Abbaye Des Sept Minutes

Abbaye Des Sept Minutes is an innovative four-beer collaboration between two of Ontario’s standout breweries: Toronto’s Godspeed Brewery and Ottawa’s Tooth and Nail Brewing Co. The collab resulted in a series of four Belgian-inspired ales, each assigned a Roman numeral. There’s a blonde, a dubbel, a tripel, and a no-nonsense quadrupel.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World this week for my thoughts on this quartet of abbey-style ales.

Karma Styles

Karma Citra is one of my fave IPA offerings from Toronto’s Great Lakes Brewery. An homage to the Citra hop, the beer seems to me to have evolved a bit since I first tasted it, but it remains an enjoyable brew.

Since I’m enthusiastic about Karma Citra, you can imagine that I was pretty excited when I saw that GLB had released three variants of the beer, each showcasing a different hop from Washington’s Yakima Valley: El Dorado, Sabro, and Simcoe.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World for my thoughts on this trio of Karmic brews.

Fare the Well Waller; I Hardly Knew Thee

 I had my first brush with a handful of offerings from Ottawa's Waller St. Brewing in August 2021, thanks to a delivery from my ol' pal MTT. Sadly, it'll also be my last, as Waller St. closed down on October 15, 2021.

Still, I really enjoyed many of the beers that I tried, so I'll post my reviews anyway. Stay tuned over the next couple of days for my thoughts on the excellent and dearly-departed brewery.

Limberlost

 

Gravenhurst, Ontario’s Sawdust City Brewing Co. recently released a duo of beers under the Limberlost moniker: a bière de garde style called Bruin and Belgian-style sour blonde. Stay tuned to the Bitter World for my thoughts on both in the days ahead.

Stone City Run

 

Recently, I saw on the ol' Twitter that Kingston's Stone City Ales was doing a delivery run into Toronto. You better believe I jumped at the chance. So stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next few for my thoughts on a sextet of Stone City's offerings.

Black is Beautiful

Black is Beautiful is a brilliant, large scale collaboration developed by San Antonio, Texas’ Weathered Souls Brewing Co. The idea is that they developed a high-alcohol stout recipe and made it available to be brewed and modified by breweries worldwide, with three requests: (1) that 100% of the proceeds be donated local organizations that support reforms targeted at police brutality or legal defense funds; (2) that breweries “[c]hoose their own entity to donate to local organizations that support equality and inclusion”; and (3) that a commitment be made to “the long-term work of equality.”

According to the stats on the website, as of September 7, 2020, Black is Beautiful was being made by 1,140 breweries across all 50 states, as well as in 21 countries.

This is a genuinely amazing initiative and one well worth supporting.

East vs. West Duo

 

 

I lucked into a pair of Hip Hop themed IPAs via my ol’ pal WFM, who in turn received them from our friend MZ. The beers, both named East vs. West, are a respectively a New England IPA and a west coast IPA, the former named for The Notorious B.I.G. and the latter for Tupac Shakur. Both originate in Kingston, Ontario, where they’re brewed by Daft Brewing. Both beers come in matching 650mL bottles that feature a flamingo on the label.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next couple of days to find out whether East is the beast or West is the best.

Town Brewery Trove

One of my most anticipated beer deliveries of the Great 2020 Quarantine came from Whitby, Ontario's Town Brewery. I had only ever tried their Square Wheels IPA going in, but I had enjoyed it quite a bit. Plus, the art on the 473mL Town cans is spectacular, so I was keen to give 'em a whirl.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World for my thoughts on a pale ale, a hefe, and a big ol' DIPA. Turns out I didn't bother reviewing Square Wheels, because I assumed I'd done it already, but trust me that it's a solid one--really excellent. Shit.

Manantler by Mail

My pal WM was new to the world of mail order beer, so he asked me to shepherd an order his way. In return, he gifted me an identical order. As a result, I ended up with a beautiful variety pack from Bowmanville’s Manantler Craft Brewing Co. for little more than a few clicks and some light logistics work.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next couple of weeks for an octet of reviews, covering the gamut styles from blonde ales to oatmeal stouts.

Godspeed Goodies

Beer mail at its finest brought be a selection of beers from Toronto's excellent Godspeed Brewery--one of Ontario's best and, in my opinion, most underrated breweries. My experience with Godspeed has been that their beer is subtle, nuanced, and well-crafted.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next fortnight for my thoughts on a septet of brews from a fine establishment, and some of the most aesthetically beautiful beers in the province.

Dominion Delivery

One of the few positives that I can takeaway from the COVID-19 outbreak/social distancing that has been THE story of spring 2020 is the rise of beer delivery all across Ontario. Because I have long been hearing rave reviews about Ottawa's Dominion City Brewing Co., I decided to make my debut order with DCBC.

Excellent customer service, speedy delivery, and a bountiful haul of quality ales made me a believer in beer mail.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next little while to read the reviews from my first experience with Dominion City and with beer through the mails.

Hamilton Haul

Hamilton, Ontario has a bourgeoning brewing scene, and it’s a fun place that I don’t get to as much as I’d like. So, when I do, I purchase heavily and carry home en mass. During one of my periodic Hammertown beer buying binges, I brought a quartet of cans from Grain & Grit Small Batch Beer and a trio of bottles from Fairweather Brewing Co., both breweries with big reputations that I’ve long wanted to visit. Conveniently, they’re geographically practically adjacent, which is a big help to an out-of-towner.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World over the next fortnight for a septet of Steeltown beer reviews.

Triple Play Fan Pack

During the Holiday season, I have a bad (good?) habit of treating myself to a couple of gift packs. This year, I grabbed myself a three-pack from the gang at Left Field Brewery in Toronto--the Triple Play Fan Pack. This little pack features three 355mL cans of dark ales--a coffee porter, a mocha marshmallow stout, and an imperial stout.

Stat tuned to the Bitter World this week for my thoughts on this trio of ales from Left Field.

Trivia Winnings

On a chilly Thursday night, I played a little pub trivia with an all-star quartet that included the Bitter Wife and our good pals CC and VC. The event, hosted at a little Toronto pub, was a delight and it turned out to be a close thing, but our crack team of trivia buffs managed to pull out a .5 point victory. And the prize? A sextet of Great Lakes Brewery’s small scale releases. Each couple took home a trio, and the ones we got were Miami Weiss White Pale Ale, Hümber Helles Lager, and Lula’s Kentucky Common—none of which I’d ever tried before.

Stay tuned this week for my take on the three fruits of our winnings—offerings from one of Toronto’s elite craft brewers that I likely wouldn’t have tasted had we not known a couple of obscure facts.

Letraria Craft Beer Garden Porto

The beer garden at Letraria Craft Beer Garden Porto has got to be one of the most peaceful places in all of Portugal to sample and enjoy craft beer. A nondescript façade on a quiet, side street leads into a narrow bar that hides a peaceful oasis in the middle of a fairly busy part of Porto. Full, the garden could likely seat 60 folks and accommodate many more standing, but shortly after opening at 4pm on a Thursday, when I was lucky enough to come calling, the whole place had only a sparse collection of other patrons. The beer garden had a handful of small bistro tables, some larger picnic tables, and still more small tables with benches built into little enclaves.

Letraria is affiliated with Cerveja Letra, a brewery located in Vila Verde in Northern Portugal. It features a wide selection of beers, primarily from Letra and their collaborations with other breweries; however, there is also an assortment of other craft brews from around Portugal.

 

 

Other than comfort and peace, another nice feature of Letraria was the use of proprietary debit cards to order and keep track of purchases—customers order beer and food on their cards and settle up at the end.

Sadly, during my visit, they were having a hard time with the refrigeration for their tap lines. To their credit, though, the gent working the bar acknowledged the issue, explained which beers were unaffected, and showed me to the extensive bottle fridge. Not as dire as I feared, friends!

 

With the Bitter Wife recuperating from a travel-induced migraine, I was free to spend a lovely afternoon at the beer garden tasting beers and getting mad buzzy. Stay tuned for a handful of reviews from my time there.

 

Portuguese Vacation!

Fans of the Bitter World:

You might have noticed a pause in my regular posting over the last little while. I've been in Portugal for the last eight days. Usually, I try to queue up a handful of posts to account for a vacation, but this time around, there was too much other stuff going on in my life and I decided not to worry about the blog.

Portugal, as it turns out, is a spectacular destination. Known for fortified wines and other vinos, I wasn't sure what to expect from its beer scene. What I found was a widely available beer scene that was pretty generic, but pockets of excellent craft beer that, when sought out, left me quite impressed. During my eight-day stay, I found IPAs, pilsners, dark lagers, barrel-aged funksters, and porters aplenty. And the beer-drinking culture should be mentioned, too: draft macro beer was available nearly everywhere food was sold, and it was consumed with gusto. Beer drinking seemed to be a mealtime necessity, but in my experience it was seldom pursued to inebriation.

Stay tuned to the Bitter World for the next couple of weeks for a cross-section of some of the more interesting beers that I sampled during my trip to Portugal.

Felicidades!

Black Lab Brewing

I’m a lazy ol’ sod. Black Lab Brewing has been open for ages in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood, and its been my radar since before it opened, but, pathetically, I only just hopped on a streetcar and trekked over. And, to make matters worse, I only visited the bottle shop. I eschewing the taproom, which would have been my usual first point of contact, because a bout of extreme back pain made the prospect of sitting at a bar an almost certain study in agony. So, after nearly an hour headed east via the 501 streetcar, I only actually spent about 15 minutes in the place.

Fortunately, my brief visit to Black Lab’s bottle shop was stewarded by an extremely helpful and knowledgeable staff person named Ashley, who guided me in putting together an optimal six-pack of the beers on offer on this particular Saturday in July. I left with a suitable smorgasbord of 500mL bottles, some stickers for my home bar, and a playful piece of glassware.

So, stay tuned over the next several days for my thoughts on an initial, belated run of ales and lagers from Black Lab Brewing.

People's Pint Pit-Stop

Located in the former home of Junction Craft Brewing, People's Pint Brewing Company is tucked a bit off the beaten path in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood. It's a place I've long intended to visit, but never seemed to find the opportunity. That all changed on a recent Saturday afternoon, and I'm glad it did. Staffed with friendly folks, People's Pint provided a chill environment supplemented with a few stylistic flourishes (such as the beautiful carving on the side of the bar). They offer a great selection of styles and strengths, including a couple of nitro options.

I tried three brews during my time at the brewery and left with another four bottles. Stay tuned t the Bitter World over the next couple of weeks to read my thoughts on seven offerings from this excellent Toronto spot.

Spencer Gift Pack

I seldom pick up beery gift packs for myself, because I have all of the glassware in the world and I would usually rather have more beer and less stuff; however, when I spotted the three-bottle plus a goblet Spencer Gift Pack from the Spencer Brewery, I just had to have it. After all, other than the Spencer Trappist Ale, the other two beers in this pack don't seem to be available in Ontario in any other format. Plus, it's a pretty nice goblet and the whole package cost just under $15. As far as I know, Spencer is still the only certified Trappist brewery outside of Europe, and a pretty interesting spot.

Stay tuned for the next couple of days for my thoughts on Spencer's Trappist Imperial Stout and their Trappist Holiday Ale.

Western Suds from Western Buds

I’m fortunate enough to have a boatload of great friends; really terrific people. Some of them don’t bring me interesting beer, but most of them do. Among the premier bringers of brew are KF and her beau JR. On their most recent swing to Upper Canada, my West Coast beauties brought me a quintet of suds from Canada’s westernmost province. Stay tuned for a gaggle of reviews of some (predominantly pink and prettily packaged) beers from British Columbia.