Domestic Sunday: Tailset Ginger Ale

I don't always regret the choices in my life, and how they've lead me to be paid, except under the following circumstances:

1. Going to the John Fluevog store
2. Contemplating the purchase of original art
3. Admitting that I will probably never be able to afford a living space with air conditioning

It's been the last fact I've felt the most this weekend, as Toronto descended into a puddle of sweat, and I went to Guelph to take refuge. Now I'm back, and typing makes me sweat. However, I may have found a beer that will make the heat and humidity bearable this summer:

It's the Tailset Ginger Ale from Grand River Brewing. Like Canada Dry, but at least 4.5% better. Avid readers (ie my Mom) will remember my love for ginger-flavoured beer. I became addicted to the Phillips version while living out in Victoria, but the Mill Street Ginger Beer I found in Ontario couldn't live up to my idealized brew. And even the bottles of Phillips that made their way eastward couldn't compare to the memories. However, this one was just right, with plenty of ginger flavour. It's the perfect thing to cut your thirst, and to make the humidity almost unnoticeable. I predict it will be a frequent guest in my fridge.

Book, er, Magazine Covers I Have Loved: Lucky Peach #7

What my feelings about Lucky Peach lack in articulation, they make up for in volume. I love food, and writing, so you know I must love food writing - and yet Lucky Peach often seems of a piece with the bro-ified food culture that's developed over the past few years, a culture nourished in a petri dish of social media and an available all-caps key. I have never properly recovered from an early roundtable, which featured Anthony Bourdain and a few other food bros having a dick-swinging contest about "craft." 

But maybe this cover (credit: Christopher Boffoli), and the promise of a feature on curry 'round the world, will bring me back. Nearly white covers are always striking on a crowded newsstand, and the miniature boat in a sea of milk and Lucky Charms is witty and, well, charming. 

Pillow Blog: Stores I Hate Going To, And Why

1. Wal-Mart: Because you can't go one aisle without coming across a crying baby
2. The Goodwill Near My House: There are nice Goodwills, and there are sad Goodwills, and then there's this Goodwill, where there's layer of grime seems to cover everything, even the stainless steel pots. Also, the cashier refuses to speak to me, in spite of my increasingly demented level of cheer.
3. Seduction on Yonge Street: Where couples desperate to save their failing marriages shop for naughty adult board games, shortly before they begin to google divorce lawyers. 
4. Forever 21: Forever Peter Pan collars 

My OCB Week Days 3-6: Farewell, My Liver

Since my last week turned out to be so hectic - I blame the siren call of tall ships and brunch - my week of OCB-themed posts didn't happen in a timely fashion. Instead, enjoy this digest-style edition of the week my liver died.

Day 3: To Routine
On Wednesday, OCB-stamped activities were happening all over the city, but I was sitting next to four taps only. Wednesday night is trivia night at Dave's on St Clair, where the revolving roster of my team, Vegan Summer Camp, puts in a weekly appearance. I love Dave's beyond all reason. The food's good, there's a bunch of kitsch on the walls, the servers are friendly, and Steam Whistle goes on special for trivia night. On a personal note, I have fond memories of Dave's. It's where I cemented my friendship with an old roommate by crying on his shoulder over some guy, and where I went on a first date with another boy, who hasn't made me cry on anyone's shoulder yet. It's good to have a local where you don't have to yell to talk. And there's something to be said for a weekly routine, with a reliable beer - Steam Whistle may not be as exciting as a smoked fruit beer with three kinds of hops, but it makes missing the Four Tops question go down easy.

Day 4: To Change
However, the next day I figured I should take advantage of the festivities. Black Oak (and board games) were supposedly on feature at The Only, one of my favourite east end bars. Unpopular Toronto sentiment: the west is nice, but the east is where it's at. It's less... you know... scene-tastic. There are places where you can mail a letter, and not just bars that will sell you a fourteen-dollar cocktail. Also, there was a Popeye's within walking distance of my house. Go biscuits! Anyway, I started off the night with a Black Oak brew, their marmelade saison. I thought it too fruity and a little flat, but I really liked the Cameron's Obsidian Imperial Porter I used to chase it. Cameron's makes perfect "dad" beer, bottles that are balanced and not too showy. The Obsidian is probably one of their more extreme offerings, aged in rum barrels and with strong coffee notes. It's also 9.2%, which really helped take the sting off my Ticket to Ride defeat.

Day 5: Back to the Neighbourhood
Feeling tired, broke, and possibly a little gassy, I desperately wanted to be housebound on Friday. But I still wanted to have beer. So I went local at the LCBO, and bought cans of the Kensington Brewing Company's Augusta Ale and Hockley Valley's 100 to bring over to the suitor's house. He lives mere blocks away from Kensington, so the Augusta seemed appropriate. And the presence of a new beer from the mysterious Hockley Valley, not a member of the *official* Ontario Craft Brewers, rarely spotted at a beer show, was intriguing. Hockley is uncommonly common on LCBO shelves, but not on social media, when the reverse seems to be the rule in the craft beer world. For a while I thought the brewery had actually folded, leaving a store of beer that was being slowly liquidated. Well, here's the 100 to prove me wrong. The beer isn't scoring well on Rate Beer at the moment, but either we got a good can or we've both gone insane, because the suitor and I thought it was pretty drinkable. And since he had the notion of putting curry mayo on our BLTs, I feel like he's at least on the ball.

Day 6: Finale
"I am full of food and high alcohol Indie Ale House beer. I feel great." - Me, to my brother

My OCB Week, Day 2: Some Thoughts on Craft Beer Marketing

I made a silly decision today. In spite of the frugal scribblings of yesterday, I went to Grapefruit Moon after work. Flying Monkeys was taking over the taps, and so I justified it to myself as follows. I have never been to Grapefruit Moon (reason #1) even though its name comes from my favourite Tom Waits album, which just happens to contain the best song with my name in the title (reasons #2 and #3) ever written, and really, I don't drink enough Flying Monkeys anyway (reason #4).

I've mostly neglected Flying Monkeys during my craft beer adventures, having decided they were a hop-heavy brewer with overwhelming package design, good for washing down pad thai, but too much for a full night. To address the first issue: yes, they still make some very bitter beers. The one-off pictured above, Rickety Crickets Amber Wheat, made me think they had accidentally poured me some of their Smashbomb instead. Only the cloudiness of the pint made me think it was truly a wheat beer. However, some of the other brews are a little more balanced. Both Stereovision and Hoptical Illusion are quite tasty, with the second having a lemongrass flavour I rather like. As to my second issue, label design - their style is starting to grow on me. The aesthetics of craft beer has homogenized as the industry has grown, and now most of the packaging looks like it came from a gig poster in Nashville. It's woodcut, or all type, with vaguely vintage colourways and graphics. In a sea of that much tastefulness, Flying Monkeys' psychedelia porridge stands out. And so, future brewers of Canada, remember that as nice as you want your branding to look, try to make sure it's still a little different.

Even if that means it's not as pretty.

My OCB Week, Day 1: Home(drunk) Brew

We're in the middle of what should be the best of all weeks - Ontario Craft Beer Week, like Christmas but seven days long and less of an eggnog hangover - and I am at home. At bars around the city, there are tap takeovers, pilsner faceoffs, beer-soaked taster menus, and ale trails. And I am at home. I am at home because I want to be responsible, for once, and have money for groceries and clean laundry.

So I will keep OCB Week in my way (well, with at least one outing.) I'll enjoy craft beer at home. Thanks to its growth in popularity, even the closet-like footage of my local LCBO contains some craft beers, like the Beau's Sticke Alt seen here, a beer which tastes like molasses on toast. And the Beer Store has its share of craft as well. But better to go right to the source, if you can, and buy your beer where it was made. Several breweries are offering growler programs, the staff is often friendly, and you don't have to support the creepy provincial monopoly of the LCBO. You can ever tip yourself when your pour your purchase, if that makes you feel better. 

St. Protagitron Among the Felines

The biblical downpour currently lashing Toronto - though probably a delicate sunshower by Vancouver standards - has turned my thoughts to religion. Like how things would go if, like Noah, your faithful correspondent was chosen to survive this flood.

Instead of two of every animal, I would have three neutered cats. And instead of a watertight ark, an inflatable bath pillow.

Oh wait, here's an update: there is no bath pillow. Mankind is doomed.

Yes, I make light of one of the foundational narratives of three major world religions. My atheism may not burn bright, but it burns true. And so, when I'm not seeing myself as a sort of Noah Lite, I wonder what could make me cash in my skeptical chips for faith. Would it be love? Or at least lust, and a promise of a KitchenAid stand mixer from the wedding registry? Let's say some future suitor asked me to convert. Could I do it? No, and not even for a stand mixer. Even if I loved somebody, I couldn't go from something I didn't believe in to something else I didn't believe in, and exchange one flavour of polite disbelief for another. I don't deny that religion can mean something. And perhaps I'm jealous, and impressed, because it takes such a level of trust to believe. But it's trust that I do not have, and can not fake. Even as a flood seems imminent, the interaction between condensation and evaporation causing all this rain is beautiful enough for me.

Pillow Blog: Parental Advisory

In the tradition of the Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, here's a Pillow Blog: an observational list on some subject or another. 

Movies I've Seen With My Parents That I Wish I Hadn't, and Why

1. Summer of Sam: Violence, sex, in particular an orgy featuring lesbian sex which made my mother stare at me hoping that at least this movie would force me to confirm or deny my homosexuality
2. Chinatown: Incest, despair
3. I Am Love: Despair, boredom
4. Take This Waltz: Boredom, Torontocest

Domestic Thursday: GLB's RoboHop

A mobile post today, since I'm at Tall Boys and my Internet is acting squirrelly at home anyway. Here's Great Lakes Brewery's RoboHop, a can which may have only existed in my dreams before today. I LOVE Robocop. It's part of my 80s movie trifecta, along with Bloodsport and Die Hard. I may have seen the new Trek just to see Peter Weller. I don't think I like this beer as much as its filmic namesake though. It's truly hoppy, a bitter mix of citrus and flower to start, and frankly a little metallic on the aftertaste. I will smuggle that can out of the bar though, and I will turn it into something crafty (tiny cactus holder?) though. I am weak, and Peter Weller's jawline is strong.

Domestic Sunday: Return to the Womb Edition

Back when I was choosing which university to go to, my two criteria were 1. it couldn't be on the West Coast, but 2. had to be far enough away that my Mom couldn't just casually drop in to see me. Don't worry I do love that woman (as my last minute purchase of grocery store flowers this Mother's Day proves!) but I really needed my space back then. And yet,  I now actually enjoy the occasional weekend in Guelph. Maybe it's my Mom's garden:

Or the dog:

Or maybe... THESE MUST BE MY HEINEKEN YEARS. Actually, these years I drink far better beer than Heineken:

This Sunday was brought to you by one of the last bottles from the Niagara College trip. My Dad and I went there a few weeks ago, so I could write a blog post about their brewmaster program for the Toronto Beer Week. To learn more about the program, you can read my finished post here. Or you can drink the results, as I did this afternoon. As expected for a strong ale, this one was very malty, to the point where it tasted of chocolate. Don't expect anything too bitter, and watch out for that 7.5% ABV. It will hit you eventually.