I can remember drinking this beer for the first time ever back in 2007. Some beers stick out in memory more than others when factors like - your experience consuming it, the flavours presented in it, the company your shared it with, etc., stand out.  The Garrison Imperial IPA (used to be called Imperial Pale Ale) is one of those beers for me. I even named it my favourite beer of 2007!

I remember getting the package in the mail from Halifax and I remember the release of that great hop aroma the minute I opened it (the beer, not the box). A few weeks later the beer won Beer of the Year at the 2007 Canadian Brewing Awards and former Garrison brewer, Greg Nash, drove from Halifax with a trunk full of cases, some of those had my name on them. We drank some at the location the CBAs were being held at, in the company of many brewing industry representatives, and the discussion between everyone, while drinking the beer, added to an already excellent night. (The beer was also named Beer of the Year at the 2008 CBAs)

But this isn't about me. Fast forward three years and a bit. Cass Enright of Bar Towel.com has become an agent for Garrison Brewing Co. in Ontario and it was with great pleasure that Enright could finally post the following message on his website (Bar Towel):

From Enright
As part of the LCBO’s Autumn Ales beer release, we are thrilled to say that Garrison Imperial I.P.A. from Halifax, Nova Scotia is rolling out to the shelves for purchase. The Bar Towel, through our partner Cecktor Limited, is the agent for Garrison in Ontario and has been documenting the experience of importing through the Free Our Beer project. You can find which LCBO stores currently have stock here.

It has been nearly a year in the works to get this beer to LCBO store shelves and we are very happy it is here. It is truly a fantastic beer, a two-time Canadian Beer of the Year at the Canadian Brewing Awards and one of the most regarded IPAs in Canada.

Garrison Imperial I.P.A. has started hitting the store shelves this week and will sell for $4.25 per 500 mL bottle. It is joined in this seasonal release by Orval Trappist Ale, Trafalgar Smoked Oatmeal Stout, Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier, Dieu du Ciel! Peche Mortel, Southern Tier Choklat, Belhaven Scottish Stout, Dark Star Espresso Stout, Cannery Brewing Blackberry Porter, Wychwood Wychcraft, Innis & Gunn Limited Edition Highland Cask, Lakes of Muskoka Harvest Ale and Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider. All of the beers should be hitting the store shelves now.

P.S. as mentioned above, and for full disclosure, The Bar Towel is behind the importing of this beer. And we can tell you from our dealings with the LCBO that if you want to see more Garrison in Ontario, please buy some. You can find after the break the complete list of LCBO stores that will be receiving Garrison IIPA (plus the other Autumn Ales releases).

*Congratulations, Cass!

The time has finally come for me to board a flight to Europe. Yes, I've never been to Europe before.

My wife and I are preparing for two packed weeks that we'll be spending in Amsterdam, Belgium, and Paris respectively.  We've got a bunch of things lined up that just happen to involve beer (fancy that!), including trips to Cantillon, Delirium, Cafe Gollem, t' Brugs Beertje, The Brewer's House, Heineken, and more.

What I'm really looking forward to is our visit to Het Anker in Mechelen. We will be staying at the hotel attached to the brewery, and it came to my attention yesterday that there will be a meeting taking place during my stay that involves the Association of Belgian Family Brewers! We'll also be going on an intimate brewery tour, which I'm sure will include sampling their terrific line-up of beers.

In Bruges we've managed to snag a room at Hotel Erasmus, which is well known for their tremendous food and large collection of Belgian beer. It's also nice and central to all the locations I hope to visit.

We leave tomorrow and won't be back until October 17th, so there won't be any new content on here during that time. Should I get a free moment, I may post some pictures during the trip. Maybe. I will schedule some old posts to appear sporadically during the two weeks.

Cheers,
Troy

I'm sure you've heard about this by now, but it's still worth mentioning here, and the event should definitely be worth the ticket price.

On Thursday evening, Mill Street Brewery will be going head to head in a beer vs. wine competition with 13th Street Winery from St. Catherine's down at the brewpub in the Distillery District.

Four courses paired with both Mill Street products and 13th Street products will be sampled and judged by a number of individuals from the industry, including Josh Rubin and myself on the beer side.

Peter Bodnar-Rod from 13th Street and Mill Street Brewmaster, Joel Manning, will introduce each course and comment on the wine/beer paired with it and discuss reasons why the particular pairing offered works. Judges will then sample and evaluate each course before trying to determine winners.

Mill Street Brewpub
(Distillery District)
6:30pm - Tickets: $89
For tickets call -

Wow, this week is flying by. Many of the licensees I've spoken with over the last four days have been extremely happy with the turnout of their events, which is great news for us at Toronto Beer Week.

What are you going to get up to today/tonight?

Here are today's events. What a week already!

Troy, Rob Symes (TBW), James Watt (BrewDog), John Bowden (TBW)

I made it out to beerbistro for the BrewDog dinner last night and had the chance to interview James Watt (co-founder of BrewDog) before-hand, adding to the overall awesomeness of the evening. The dinner was exceptional, the beers were terrific, and James didn't disappoint anyone in the crowd as he was very open and ethusisatic when addressing the sold out room.

After the dinner, belly full of beer and rich food, I rolled down the road to C'est What for the Beer Writers In The Round event. We had a great turnout! Bigger than I thought we would get. A bunch of us (beer writers) sat around talking about beer and sharing our own personal beer experiences for two hours, and during the cab ride home I thought to myself that it would be great it the lot of us could do that every six months or so; sit around with some beers and chat.

Anyways, here's what you'll find happening throughout Toronto tonight (27 events). I plan on stopping by the Victory Cafe and Kilgour's myself!

Global Television came out to our launch yesterday at the Mill Street Brewpub to watch Steve Peters, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, tap the official cask of Toronto Beer Week. They filmed the launch and spoke with a number of people in the industry and the segment aired last night during the 6pm news.

Click here to watch the video.

And here is a video shot by one of the Toronto Beer Week members on their handheld.

I made it out to barVolo, the Granite Brewery and The Monks Table last night. Not bad for the opening day of Toronto Beer Week!

Tonight I'll be hanging out at the BrewDog dinner at beerbistro before heading down the street to C'est What for an event I'll be part of - Not Always In Good Taste: Beer Writers In The Round. It's going to be another great night.

Here are all the events taking place today.

www.torontobeerweek.com

Press Release from Garrison Brewing Co.

Garrison Brewing Unveils "3 Fields Harvest Ale" this Weekend

Halifax, NS – Sept. 16, 2010 - Three fields. Two provinces. One true Maritime harvest beer!

After two years of research and development, Garrison Brewing Co. will be launching a remarkable new brew this weekend – 3 Fields Harvest Ale.

"This is a real celebration of hops in their freshest form," said Brian Titus, company President. "In one day we picked a ridiculous amount of wet (green) hops and added them right into the kettle." Wet hops impart a more subtle hop fragrance and bitterness, making them a pleasure to brew with. "Just like picking fiddleheads or grapes for icewine, this is something that only happens once a year," added Titus.

Hops were harvested from three local fields: Ross Farm Museum in New Ross, Meander River Farm in Ashdale and Happy Hopyard Farm in Saint John, New Brunswick. Staff from the brewery and hopyards came together to pick, transport and sort the large volume of fresh, local hops. At Meander River Farm it was a family affair with Alan, Brenda and Fraser Bailey all hard at work. Happy Hopyard Farm spent the day picking then drove five hours to deliver the cones!

This is the first wet-hopped beer to be bottled in the Maritimes, representing another step toward a commercially produced all-Maritime beer. It will be available at the brewery and select private stores in bottles as of this Friday. It will also be served during Garrison’s Oktoberfest celebration on Saturday, Sept. 25. For more information, visit: www.garrisonbrewing.com.

About Garrison Brewing
Garrison Brewing Company is an award-winning independent microbrewery located in the Halifax Seaport. They produce distinctive, unpasteurized, all-natural ales in small batches. Now in its 14th year, Garrison distributes craft beer throughout the Maritimes in bottled and draught format.

Maz Bereton of the Victory Cafe, and one of the Toronto Beer Week (TBW) Board Members, has organized a Ladies Night for TBW that is set to take place on the Thursday night (Sept. 23).

From Bereton: Calling all women who appreciate flavour. Join us for a casual meander around 3 local bars, enjoying craft beer and camararderie along the way. Oh, and men are welcome too! Free Toronto Beer Week t-shirts for the first two females to show up.

The 3 local establishments have been chosen and are listed below in the order they will be visited. This is a great way for the women of Toronto who enjoy the complexities of craft beer to get together to mix and mingle, meet new friends and visit 3 great places in the city.

7:00pm Duggan's Brewery, reet
8:15pm beerbistro, 18 King Street East
9:30pm Trevor Kitchen and Bar, 38 Wellington Street East

A whole week has passed since I last updated the blog! Things have been very buys lately. The judging for the 8th annual Canadian Brewing Awards (CBAs) took place last weekend, over two days, and it was the largest competition in Canada to date. Over 390 beers were submitted by 76 Canadian breweries and the winners will be announced next Friday at the CBA gala.

TAPS Media, my employer, operates the awards, which eats up a lot of time in preparation. We had some great judges who were very dedicated to the two days and some great volunteers who helped wash glasses, ran beer trays to tables and helped with the tabulation of the scores.

I have been part of the CBAs for four years now (official pourer) and I can honestly say that the quality of beer produced in this country is terrific, and evolving at a healthy pace. I can remember the submissions from three years ago and last weekend's judging proved that much has changed in only a matter of years. Styles that weren't around in Canada three years ago, Kolsch for example, had numerous entries this year, as did Imperial IPAs and Kellerbiers. It was great to see.

Where am I going with this? Oh yes, when the office lights turn off for the night my attention turns to Toronto Beer Week, where as most of you know I sit on the Executive Committee, and let me tell you - It's a lot of work. We have been thrilled with the amount of events that have poured into our inbox. 99% of them have been posted on the TBW website (more posted this morning and listed here), and we expect just a few more to trickle in last minute.

Also, the response for the TBW Homebrew Competition has been phenomenal! We are going to hit 100 entries! 100. A group of us our getting together this weekend (between all the festivities that barVolo has planned with Dieu du Ciel) to start the judging. We never expected that the competition would be this successful, so we are extremely thrilled.

Anyway, head over to the TBW website and click on events. We have 120 events listed as of today at locals all over the city!!

I was on the phone last week with Andrew Copper from Propeller Brewing Co. who filled me in on the news below. The funny thing about it was that I had already heard about it from Randy Lawrence, the longtime brewmaster at Sea Level Brewing Co., one of the collaborators, who let it slip out in a conversation back in July. 

The collaborative Alpha % Dog Ale is being brewed at the Propeller Brewery tomorrow (thanks to Hurricane Earl who did not wreck the hops in Annapolis Valley). 

Look for some more information in the Fall Issue of TAPS The Beer Magazine.

Nova Scotia’s most successful microbrewery teams up with Nova Scotia’s newest micro.

HALIFAX, NS Sept. 8, 2010 - Halifax’s own Propeller Brewing Company has collaborated with Port Williams’ Sea Level Brewing for the first time to create a one-time release celebrating Nova Scotia’s thriving craft brewing community and Nova Scotia’s emerging hop industry.

The project was born in 2009 when Propeller’s President John Allen and Sea Level’s Owner/Brewer Randy Lawrence joked around over a pint about creating a collaborative one-off beer. The two chuckled a bit over the idea but quickly shifted from a casual pint to the serious business of making this collaboration a reality. The liquid result from their session is ALPHA%DOG Wet Hopped Collaboration Ale.

"We're really excited about this project - two local breweries coming together and using 100% local hops to create something really unique. It's a testament to what the craft brewing movement is all about" says Allen “And Randy is the wet hop beer expert in Nova Scotia” Lawrence has produced wet hop beers for over a decade in the province.

This collaboration is not the first time the two have worked together: Lawrence was brewing for Propeller in the early 2000’s and helped to develop Propeller Brewing Company’s award winning London Style Porter.

The copper coloured beer is brewed with 100% local Cascade and Willamette hops from Lazy Acres and Sea Level hop farms in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. These hops are harvested and shipped as “wet” un-dried hops to Propeller Brewery in Halifax where Sea Level brewer Randy Lawrence adds them to the brew kettle while their oils and resins are still at their peak.

The Propeller/Sea Level collaborative brew will be available late this summer at both the Propeller Cold Beer Store and Sea Level Brewing Company and select private liquor stores in Halifax.

ABOUT PROPELLER BREWING COMPANY: Propeller Brewing Co. is the largest and most successful microbrewery in Nova Scotia. Propeller produces international award-winning, craft brewed beers in small batches with the finest hops and malts, and is brewed using traditional methods.

ABOUT SEA LEVEL BREWING: Sea Level Brewing Co. is the only microbrewery in the Annapolis Valley, located in Port Williams. Owner and Brewmaster Randy Lawrence, has had a passion for hand crafted micro brewed beers, and been creating and brewing them for over 20 years now

Wellington Brewery is gearing up for their 25th anniversary and to help celebrate their quarter-century of brewing the brewery will be throwing a big bash on September 25th between 1pm and 11pm.

Here are some details from Wellington:

We invite you to Try A Welly On at the Wellington Brewery 25th Anniversary Party. On Saturday September 25th we'll be celebrating 25 years as Canada's oldest indie micro. We're having a huge party featuring brewery tours, food, our award-winning beers, and some amazing music from: THE SADIES, MINOTAURS, THE SPEAKEASIES, KIDSTREET, INNES WILSON & HIS OPPOSITION, GRAND BEND, and HOODIE GOOD.

Admission is FREE and the event is open to the public. We are accepting non-perishable food donations for the Guelph Food Bank. This event is family friendly and happens Rain or Shine. We are running a free shuttle bus from downtown to the brewery, to encourage people to leave their cars at home.

Our 25th Anniversary Party will replace our annual Realist Party. There is no need to RSVP, however we do recommend showing up early to ensure you get in. Brewery tours will run from 1pm to 6pm.

Further details will be available at www.wellingtonbrewery.ca in the coming weeks.

Cheers!

Wellington Brewery

Guelph, ON
1pm - 11pm

The Financial Post is claiming that Waterloo's Brick Brewing Co. has settled their legal war with founder, Jim Brickman.

Back in June of last year, Brick Brewing Co. launched a million dollar lawsuit against Brickman accusing him of acting as if Brick was a "private company wholly owned by him rather than as a public company with shareholders." Brickman responded with a statement of defence in August and waited for the dust to settle.

The piece in the Financial Post also states that Brick Brewing Co. has said that the two sides have agreed to keep the terms of the settlement private.

Good to see this sad chapter in the Ontario craft brewing industry come to a close.

There was a particular article in Saturday's Globe and Mail that caught my eye that had me shaking my head in disbelief, well until I woke up and remembered it's Toronto City Council we're talking about.

During Council's last session before the upcoming elections, a harmonized zoning by-law was passed that essentially shuts out new pub/bar owners from having a back patio. What? Did I read that right? City Council voted to ban outdoor patios at the back of an establishment...

This isn't really a new issue. For those of you in Toronto you may remember the fiasco that The Monks Table went through to get a back patio only to be denied due to a number of circumstances. It mostly came down to noise and what the neighbour's wanted. The clientele who frequent The Monks Table are hardly a raucous crowd and the owners of the Yonge and Summerhill establishment were willing to shut it down by 11pm all nights of the week. Still no go.

The Ceili Cottage has one of the best patios in the city (in my opinion) and it's always busy, but at 11pm everyone must vacate their tables for a spot inside the snug local. Reason - noise. Too many homes in the vicinity of the local led to the assumption that the patio would be too disruptive after 11pm. But at least they can have a patio out front. My point, there are already restrictions in place that don't make sense, now they've taken it to the extreme.

But now if you want to open a pub in the city of Toronto, and have a back patio, between Victoria Park and the Humber and south of Bloor and Danforth, you must now apply for an exemption to this new by-law. Too many rules and regulations that have cost thousands of tax dollars for studies, reports, etc.

It's sad, people in Toronto love their patios. It's a known fact. For two/three months a year Toronto patios  are packed when the weather is beautiful; city-wide. It's a great escape from the 400 square foot condo's and apartments that grace this city. Hopefully the next group of council members will take another look at this and throw it out the window.

I can see Montreal and Halifax laughing at us right now.