Beering in Ontario: Yonge Street

To continue on with my adventures in Ontario, I wake up after my nap to see it's already dark. I'm a little sick from overdoing it at BeerBistro, but who knows when I'll be back in Toronto. And there's at least two more beer spots I wanted to hit.

So I walk the lovely streets of downtown Toronto and make it to Yonge Street. On the map it looked like just another street, but in real life it's somewhere between Time Square in New York and International Blvd in Orlando with a nice dose of the Rue Royale in Paris. I couldn't believe the crush of people out partying it up. Very multicultural and very jovial. Lot's of hot Indian women, go figure. So what better to do than try some local craft beer smackdab on Yonge, and Les 3 Brasseurs (The 3 Brewers) certainly provided.

3 Brewers is a brewpub with probably the best location on the planet for a brewpub. Right on Yonge street smackdab in the thick of things. This place was packed, but I was able to get a table with big open patios to the street. Lots of dark red and whatnot, and a pretty nice placemat that goes over the process for brewing beer. Very nicely done. Doesn't hurt that they have Glam Rock on the TV. Looking forward to trying their beers along with some fries.

State: Still feeling the effects of overduing it at the BeerBistro and it's cold in July for me.
Beer Log: July 13th-ish, 2009

Blonde Ale
Slight sour nose like a belg. Clear straw color. On the first few sips, I get a medium body, banana, then notice a pleasant sourness, perhaps from some bret. 3 Stars.

Wheat Ale
Cloudy color that's a dark straw. Same nose as the blond ale. Nice orange and ester flaovor. Soft medium body and ever so slight bitter aftertaste. 3 Stars. Both this and the blonde ale tasted kinda like my yeast cake when I homebrew.

Red Ale
Dark bronze color. Bitter taste, but pretty plain otherwise. I get a light toast and cinnamon on the next few sips. Aftertaste is still bitter. Medium carbonation. 2 Stars.

Dark Ale
Black color, low offwhite head. Chocolate taste with bitter coffee making a cameo. Moderate carbonation and good drinkability. 3 Stars.

Afterward, I dragged-ass over to Volo, the beer version of an eclectic coffee house. Cool house music and the waitress really knew her beer. I originally wanted to run into another Toronto beer blogger, but he had to do some stuff for his planned wedding, poor bastard. Damn he spends waaaaaaay more time on his blog than I do. Anyway, I only had enough points to get one flight of beers from Ontario. Don't worry, I walked everywhere I went, including back at the hotel.

Publican House Ale (Petersburg, ON)
Lighter/blonde ale flaovr. Kinda toasty/hop going on. Malt doesn't quite make it out of this beer. Moderate body and dry. Low-medium carbonation. High 2 Stars.

Corporal Punishment (Scotch Irish Brewing Company from Ottawa, Ontario)
Surprisingly strong chocolate/roast nose on an amber colored beer. First taste: you don't get much up at the front of the tongue, but plenty of chocolate in the back and aftertaste. Hop bitterness coming out in the aftertaste after a few more sips. Not sure what they're trying to do here with that combo of color and taste, but I wouldn't call it punishingly bitter. 3 Stars.

Quad
Dark copper color with a estery and apple smell. Matly sweet and smooth. Great flavor Complex sweetness and probably some sugar. High 3 Star. Maybe someone can help me find the link for this brewery, all I have written down is "Quad". Holla.

Beerbrotha Sports Review: Bad Weekend to Stop Drinking

So I've decided to put beer and wine and whatnot on hold for a while until this cough is cleared up. It's sad because we even had a nice visit to Yardhouse in the CityCentre area and I could barely make it through half a glass of Chardon before I'm coughing up my kidneys. I got myself checked out and it's not Swine Flu or strep. My doctor thinks it's an allergy of some kind why I haven't been able to kick this cough.

So I've been drinking something called "fre" this alcohol free wine. I bought the "Merlot" and the "Chardonnay". The Merlot was basically bitter grape juice without the alcohol kick to make it worth it. It's like you expected it, and it didn't come through. How about a formal review of the "Chardonnay"

Beer Log: Right now

State: Ticked off with my football teams.

fre

It's spelled lowercase so it looks hip and trendy. Nose is like white grape juice and so is the color. Tastes rather fruity, like raspberry and grapes.

TOUCHDOWN JACKETS!!!!!!! GEORGIA TECH ON THE BIG RUN TO OPEN THE SECOND HALF.

Well I feel better now. This stuff ain't half bad. No legs obviously b/c of no alcohol, but it's just some overpriced grape juice that's not as sweet. Even has a pinch of carbonation.

Moving on...

So with the sports review, FAMU was not in action as we missed the D1 FCS playoffs, so our conference's hopes lied with South Carolina State, the team that beat FAMU a few weeks ago and basically ran away with the MEAC title. SCSU got the screw job and although they were undefeated in D1 FCS play (granted it was all Negro League teams), they had to go to Appalachian State. Again, I could give two craps about SCSU, but in this case we needed them to win this game, big time. Reason being, our conference commissioner is a strong advocate for reinstating segregation, and forcing the MEAC champion to forgo the playoffs to play the SWAC Champion for the Aunt Bessie May's Chitlins and Watermelon Black College Championship game. In case you haven't figured it out, I went FAMU, a Historically Black College, and am a huge supporter of HBCUs.

As you can guess I'm a booster at FAMU and have strongly believed that all Historically Black Colleges...

DAMMIT UGA GOT A BIG RUN RIGHT BACK, TOUCHDOWN FOR JIM CROW U err UGA.

You gotta wonder what the 12 black students that attended UGA (including my wife) think about UGA's slave owner diddies that is their fight song and whatnot. But I digress.

...all HBCU's should strive to be the best in all categories against all comers. That includes sports. If you play the sport, you should try to be the best in your Division. Our leaving the playoffs because our conference hasn't won a first round game in 10 years is not a good reason to just up and quit for what we already know is a poorly attended Black National Championship game. Focus on building up our programs to be National powers, don't take a step back.

Well GA Tech (my grad school) is down by 14 right now although we're the highest ranked 1 loss team in the country. We just gotta get by Univ of Georgia. Damn I hate the Dawgs. We're still smarting over the Texans blowing it against the Titans. We've got the Colts tomorrow and hopefully we can turn things around against them.

And I'm just getting plain ti'ied of of this Tim Tebow talk. Seems like a nice guy, maybe a little effeminate, but my irritation comes from the foolishness from the media. What is it about him and Brett Favre that makes grown men...

TOUCHDOWN JACKETS! GET SOME BABY! WE AIN'T GIVING UP!

Alright enough of this. I plan on getting back on the sauce some time around Christmas. So I'll just be emptying out the old notebook and getting ready for travel to the Maryland and New York during the holidays. I plan on hitting up Lafayette right on the New Year, so hopefully I can hit Zea again. They had a great amber lager and some nice bread pudding.

UFC 106 Beering: Athens vs. SoCal

I'm here watching the Paulo Thiago fight getting ready for the co-main events. I'm actually more fired up for the Johnson v Koscheck fight. Both fighters are black I guess, so when situations like that occur, you pull for the darker skinned one, so go Johnson. Anyway, as is my little tradition when I watch UFC's at home, I try to find some beer from the areas of the main event fighters. The best one was when I had BJ Penn (Kona) and Georges St-Pierre (Unibrou). This tradition would be great if only we could get some fighters NOT from Brazil. How much Xingu can a brotha drink?

Tito Ortiz is from Huntington Beach in Southern California. Seeing as how they probably just drink Jamba Juice in Huntington Beach, I'm going with some Stone from San Diego. Griffin is from Athens, GA, so that's Terrapin all day long. Both beers are one-time releases, so it's all even to me.

Stone 13th Anniversary
Hell of a beer baby. The bottle says we should drink this in 2009, and we are coming on the end of the year, soon. The gargoyle on the bottle is holding up a beer mug, so that's what I'll drink this one out of. My North Carolina Tarheels 2008 NCAA Basketball champions beer mug to be exact. Pours deep dark ruby colored with lacy frothy head. Smell is just like Mrs. Buttersworth without the butter. Oh yes, a richly malty beer with a strong citrusy hops to cut. Low carbonation yet not cloying. Very very smooth as well. Hmm, only 9.5% ABV... I would have guessed they would have purposefully made it 13%. Amazing amazing beer. Probably should be in a snifter, but whatever. I can see I'll need to knock back this whole 22 ouncer. I just love how drinkable this beer is. So good I may even take the the time to read all that text on the bottle. 4 out of 5 Stars.

Aw snap man, here comes Anthony Rumble Johnson. This one is gonna be "the ballz". And now Kos is coming out to Stevie Wonder.

Terrapin Side Project Volume 6 90 Shelling Scotch Ale
Try saying that three times fast. This one is straight out of Athens, GA. Home of the Georgia Dawgs, and Forrest Griffin. I poured this black colored low head beer in my snifter. Nose is strong malt, cinnamon, and some cherry liquor. Taste, is none of that, just plain. I think the Stone blew my taste buds. Kinda sucks as this Scotch ale is a one time release we bought over the summer in Atlanta. The taste is malty and spicy. It has a great smoothness with a touch of dryness. 3 Stars.

Dammit man Johnson kneed Kos while he was down. I'm hoping Kos is good to go. If not, we'll have to do it again. Now in the second round Kos is poking in the eye. This fight is jacked up. Dammit, Josh Eyepoker Koscheck got the submission. Dammit all. Rumble will be back.

Well the wife hates the Stone as she hates all the hop bombs. She did like the Terrapin. I'll need to find the cork so I can put that in the fridge for her. Ok here comes Tito, the clear winner of the beer challenge with the Stone. Although it looks like Forrest is going to win on the cards. Oh well. It think the 45 bucks I laid down for this one would have been cheaper than going to a bar, ordering food, beer, and probably the DUI ticket thanks to all the beer I had watching the FAMU game.

Celebrating FLA Classic

The DTSA has only one team playing in college, FAMU in the Florida Classic. Right now it is early 4th quarter and we are whoopin up on Bethune-Cookman 35 to nil. I've been drinking Bavaria out of the green bottle all day since FAMU's colors are orange and green.





Beer Log: Watching the game at the house, wish I was in Orlando


State: Enjoying FAMU beating up on BCU





Bavaria
Poured out of the green bottle into my tall pilsner glass. Clear beer with a slightly cooked straw color. Fizzy white head without much of a lasting power. Beer-veggie smell. Mod body with nice balance of hops and hints of bread. Not bad man. I would say the body is just under medium like they put some wheat in the grain bill. High carbo. Low 3 Stars. Rather enjoyable and very Heineken-like.

I guess I've got a new love for Dutch lagers after coming back from Amsterdam, where I was drinking that stuff like water.



To further celebrate, I break out the champagne flute and the Dogfish.

Dogfish Festina Peche
The nose is pretty nonexistent, but the taste is uber-sour. Made me nearly double-over the first sips. I'm not getting much peche in this amber colored beer. As I drink it up, it gets a little better, less harsh, less bitter. I'm actually getting the bread and malt. The sourness is still pretty strong, but not as shocking. No rating yet, but I am acquiring the taste.

New Moon was So Bad and Girly

I had to grab a Dogfish Palo Santo Marron. Just a terrible movie. If I were a less honorable man, I would slam this 12% ABV beer, get in my convertible, put the top down in 55 deg weather, light a cigar, turn on some DJ Screw, drive to 6000 block of Richmond, beat up a guy at Scott Gernters, grab a woman at Onyx, and probably get arrested before I could do anything too stupid. Yes the movie was THAT FEMININE.

Beerbrotha Movie Review: New Moon = FAIL

So the wife just came back from a trip to the Motherland on business. It's Date Night so we debate between the Saint Arnold Pub Crawl, and checking out a movie at Alamo Drafthouse. We're both a little tired, so Alamo it is. At first we were set to see the new Christmas Carol CGI movie and I get in my head that that movie New Moon will probably be pretty good.

Like Pokemon and The Chappelle Show, I came on this whole Twilight series very late, and just like those other two things, I figure that since it's amazingly popular it's worth a try. I was even thinking I could be drinking Blue Moon at New Moon. Get it? Not to mention the trailer had all kinds of special effects and vampire/werewolf whoop-ass. I'm thinking this will just be Underworld for a less goth crowd. And it had enough young hot half-naked men that I figured the wife may just get a fired up and we can come home and make sweet sweet love. Instead the wife is upstairs stone asleep, and I'm downstairs watching Strikeforce and drinking a bomber of Ruination straight out the bottle like a homeless man.

Well I should have skipped the beer and went straight to Everclear and Cocaine, because this was the WORST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN. I guess I should have noticed something was up, when my beloved "21 and up" Alamo Theatre was chock-full of 10-14 year old girls. I think I was the only son of a bitch in the whole theatre that ordered a beer. Those girls were hooting and hollering like we do at the strip club. That's not cool. Is nothing sacred?

And let's be clear, I'm not going to out-and-out dismiss a teeny-bopper chick flick b/c I'm a 29 year old 6' 2" 210 lb black man that loves watching random violence. Bring It On wasn't that bad. It had conflict-resolution, and kinda cute. I'm all over the Harry Potter. Hell, I like Grey's Anatomy (Izzy could get it).

It took all of 1 hour before there was any action at all in New Moon, and that was with the black Jamaican vampire with dreds getting jacked up by the werewolves. There was all of 15 minutes of action in a 2 hour movie. I had to sit there watching this flat-chested brooding-ass Wednesday Adam chick spending 80% of the movie crying over Cedric Diggery leaving her, or the Native American dude leaving her. It wasn't even a good love story. No flow to anything. No rhyme or reason. Just 90210 for douchebags. And what the hell was up with this Italy crap near the end? And what the hell happened to the smoking hot redhead vampire the werewolves were chasing? Can we learn more about her? What were her feelings, her needs? How could I help?

I was able to try the very nice Beck's Oktoberfest and the New Belgium 2 Deg Below. Both were fine. But in reality, I needed something with a kick to it, like heroine. And to think, sooner or later I'm going to have to see The Birth of Nation Part 2, also known as Precious.

Sierra Nevada Celebration 2009 and MMA

Beer Log: Right now
State: Just put the baby in the crib, watching some Colbert to let the DVR of the World Extreme Cagefighting get recorded a little bit so I can fast forward the commercials.

This is what it's all about folks. I've got WEC live, I've got The Ultimate Fighter, I've got some Sierra Nevada seasonal beer, and the baby is asleep.

Sierra Nevada Celebration 2009
I sampled this and blogged about it almost exactly one year ago. I wasn't using the rating system, more trying to guess the hops in the beer. This movie Avatar looks like it will be badass. Anyway, I'm drinking this one in my snifter goblet. Orangish ruby color. Grassy, piney, citrusy hops nose coming off of a poofy white head. Oh snap, they got Leonard Garcia fighting Manny Gamburyan. Hell yeah. This beer is a strong hop Christmas bomb as only Sierra Nevada can make. Moderate to high carbonation to cut through the strong taste and facilitate a rather quick finish. The hops are rather grapefruity and grassy, probably Chinook again, mixed with some Cascade. Again, Sierra Nevada all day. Funny how the WEC has the most competitive fights as opposed to some of the more recent lumbering displays we've seen on the UFC. I am still a big fan of the balanced hop bombs and this one isn't it. I sense some caramel malt in there, but that's all I get, a sense. High 3 Star.

It's been a great year for me, and some great beering to go along with it. I just booked tickets to our annual trip up to the Maryland/DC area for the holidays. I'm considering making it back to Frederick, MD, which was the quaintest little town, and at Christmas time this place is right out of a movie. Not to mention a nice beer scene.

I'm going to attempt to train for the New Orleans half marathon on February 28. Should my knees and ankles hold up, I'll make plans for a marathon in Fall 2010. I've got my eye on Buenos Aires. Ratebeer.com shows that B-A has a great beer scene. Plus I want to have run three full marathons on three different continents. Let me know if you have any other suggestions for beering in South America...