Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Toronto Festival of Beer - preview

Some of our samples from the TFOB 2011.
Jeff and two friends are off to the Toronto Festival of Beer on Friday night.

While I am jealous of all the great beer they'll have, I'm also sad I'll be missing out on the entertainment: Salt-N-Pepa.

(Did anyone else see this and think, "Really? Salt-N-Pepa are headlining the Friday night at a beer festival?" Because I did.)

New this year at the beer festival, there's a Brewmaster's Series in co-operation with Niagara College, and there will be a World of Beer Pavilion, featuring a host town, region or country. This year, it will feature Quebec beers - which should be awesome. Some insiders have said you can expect to see Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel!, MicroBrasserie Charlevoix, Hopfenstark, Le Trou Du Diable, Brasserie Dunham and Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Also - a huge bonus in my opinion - the plastic cups are gone and they're going with glass for samples.



Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Aero beer - Denmark

Jeff was also recently in Denmark, and this was one of the beers he had.

"Nougatty," he wrote on Facebook as he posted the photo. Later he told me it was sweet and had the flavour of hazelnuts. He certainly enjoyed it.

I believe it's brewed by Rise Brewery (Rise Bryggerri). The brewery says this bock has a walnut flavour (or so Google translate would have me believe) and I think they use local malt and hops in the brewing process.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Russian beers

Jeff was recently in Moscow for work. He had a few beers, but one thing he spoke of that he enjoyed was a drink called kvass.

According to Wikipedia:

Kvass is a fermented beverage made from black or regular rye bread. The colour of the bread used contributes to the colour of the resulting drink. It is classified as a non-alcoholic drink by Russian standards, as the alcohol content from fermentation is typically less than 1.2%. Overall, the alcohol content is low (0.05% - 1.0%).  It is often flavoured with fruits or herbs such as strawberries, raisins or mint.


Jeff said he liked the kvass - something he had with lunches. Certainly something to try if you go to Russia.

He also had these beers:



"I knew I'd find you again, Franziskaner!" he wrote on Facebook when he enjoyed this German beer.



For this one he said, "Not your stinky old NA Budweiser."



And then there was this. He wasn't even sure it was beer. (If anyone has any idea about what it is, let us know!)

Saturday, July 14, 2012

(512) Pecan Porter

Jeff didn't take a photo - but the brewery
had a fun graphic. Even as a graphic
this beer looks amazing.
Jeff was in Texas recently for work and he went to a pub called The Ginger Man (because his favourite bar in Fort Worth, The Flying Saucer, was closed).

At The Ginger Man, he had a few beers, but the one he spoke about the most and that stood out in his mind was the (512) Pecan Porter.

"You could taste the pecan. I was surprised by how much you could taste the pecan," Jeff said.

Mmmm, a pecan porter. I don't even like pecans, and yet this sounds wonderful. And Jeff says it was (so does Beer Advocate).

The beer uses locally grown pecans (the brewery is based in Austin).

He also had an IPA by (512) and enjoyed that beer.

So for those ever in Texas, this is a brewery to try.


Thursday, July 12, 2012

A new craft beer festival in Guelph?

I've heard there is possibly going to be a new craft beer festival in Guelph, Ont., this fall.

This would be super, duper exciting.

Fingers crossed!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

A grape beer?

Jeff was at Baker St. Station in Guelph on Saturday (a great new pub with pretty good food and an excellent beer list) when he saw something he's never seen before: A grape ale.

It was from Flying Monkeys and, of course, he had to try it. It was just called Flying Monkeys Grape on the board, but I think I see in their Twitter account the name of the beer is Grape Raped (perhaps the name is a bit too controversial, and is why the bar didn't actually name it?)

As for the beer itself:

"I thought it was weird. I don't know if I'd have it again," he told me afterwards. "It was interesting. I probably won't be ordering it again, but I was glad I tried it."

He said you could taste the grape and it was like grape drink or white grape juice.

But, he also noted, sometimes you have to try truly bizarre beers just to do it and who knows - this could have been a hit for him.

In fact, it worked for this blogger, who said the Grape Raped "worked and reminded me of KoolAid in a good way."

I also found a listing for it on Untapped, where it lists the full name as Grape Raped Antigravity, (the Antigravity is the brewery's lighter beer), but there's not a tonne of info on the web about this beer yet (at least not that I see).