A Peek Into Ontario Craft Beer

Ontario's craft beer industry is booming, a quick observation shows over 30 professional craft brewers plying their trade in the province that accounts for nearly 40% of all Canadians. Ontario is also home to Canada's largest city, Toronto, and the champion of all pub-quiz capital city questions, the nation's capital, Ottawa, admit it, you thought it was Montreal, or Vancouver, or Toronto...

I've actually been to Ontario twice, I happened to be skiing rather than hunting good beer (sacrilege), but I was 14 years old (redemption) so I can be excused for only trying to blag a few bottles of Labatts (sacrilege again). A friend of mine, Andy Hewitt, Birmingham's resident Canadaphile and hot wings extraordinaire, recently returned from a trip to Ontario and luckily for me, brought back a selection of beers native to the state.

First up were three beers from Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery who brew their beers right on the waterfront in downtown Barrie.

Flying Monkeys Stereo Vision

(Amber Ale, 5.5%)

This beer pours a hazy marigold and has a light grassy hop and cereal aroma. Flavour is quite fruity, hints of strawberry and orange peel but nothing overpowering. There are light grassy hop accents in the finish, the added wheat gives it a medium bodied creamy texture.

Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion Almost Pale Ale

(American Pale Ale, 5%)

Pours an amber colour with an aroma of peaches and caramel malts. Flavour is of marmalade and woody hops, though bitterness is restrained by its minimalist 18 IBUs. Its “almost” name rings true as this is like a hopped Amber Ale rather than a traditional more heavily hopped APA.

Flying Monkeys Smash Bomb Atomic IPA

(India Pale Ale, 6%)

Smash Bomb Atomic pours a deep amber and has a juicy tangerine and pine aroma. Tastes are pine, sweet grapefruit and mango and this is followed by the 70 IBU resinous bitter finish. A well balanced and drinkable IPA.

Next up were beers from Double Trouble Brewing Co. who use the Wellington County Brewery in Guelph and Great Lakes Brewing, Etobicoke, which was a township that was amalgamated into the city of Toronto in 1998.

Double Trouble Hops and Robbers IPA

(India Pale Ale, 5.7%)

This beer pours a clear amber gold and the aroma is floral and biscuity. Flavours are lemon, faint grassy hops and toasted malt. Not the most assertive IPA by any stretch of the imagination but works as a pleasant English-style bitter.

Great Lakes Brewing Devil’s Pale Ale 666

(American Pale Ale, 6.6%)

Brewed for 66.6 minutes with 666kg of a selection of 6 malts, 6.6kg of hops and weighing in at 6.6% alcohol. Clearly a theme going on here... Devil's Pale Ale poured a copper colour and has an aroma of nuts, fudge and citrus. Flavour is of earthy hops, roasted barley, pear and a little vanilla. Smooth and refreshing.

The 6^th beer of the day came from Railway City Brewing Company which is situated in the city of St. Thomas. This place is famous for crashing a steam locomotive into a rather large elephant called Jumbo... and thus leads us to the name of the next brew.

Railway City Dead Elephant Ale

(India Pale Ale, 6.8%)

With an orange amber colour this expired elephant has a lemon, leafy hop and caramel malt aroma. Flavours are earthy and of herbal hops with a caramel sweetness. Dry on the finish. Not quite a true IPA but a good English-style strong bitter.

Our two final beers come from Muskoka Brewery, which is based in Bracebridge. This town was built around a waterfall on the Muskoka River which provided the early townsfolk with power for the settlement's first factory.

Muskoka Mad Tom IPA

(India Pale Ale, 6.4%)

This beer pours golden and has a nose of pine, citrus and pepper. Taste comprises of lemon and pine resins balanced with toffee, dry hops and a touch of spice. Decent bitter finish but not overpowering. A refreshing and “sessionable” IPA.

Muskoka Twice As Mad Tom IPA

(Double IPA, 8.4%)

This souped-up version of Mad Tom pours deep golden and has aromas of mango, grapefruit and pine needles. Taste is an up front burst of pine resin and ripe grapefruit followed by honey and biscuit notes, its warming alcohol strength pulls it smoothly over the finish line.

That's it! A little look at eight Ontarian beers. A big thank you to Andy who did an excellent job of picking them out at the Liquor Control Board, and using up his luggage space! What of Ontario's offerings? Some well-made, tasty beers all round. My favourite will have to be the Twice As Mad Tom which is, for me, the boldest venture of the lot. A big juicy IPA with enough hops to keep the Humulus lupulus addict in me interested.

Roberto’s 40 Epic Rules of Drinking

1) Drinking when you're not thirsty is one of the few things that separates man from beasts.

2) Just think, if you drink enough now to get a hangover, you'll have plenty of drinking time tomorrow on your day off!

3) It is morally reprehensible to be on a train for longer than an hour without drinking.

4) People with hobbies aren’t drinking enough.

5) If you don’t drink, then all of your stories are frightfully dull and end with: "and then I got home."

6) If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she refuses, she does not like you.

7) If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she accepts, she still might not like you.

8) If she buys you a drink, she likes you.

9) In return however, you don’t have to remember her name, just remember what she likes to drink…

10) Some people will worry about their drinking, but look what it does for their social skills!

11) For every drink you have, you're fighting terrorism.

12) Always finish your drinks! Think of all the sober people in the world.

13) Apologising is fine, even to people you don’t remember meeting, for things you don’t remember doing, in places you don’t remember going.

14) A problem drinker is someone who doesn’t buy rounds.

15) That nagging feeling of missing something when leaving the house is owed to forgetting to put your bottle opener in your pocket.

16) Drinking never affects anyone's job. Some people just need a drink to get motivated for work in the first place.

17) Never turn down a free drink.

18) There’s nothing wrong with drinking alone.

19) If your bed looks very much like a park bench and your bedroom looks very much like a park then “staying out last night” literally meant it.

20) The glass isn’t half empty or half full. It just needs topping up.

21) Most people will sadly never experience just how pleasurable work can be when you take your best friend Mr Drink along with you.

22) “Taking the edge off” usually means waking up in the garden.

23) If you think you might be slurring a little, then you are slurring a lot. If you think you are slurring a lot, then you are not speaking English.

24) One of the saddest sounds you'll ever hear is ice rattling round an empty glass.

25) At least turning up to court will allow you to find out what happened.

26) Gin Rummy isn’t as fun as it sounds.

27) Always stick around for one more drink. That's when it all happens.

28) Always get up at the crack of ice.

29) Don’t take hot showers, the ice in your glass melts too quickly.

30) Being drunk is feeling sophisticated without being able to say it.

31) Anyone with three or more drinks in their hands has the right of way.

32) There's a jar in the best pubs, a huge jar containing funny oval shapes in a murky fluid. Be brave, pickled eggs are a rite of manhood.

33) You'll never waste a single penny on champagne, because champagne is never a waste of money.

34) Never EVER trust anyone who doesn’t drink, and never trust anyone who drinks but never gets drunk, they’re the ones with something to hide.

35) When on a night out be careful who you talk to, I once woke up with a new job.

36) Invent a kids’ TV program drinking game – the extra time you spend with them will go down a treat.

37) Learning other languages is important, concentrate on useful phrases such as: “Excuse me sir/madam which way to the nearest pub?” and “Good morning… err… lovely, who are you again?”

38) Get shag carpets fitted in your abode, it’s so much easier to hang on to.

39) Drinks made at home should only come in two sizes: formidable and catastrophic.

40) Sometimes too much just isn't enough.