OCB Week — Thursday June 21, 2012

Zowie, what a night! Last night was my first (and only) pretty-busy night for OCB Week.  5pm at the Monk’s Kettle (which is about an hour and fifteen minute’s commute from my house) to enjoy some beers food and company, then down to Black Oak for 10 Bitter Years, more food and more company, quick now, cab over to Six Pints Beer Academy for, you guessed it, beer food and company, then randomly dropped in to the Avro.  No food for that last one. Phew, it was a great time.  I’m going to talk about it more in another post, but watch out for Six Pints.  I had 5 of their brews last night, and they ranged from “a good start, maybe a little more tweaking” to “Excellent”. The space looks amazing, they have great staff and all the polish you would expect.  Time will tell, but this looks like the kind of place you hope a really big brewery with a ton of money would open, but never believe that they will.

So today.  Full disclosure: I’m not going anywhere tonight.  Tomorrow too.  Just got too much on the go, and I need some time around the house.  But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a heap of cool things happening.  You know the drill by now.  Check here to find stuff near you: http://www.ontariocraftbrewers.com/craftbeerweek/events2012.php

Like when your geeky older cousin thrashed you at risk

Risk Game

I always liked taking Australia. I also lost a lot.

I’m too busy to look back, but I think this might be the first tap-takeover I’ve mentioned, but it’s a good one! Burger Bar had a bad run of rolling 1’s and 2’s and quickly was dominated by Great Lakes’ red army.  The good news is, it means there will be hella Great Lakes beers available there.  According to twitter just now, 13 Sack XPA (collaboration with Beirgotter), Farmhouse Saison (Collaboration with Amsterdam) and Karma Citra are already on.  Piled onto the border of Venezuela is No Chance with Miranda Saison, Lake Effect IPA, Ginga Ninja Saison and Armadildo IPA. And of course, it’s at Burger Bar, who — in addition to their usual awesome food — have added the “Don’t tell your cardiologist” deep-fried burger for OCB Week.  It’s got other bad-for-you stuff that I could talk about (I think there’s bacon made from pigs fed on KFC), but really, the burger patty is panko crusted and deep fried.  That should be enough…..

Toronto’s Own Dickens

Some times a beer just needs a workin’ man name.  Canadian.  Blue. Bud.  Sometimes beer names need to evoke an emotion or allude to a time or place.  Then there are the times they just need to be silly.  Brewers have a tendancy to get silly with their silly names, but possibly none more so than Sam Corbiel.  While you can order a Sawdust City Lone Pine IPA (you can nearly taste AJ Casson), you can also get a “Long Dark Voyage to Uranus Uranal Imperial Stout” or a “Princess Wears Girlpants” or a, “I Swear Sugarpants It Was Your Idea”.  Sam can get silly, for sure.  So it’s kind of a given, his Sawdust City feature tonight at WVRST  is called (obviously) It Was The Best of Times It Was The WVRST Of Times. In addition to the usual awesomeness of WVRST, you’ll be treated to a selection of Sam’s excellent, often quirkily named beers. Five Sawdust brews, and three collaborations. Don’t miss it, opening pitch is 7pm.

People say Ryan’s crazy; He’s got diamonds on the souls of his shoes.

Woah there, another tap takeover? You bet! You probably are going to want one of those backpacks with the water dealie in it and the hose to your mouth.  As if the Sub-Saharan weather weren’t enough, you’ve got a lot of beer to get through tonight.  Nickel Brook is bringing some of their more recent brews and taking over the Victory Cafe.  I would assume people reading this blog have been following along, but just in case you’re still in the “Nickel Brook, don’t they make that apple beer?” give our head a shake.  Nickel Brook still produces it’s core line, including the Organic Lager, Green Apple Pilsner and Gluten-free, but of late Ryan Morrow has been pumping out stacks of really cool new beers. I like to think they’ve hit their Graceland phase.  After a bit of a plateau, some fresh sounds are leading to some very cool beers.  I cannot say enough good things about Naughty Neighbour PA.

Round Two, Fight!

Night two of The Only Cafe’s Battle of the Bands is going down tonight, with The Griffon Pub Band (Sawdust City), Station Twang (Duggan’s), Clang (Wellington and The Only) and Audio (Beau’s All Natural). Pics from last night looked awesome, and there’s some killer beers on tap right now.

They call them King for a reason

I know you know the CBAs just happened, and hopefully you remember that the GTA showed well with bronzes for Amsterdam and Cameron’s and a silver for King Brewery.  So, to celebrate and give everybody a chance to pump some hands and pat some backs, The Monk’s Kettle is hosting the crew from King at the bar tonight.  Come out and drink some of their incredible beers with food pairings, and meet the people who make them.

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*
*

Subscribe without commenting