The Bar Towel

Just back from the Wilson and Dufferin LCBO. Must be 30 bottles of Panil in the beer cooler.

Gedge wrote:Nice review of Panil in yesterday's Star:

http://www.thestar.com/living/food/reci ... th-a-taste

I am really interested to see what the non-beer geek reaction to this is. I wonder if the LCBO will get returns from curious punters who have never had a sour beer (other than Trafalgar).

To me, this beer smelled and tasted like a sour version of Orval, at least at first. It also reminded me of the wine I made at home last year from my apple tree. The price, too, is a little off putting. Not my favorite style of beer, but I could understand some people's affinity to the sour and the funk you get with this beer. Quite unique but not for everyone.

SteelbackGuy wrote:

ErkLR wrote: Is it a fairly common thing among craft brewers to deliver personally to the stores?

Yeah pretty common.

Hockley, Amsterdam, Neustadt, Mill Street, Railway City, Grand River and even Creemore deliver to my store personally. And many others do to!

Hrm, I guess that has to do with them not being allowed to get together to combine shipping, and the LC's warehouse not having refrigerated storage? It's too bad, I think we could see wider distribution of local beers if say the OCB could band together for shipping. I know there's the Discovery Pack, but it's not the same.

ErkLR wrote:

SteelbackGuy wrote:

ErkLR wrote: Is it a fairly common thing among craft brewers to deliver personally to the stores?

Yeah pretty common.

Hockley, Amsterdam, Neustadt, Mill Street, Railway City, Grand River and even Creemore deliver to my store personally. And many others do to!

Hrm, I guess that has to do with them not being allowed to get together to combine shipping, and the LC's warehouse not having refrigerated storage? It's too bad, I think we could see wider distribution of local beers if say the OCB could band together for shipping. I know there's the Discovery Pack, but it's not the same.

We could see wider distribution for sure, but I think we need to realize that some brewers may not want a wider distribution too.

I picked up some Gemini and Panil today.

According to the little white sticker affixed to the Gemini it is an "extra strong beer". That was a new one for me. I don't think I've ever noticed these stickers as ever being anything beyond strong.

The Panil OTOH has "extra strong beer" stickers on it as well...only the word "extra" was crossed out with a black marker.

What these distinctions hope to achieve is quite beyond me. Are Ontarians so completely clueless as to be unable to look at the ABV and draw their own conclusions as to any given beer's suitability for consumption?

I can't help but feel badly for whatever poor soul sat in a warehouse somewhere crossing out hundreds of extras, in English and French no less.

TJ wrote:I picked up some Gemini and Panil today.

According to the little white sticker affixed to the Gemini it is an "extra strong beer". That was a new one for me. I don't think I've ever noticed these stickers as ever being anything beyond strong.

The Panil OTOH has "extra strong beer" stickers on it as well...only the word "extra" was crossed out with a black marker.

What these distinctions hope to achieve is quite beyond me. Are Ontarians so completely clueless as to be unable to look at the ABV and draw their own conclusions as to any given beer's suitability for consumption?

I can't help but feel badly for whatever poor soul sat in a warehouse somewhere crossing out hundreds of extras, in English and French no less.

Where did you snag the Gemini?

JesseMcG wrote:Where did you snag the Gemini?

Whitby Taunton and Brock LCBO.

TJ wrote:I picked up some Gemini and Panil today.

According to the little white sticker affixed to the Gemini it is an "extra strong beer". That was a new one for me. I don't think I've ever noticed these stickers as ever being anything beyond strong.

The Panil OTOH has "extra strong beer" stickers on it as well...only the word "extra" was crossed out with a black marker.

What these distinctions hope to achieve is quite beyond me. Are Ontarians so completely clueless as to be unable to look at the ABV and draw their own conclusions as to any given beer's suitability for consumption?

I can't help but feel badly for whatever poor soul sat in a warehouse somewhere crossing out hundreds of extras, in English and French no less.

Haha, I was wondering about the blacked out "Extra" on my Panil too. Steelback - can you enlighten us on this?

Lukie wrote:

TJ wrote:I picked up some Gemini and Panil today.

According to the little white sticker affixed to the Gemini it is an "extra strong beer". That was a new one for me. I don't think I've ever noticed these stickers as ever being anything beyond strong.

The Panil OTOH has "extra strong beer" stickers on it as well...only the word "extra" was crossed out with a black marker.

What these distinctions hope to achieve is quite beyond me. Are Ontarians so completely clueless as to be unable to look at the ABV and draw their own conclusions as to any given beer's suitability for consumption?

I can't help but feel badly for whatever poor soul sat in a warehouse somewhere crossing out hundreds of extras, in English and French no less.

Haha, I was wondering about the blacked out "Extra" on my Panil too. Steelback - can you enlighten us on this?

I don't know man. That is AGCO shit, not LCBO shit. I can find out tomorrow for sure, but I'll need a day to find out. We just do what we are told, as do restaurants, and many other places.

Lukie wrote:

TJ wrote:I picked up some Gemini and Panil today.

According to the little white sticker affixed to the Gemini it is an "extra strong beer". That was a new one for me. I don't think I've ever noticed these stickers as ever being anything beyond strong.

The Panil OTOH has "extra strong beer" stickers on it as well...only the word "extra" was crossed out with a black marker.

What these distinctions hope to achieve is quite beyond me. Are Ontarians so completely clueless as to be unable to look at the ABV and draw their own conclusions as to any given beer's suitability for consumption?

I can't help but feel badly for whatever poor soul sat in a warehouse somewhere crossing out hundreds of extras, in English and French no less.

Haha, I was wondering about the blacked out "Extra" on my Panil too. Steelback - can you enlighten us on this?

Anything over 8.9% is considered extra strong. Most of the time when a product is delayed its because of these stickers that need to be on the bottle. Its usually with stuff from europe, the Gemini sticker was the first time it showed up on a Southern Tier bottle

PeenSteen wrote:

Lukie wrote:

TJ wrote:I picked up some Gemini and Panil today.

According to the little white sticker affixed to the Gemini it is an "extra strong beer". That was a new one for me. I don't think I've ever noticed these stickers as ever being anything beyond strong.

The Panil OTOH has "extra strong beer" stickers on it as well...only the word "extra" was crossed out with a black marker.

What these distinctions hope to achieve is quite beyond me. Are Ontarians so completely clueless as to be unable to look at the ABV and draw their own conclusions as to any given beer's suitability for consumption?

I can't help but feel badly for whatever poor soul sat in a warehouse somewhere crossing out hundreds of extras, in English and French no less.

Haha, I was wondering about the blacked out "Extra" on my Panil too. Steelback - can you enlighten us on this?

Anything over 8.9% is considered extra strong. Most of the time when a product is delayed its because of these stickers that need to be on the bottle. Its usually with stuff from europe, the Gemini sticker was the first time it showed up on a Southern Tier bottle

Ok cool. I forgot which percentages the stickers were needed for.

Again, people say this is LCBO doing this, but it is the AGCOs rules that rrquire us to use these stickers.

FYI, these are actually Federal regulations, not provincial. Ontario, unlike some jurisdictions, just enforce the rules.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fss ... html#a10_2

PeenSteen wrote:Anything over 8.9% is considered extra strong

Infinium got by with only a "strong beer" label and it's 10.3%.

And again, I wonder what purpose these seemingly arbitrary labeling conventions serve other than to infantilize Canadians.

Well I just had yet another typical LCBO experience.

I popped into the Market LCBO to pick up a few Gemini, and I asked an employee about it, and immediately she snaps at me "we don't have it!". All the while with a silly grin on her face. I politely mentioned to her that the online inventory was showing 24 bottles, and that it's a new release just hitting the shelves, so it's likely in the back.

She just laughed at me, and disappeared to the front of the store. A minute or so later another woman emerged from the front of the store. I've dealt with this woman (just earlier this week when I picked up some Panil). She's quite rude, BUT at least asks questions, goes in the back to search, AND comes up with results. She was super terse about the entire situation, but I ended up with the beer.

I went back to the first woman, and said "you really DO hate when people ask for something not on the shelves don't you??", and she looked at me with the same stupid grin and she just laughed at me.

Off to pick up a case of the Gemini about five seconds after I finish this post.