G glass.

The only exciting beer here is the beer that we've had in previous years... the St Ambroise, the Blauw, and the 17. The 17 being the most exciting.

Blasphomet wrote:What a piece of shit release. I will be buying a grand total of zero of the gift packs. Maaaaaaaybe the Stiegl depending on the glass.


Hopefully it's this glass:

Last year the Stiegl gift pack had a 200ml mini Stiegl glass. I bought it last year but have rarely ever used it. I'd rather just pour myself an entire can/bottle than 2 half pints.

Blasphomet wrote:What a piece of shit release. I will be buying a grand total of zero of the gift packs. Maaaaaaaybe the Stiegl depending on the glass.

I thought somebody - Esprit importers? - remarked here that a lot of the packaging-intensive gift packs are now being rejected out-of-hand because that is the latest green thing the LCBO is trying on these days.

We should wonder if they really do studies of how impactful these things are or if they just make shit up they think sounds good. That's not just a facile attack on the LC, either because I believe that beer gift packs are a genuinely nice responsible gift. They are both gratifying and low-cost, while most of the 'gift' is consumable and usable; the main throwaway - usually cardboard - is a valued recycling commodity.
In a season that demands we buy stuff anyway, is a beer gift pack not a less commercially intensive, less wasteful seasonal product than 95% of the stuff we'd buy for gifts otherwise? I mean with beer at least there's no big plastic clamshell of hunks of styrofoam involved. Seems a lost opportunity, no?

As usual, polite & effective emails to the LCBO get responses - even results - so those of you in love with gift packs need to tell them what you think.

How does the seemingly amount of less glassware based beer gift packs compare with the liquor and wine gift packs? Are they less as well?

I remember some years just being astounded at the quantity or variety of "stuff" in those gift packs. Jack Daniels comes to mind.

I don't mean the value added things that are put on in the store or the warehouse.

Is this the first winter we've had both the St. Amby Vintage and the RIS????

I thought there were laws against that...

Picked up a DeuS and St. Ambroise BW pack today - my LCBO budget is blown for the next couple months.

It seems I was fed a bill of goods when I was told my 4 gift submissions were rejected because of excessive non-alchohol components. A paper gift package and a glass were apparently excessive and, in one case, a simple gift carton with no glass was deemed excessive. The pricing matrix we are given indicates that the non-alcohol component of the gift pack cannot be more than 40% of total cost. Strange, the Taste of Belgium pack with 3 beers, 3 glasses and a whole lot of paper has a non-alcoholic component of 66.5%. I had some great packs rejected and I will be asking questions.

esprit wrote:It seems I was fed a bill of goods when I was told my 4 gift submissions were rejected because of excessive non-alchohol components. A paper gift package and a glass were apparently excessive and, in one case, a simple gift carton with no glass was deemed excessive. The pricing matrix we are given indicates that the non-alcohol component of the gift pack cannot be more than 40% of total cost. Strange, the Taste of Belgium pack with 3 beers, 3 glasses and a whole lot of paper has a non-alcoholic component of 66.5%. I had some great packs rejected and I will be asking questions.

Please do! That Taste of Belgium pack has been around forever... who hasn't had those 3 beers?!

Speaking of excess packaging, anyone else try to buy the St. Amby Vintage pack when taking public transit? Beers in tubes in cardboard triangles. I love the beer and I love the prepackaged vertical angle, but fuck right off with your cardboard triangles.

Who was it that was complaining the other day about not getting the good beer in Kanata? Well, here's a nice change of pace for you: You're the first to get the Uni 17 listed this year.