Russians are coming! Russians are coming! Wed, November 20th

[Frere Ambroise]

http://www.canadianbeernews.com/2013/11 ... n-ontario/

Full list of 20 bars to be released on Monday!

Cheers,
Barry

[Frere Ambroise]

List of 20: http://www.canadianbeernews.com/2013/11 ... t-release/

The list of participating locations is as follows:

Ottawa:
Black Tomato
Arrow and Loon

Gananoque:
The Old English Pub

Kingston:
Red House

Toronto:
The Only Café
Stout Irish Pub
C’est What?
beerbistro
Bar Hop
La Palette
Victory Café
Three Speed
Barque Smokehouse
The Hole in the Wall
3030
Bryden’s

Dundas:
Domestique-Café Cyclo Sportif

Hamilton:
Augusta’s Winking Judge

Kitchener:
The Bent Elbow

London:
Milo’s Craft Beer Emporium


Cheers,
Barry

[Frere Ambroise]

Comrades - one last detail - I believe a lot of these places are attempting to keep to the "20" theme and will pour at 20:20 (8:20pm).

Cheers,
Барри

[ECBS]

List of 20: http://www.canadianbeernews.com/2013/11 ... t-release/

The list of participating locations is as follows:

Ottawa:
Black Tomato
Arrow and Loon

Gananoque:
The Old English Pub

Kingston:
Red House

Toronto:
The Only Café
Stout Irish Pub
C’est What?
beerbistro
Bar Hop
La Palette
Victory Café
Three Speed
Barque Smokehouse
The Hole in the Wall
3030
Bryden’s

Dundas:
Domestique-Café Cyclo Sportif

Hamilton:
Augusta’s Winking Judge

Kitchener:
The Bent Elbow

London:
Milo’s Craft Beer Emporium


Cheers,
Barry

I must say I was quite sad to see that none of the draught RIS would be making its way to the Windsor/Essex region! Believe it or not, there are a fair number of beer geeks/enthusiasts out here; perhaps not enough to warrant the 12 different participating locations that the fine City of Toronto has secured, but a fair number nonetheless. It seems most breweries and even craft beer drinkers in Ontario are of the opinion that the beer scene is non-existent west of London, or that those of us in Ontario's deep southwest are perfectly content throwing back OVs or any other lager that comes in a case with a free t-shirt. This is simply not the case (at least, for some of us...although free t-shirts are pretty great).

I was very excited when I learned that McAuslan, Beau's and other notable breweries would be making an appearance at Windsor's inaugural beer festival this past October, but was surprised by how quickly the taps ran dry (although I'm not sure whether this was a result of decisions made by various breweries to only bring a limited quantity of beer, or of some sort of rules imposed by the festival's organizers). At least some people in our area are of the opinion that the breweries in attendance simply didn't expect much interest on the part of our local, free t-shirt-donning residents.

Please forgive my little rant and allow me to get to the point of my post! I was discussing the draught RIS promotion with a local pub-owner yesterday, and he claimed McAuslan doesn't deliver to our area. Is this true? I'm good friends with the head beer man at another very popular local restaurant/pub, and I am certain he would be interested in bringing in St. Ambroise beer. As a big fan of McAuslan myself, I would certainly support this, as would the members of my Beer Society and many of the beer-loving residents of Windsor/Essex.

Could you or any other Bartowellers please shed some light on this issue? We, the beer-loving residents of Windsor/Essex, are thirsty for answers.

[Frere Ambroise]

I must say I was quite sad to see that none of the draught RIS would be making its way to the Windsor/Essex region! Believe it or not, there are a fair number of beer geeks/enthusiasts out here; perhaps not enough to warrant the 12 different participating locations that the fine City of Toronto has secured, but a fair number nonetheless. It seems most breweries and even craft beer drinkers in Ontario are of the opinion that the beer scene is non-existent west of London, or that those of us in Ontario's deep southwest are perfectly content throwing back OVs or any other lager that comes in a case with a free t-shirt. This is simply not the case (at least, for some of us...although free t-shirts are pretty great).

I was very excited when I learned that McAuslan, Beau's and other notable breweries would be making an appearance at Windsor's inaugural beer festival this past October, but was surprised by how quickly the taps ran dry (although I'm not sure whether this was a result of decisions made by various breweries to only bring a limited quantity of beer, or of some sort of rules imposed by the festival's organizers). At least some people in our area are of the opinion that the breweries in attendance simply didn't expect much interest on the part of our local, free t-shirt-donning residents.

Please forgive my little rant and allow me to get to the point of my post! I was discussing the draught RIS promotion with a local pub-owner yesterday, and he claimed McAuslan doesn't deliver to our area. Is this true? I'm good friends with the head beer man at another very popular local restaurant/pub, and I am certain he would be interested in bringing in St. Ambroise beer. As a big fan of McAuslan myself, I would certainly support this, as would the members of my Beer Society and many of the beer-loving residents of Windsor/Essex.

Could you or any other Bartowellers please shed some light on this issue? We, the beer-loving residents of Windsor/Essex, are thirsty for answers.

Thanks ECBS for this! Not a rant at all - in fact it adds credibility to what I have been preaching with my industry colleagues for the past year - that Windsor is thirsty for craft beer!

Regarding the RIS list -- we only had 20 kegs. Our objective in trying a 'multi-bar' event was to celebrate this fun occasion with 20 venues that have been loyal and passionate about our brands and whose patrons would be excited about this event. Years ago, Milos in London requested we do our RIS in kegs. I truly thought this day would never happen so when we were told last month that there is only 20 RIS kegs in the universe and they are all coming to Ontario - I was blown away. I wish we had more kegs to satisfy every thirsty McAuslan fan -- across the entire country and beyond. Hence - the reason for the surplus of Toronto venues is correlated to the partnerships we've developed when we first set foot in Ontario to grow our brand awareness.

Regarding Windsor - last year I was a guest speaker at Craft Beer Dinner at the RyeGate. The chef did an outstanding job with the menu - I have never seen or tasted a wild boar with a chocolate - oatmeal stout sauce. It was fantastic! I had some great conversations with the group that night about the Windsor thirst for craft beer.

One of the folks that night is a BT'er on here - Jay Lecocq who used to work at the Tilbury TBS. I think he is in the Bleinhiem store now. That tiny Tilbury TBS store has some of the finest craft beers offered at TBS!

The Windsor Craft Beer Festival was a huuuuge success! For a first time event, the organizers did their best to predict what we should bring since we had no historical data to draw from. We were blown away! I think part of the reason for taps running dry was that only 10 of us brewers actually made the trek. (FYI - First time events within the industry have a high risk factor - I've been to a first time beerfest where there were more reps than attendees - so we ended up sitting around and drinking each other's tapped kegs.) At Windsor - we pretty much went through what was predicted -- we even brought some backup kegs too - just not enough of the Pumpkin and Apricot. Mind blowing and we will definitely be back next year!

What was really nice about the inaugural event is that I got to meet some great bar and restaurant owners. Billy's in Essex starting pouring our Apricot and Pumpkin for the past couple of months. They like the fact that we deliver to Windsor every week. Every. Week. The guys at BarrelHouse in Sandwich recently added our Oatmeal Stout and Pale Ale - purely as a result of us being at the Craft Beer Festival. You definitely need to stop by as our Stout on draught is delicious! I hope more loyal places in Windsor can pour our brands and that we develop some more McAuslan fans - which make it an easy conversation to bring our speciality brands to the area! By all means - help spread the good beer gospel of St. Ambroise that we deliver every week. You can send me a PM and I will forward you my info for those bars to contact me.

ECBS - I hope this sheds some light on this Windsor situation - it is not like a "middle child" syndrome where we forget about you - it is more like a "kid with new puppy at Xmas" -- we are excited about getting craft beer to you, you are excited about having it! Does this make sense?

Cheers,
Barry

[ECBS]

Barry,

Thank you for the quick and gratifying reply! You've truly made my day.

I'm so glad to hear that you've been doing your best to get your beer to Windsor/Essex, and now that I know you ARE in fact delivering here, and every week at that, I will definitely make sure word gets around to our area's other finest pubs! Call me selfish or greedy, but I need St. Ambroise at my local watering hole.

I also understand much better now why the kegs went where they went (this event is more celebratory than promotional!).

Yes, Windsor is certainly home to some great bar and restaurant owners/entrepreneurs who are just as excited and passionate about beer as I am. And the beer scene is certainly growing. I know for a fact that the turn-out at next year's beer festival will be much greater yet, and I'm happy to hear you'll be coming out again!

Thanks again for the info, Barry! I greatly appreciate it.

Mike

P.S. - I do happen to be the middle child in my family; must have shown in the way I was ranting!

[Malcolm]

Sweet - one of my favourite beers.

[icemachine]

I'm going to try and make it to C'est What or BeerBistro for about 7:30 this evening to try this

[groulxsome]

Man, that was a tasty beer. Also, very nice touch having the adorable branded snifters for the pour. I'm ashamed by how tempted I was to sneak off with it (but I didn't).

Victory Cafe was pretty tight with their timing (not opened until 8:20 as instructed), so I got a tasty Oatmeal Stout to start. Hope there are more timed events like this in the future!

[icemachine]

I was very impressed with it, except the serving temp was extremely cold at C'est What, could barely get any nose off of it until I was half done the snifter.

It was definitely among the best Imperial Stouts I have ever had fresh, hardly a hint of alcohol heat despite the 9.2%, the roast barley has a layered depth that few stouts achieve.

Would love to get that glass too!

[Lecocq]

The sounds of this event were ofcourse wonderful but unfortunetly I could not partake due to not being able to make it to London. McAuslan brands really do have a solid reputation amongst us "afficianados" and their precsense really does seem to be improving here in SW Ontario.

Barry, thanks for the shout out about Tilbury. That Tilbury TBS will always be "my baby" and hopefully things will bring me back there someday as I really helped to assemble the brands there.

Not to hijack the thread but keep making the McAuslan brands and events available to us down here and we will support it!