I'll be visiting London in a couple of weeks and am wondering what "must have" Canadian beers will be available for purchase (either in stores or in a pub) while I am there. I've read good things about Driftwood and Central City, but with them being produced in BC, do they make it this far east? Style isn't a big factor - I like all of them. However, do your IPAs have "bottled on" dating? I'm not a big fan of purchasing IPAs without a bottle date on them. Finally, have any of you had any difficulties traveling with beer when you cross the US/Canadian border?
The only offering from those breweries I can find in the LCBO database at the moment is Central City's Red Racer IPA, which is quite good when fresh and brought in fairly regularly. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any stock available in London at the moment. You should still be able to find a pretty good selection of Canadian craft beer, as well as some quality Euro imports at various LCBOs in the London area. The best ones are at Wellington/Bradley (not far from the highway), and the Masonville outlet in the North end. The Beer Store actually does carry a few decent craft beers and imports, but due to the layout of most of the stores it's not easy to check freshness dates while shopping. To paraphrase someone else's description, it's basically a Communist era throwback where you line up in a dirty building and pay for your beer ration while a comrade goes into the back room and gets it for you. There are a few 'self-serve' locations that are not quite this dumb, and if I'm not mistaken the TBS one block north of the Wellington/Bradley LCBO fits this description. Most Canadian breweries seem to stamp some sort of date on their beers. It might be a bottled on date, or a 'best before' date, or a code that typically isn't very difficult to decipher. But it'll be on there somewhere. I've never had problems at the border, but then again I just tell the customs agent how many bottles I got, instead of how much it cost me. Just don't flat-out lie. Keep your receipts handy, but most of the time they don't even bother looking at them after hearing 'a dozen bottles' or something similarly modest, at least in my experience. To be fair you'll be dealing with US border guards rather than the Canadian ones and I don't really know how close they check stuff on that end. Keep in mind I pretty much only use the Sarnia/Port Huron crossing and basically avoid the Windsor/Detroit one.
Best thing is go to www.lcbo.com and do a product search. You can filter by country, region and eventually pull up the London stores that will show stock. Nickel Brook Naughty Neighbour is good, although APA, label may have some novelty value for the folks back home: http://www.nickelbrook.com/our-beer/ Muskoka Detour is also a nice session IPA, LCBO stock seems to be fresher than The Beer Store's, BB date on neck, think I saw Sept 2014 today. http://www.muskokabrewery.com/detour.php
I'll be back in London on the 9th. Not sure if you'll be around then still. Shoot me a PM if you're up for an IP trade. Have a variety of things that you'd likely find interesting. I second the above post, definitely check out Milo's - by far best place for beer in city.
Wanted to check in to see if there were any new local recommendations since this post hasnt been updated in over a year. Also if anyone is interested in an IP trade, shoot me a message. Thanks!
I'm also heading out to London tomorrow morning. Kinda late notice but I have a bunch of KBS if anyone is interested in an IP trade. Shoot me a PM tonight.
Jumping on ops thread. I travel to London frequently and would love to do an ip with someone who has bellwoods special releases. Hit me up
