Reefer Madness: Legal Weed & Beer

Reefer! Marijuana! Cannabis! Weed! Ganja! Wacky Tobacky! The Devil’s Lettuce! The weed that plants its roots in HELL! So it’s legal here in Canada now, after a very long time of being illegal but mostly unenforced save for the odd dispensary bust. The governments in each province handles things their own way, Ontario being particularly…

TRUTHSEEKER ALERT: NEW LEGENDARY MUSKOKA ODDITY SIGHTING!!!!

Up here in Ontario there was some excitement on my part when I found out that Muskoka Brewery’s Legendary Oddity, formally the Spring Oddity, a Belgian Ale made with Heather Tips, Juniper Berries, Sweet Orange Peel, and Candi Sugar has not only come back to the brewery’s lineup, but also evolved from their giant 750ml…

Simple Done Well

I was at the first Because Beer Festival at the beautiful Pier 4 Park in Hamilton, Ontario a couple of weeks ago. Summer is a wonderful time because, well, there are less beer events that take place in cramped spaces and the noble Beer Geek can roam free in the glory of the outdoors. This was especially…

The Kinda-Sorta Rise of Session Beers

So these days the words “Session Beers” are entering the mindset of beer geeks and casual beer drinkers more frequently. This isn’t a new thing at all, Session Beers are a very common type of beer, but small breweries are deciding to take a break from their usual projects to create the perfect one and…

Barkeep, Another Course – The Canadian Craft Beer Cookbook

Longtime readers of this site along with anyone who has known me for like, five minutes knows that one of my most enjoyable activities is cooking. Additionally, finding ways to cook with beer is another interest of mine, although I should say that beyond an excellent cake recipe, a weiss pizza crust, BBQ sauce, and…

Rogers Daytime Toronto – 2nd Appearance Recap

So! Exciting day! I was asked to come back on Daytime Toronto today to talk about some heat-busting local beers. Like the last time, I had a blast and the host Glenn Dixon, asked some great questions and told me that he learned a lot about how diverse beer was. By the end I was…

Lock it in the Basement: Aging Beers

Aging: It’s not just for wines, whiskeys and people who aren’t me. So I’ve decided to take the next step in my beer appreciation learnings and start doing what I’ve wanted to do ever since I tried some beer that had undergone this process. I’m going to start aging beer. I think my first instance in…

Hey Vern, I’m on TV!

Phew! Just got back from my guest appearance on Rogers Daytime Toronto! That 8 minutes went by too fast, but I was able to showcase some amazing beers and talk a little about myself in the process. And host Val Cole was wonderful, professional and helped me, who has never been on television before, get…

Best of Winter (Providing It’s Gone)

Don’t know about you folks, but up here our weather has been…well, let’s put it this way: Last week in a single day we had snow, rain, snow, hail, rain and ending with some snow overnight. Now it’s practically t-shirt weather with forecasts saying the temperature will more than double tomorrow. So screw it, I’m…