Domestic Thursday: Felting and Black Creek Historic Brewery

Pattern: Winter Slippers by Véronik Avery in Knitting 24/7
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Tangerine Heather
This one's a Christmas present, so I won't say who it's for. But I'll just hint that it's for somebody who always deserves to have warm feet. And who I hope only has feet about an inch longer than mine, because she wasn't here to try them on.

Pattern: Canadian Fusion Mitts by Greenelf Designs
Yarn: Briggs and Little Heritage
These appeared on the blog months ago, or at least a quarter of the completed set did. I actually finished the knitting for these guys while still in Victoria, but loved my roommates too much to inflict the smell of wet wool on them for a few hours. So it took me this long and a move to get around to felting them. I came close to overfelting them, but I'm sure they'll relax with a few wears. And, my God, they are warm.


I like to think of this week as A Very Special Episode of Domestic Thursday, because this week I'll be talking about... divorce. No. Actually, I'll be chatting about one of Ontario's most interesting breweries and the intrigue of cask-conditioned ale. Carry on. Black Creek Historic Brewery brews them like your (great-great-great-)grandfather used to, since it's part of a historic village dedicated to life in 1860s Ontario. The brewmaster, Ed Koren, even has to dress the part, but that doesn't stop him from being incredibly friendly. You can pay the village admission price and buy growlers filled with the village-made brew, or spend a few bucks more for a full tour with tastings. Bottled Black Creek Historic Brewery ales are also available at the LCBO, but they're brewed in a more conventional manner by two other breweries, including Flying Monkeys, to accommodate the higher volume.

If you're used to drinking lager right out of the fridge, cask-conditioned ales will BLOW YOUR MIND. They're unpasteurized, unfiltered, and undergo a secondary fermentation in the cask from which your growler is then filled. Some differences: you have to drink it fairly warm so you taste the flavour and not the cold, it's cloudy, and it's barely bubbly. I brought home the India Pale Ale, since its flavour was a complex citrus instead of a hoppy roundhouse kick to the jaw. Being too fond of modern dental care and not having my XX chromosomes stop me from voting, I've never wanted to live in an earlier century. But cask-conditioned ale is one thing worth dragging into the present.