Ontario Beer Perceptions

Interesting comment as I have just returned from a vacation in Scotland and found that to be a vast wasteland of bad beer. In fact, the only beer that I had that I truly enjoyed was at Brew Dog Glasgow. Other than that it seemed a waste of time drinking the beer.

I'm not sure that Ontario's craft beer is as far behind the rest of the world as you make it out. Maybe because of my location I have easy access to Great Lakes, Belllwoods and Amsterdam, that may taint my taste buds. With Great Lakes winning Canadian brewery of the year for two straight years and sweeping the medals for IPA's and Bellwoods getting international recognition seems to me I have some pretty good local brews to choose from. Amsterdam with their Tempest, Double Tempest and a raft of one offs are not too far behind.

That being said, most Ontario brewers year round beers are not up to standard so perhaps those are the ones that your thinking of as being miles behind the international beers. If that's the case, then not too much of an argument from me. It always seems to be the seasonal or one off beers that I look forward to.

 

I think access to craft beer is way behind, but don't find the quality that far behind personally. That said, the "Ontario beer is an embarrassment" crowd will be along shortly to tell you how right you are, so no, you're not the first to suggest it.

 

An embarrassment it is not.

Sure we have some/tons of distribution issues (Brewer's Retail/LCBO lab testing, etc) and laws (on site consumption specifically) that are slowing us down, but that shouldn't restrict the creativity of the brewing scene. Sometimes it seems like new and even established breweries are still trying to create that gateway beer that will bridge the gap between Keith's/Canadian/Other Crap and a solid IPA or what have you.

This is going on while those of us that have been in the craft game a while sit and watch and another brewery tries to steal the show with a blonde ale or a cream ale that isn't really all that up to snuff and we collectively yawn.

There are lot's of great beers brewed in Ontario, they just aren't available everywhere or distributed through the only channels available to us by law, so all those folks in Peterborough sure as shit ain't drinkin' Bellwoods anytime soon.

How we determine the 'international standard' is also quite confusing. Surely Ontario makes better beer than most of Southeast Asia. We're not Belgium or America or Denmark and I'm pretty sure we're fine with that.

 

We are not that bad. You really have to search the States over to find the wacked out alcohol stores that stock the world at your hand but be prepared to pay for that.

As a whole a good LCBO will easily be on par with a good selection store in the US. Even Consumer's Beverage in Buffalo has a "limited" stock compared to Summerhill LCBO.

The LCBO has come a long way in the last few years and if it continues in this direction we will all do well.

Please bear in mind that the headaches, hassles and BS involved in low volume importation of alcohol products to Canada is a real pain in the ass. The LCBO will bring in 2,000 cases of Goose Island Sophie in a flash before we ever see a good craft DIPA from the US.

 

I went the the WEST brewery in Glasgow down by People's Palace, was in a couple of the Wetherspoon bars who admittedly have a large selection of real ale on cask, but all of them seemed very much a like and couldn't tell them apart. Don't remember what other places I was in (other than Brew Dog).

Tried a bunch of bottled beer (Joker IPA ...label said "wildly hoppy" when it should have said "mildly hoppy") but nothing up to the standards I get here in Toronto.

 

To turn it around, what were you drinking during your recent visit?

 

definitely the year round releases from most of the larger micros are lacking in quality when you compare them to the year rounds in the states. one issue with that though is that a lot of the canadian micros don't have bottled on/canned on dates on their products so freshness with the ipas is a real problem when just grabbing something from the lcbo.

but as far as seasonals and one offs go, i think our breweries are doing very well and many of my american friends agree and are stoked whenever they get sent a bellwoods or nicklebrook seasonal. the top tier double ipas, ipas, and black ipas that are coming out on a regular basis from guys like nicklebrook, bellwoods, and great lakes are as good if not better than their counterparts in the states (e.g., victory's dirt wolf, stone's self-righteous, and firestones year round offerings). i just wish our guys would produce these year round because if i could get malevolent or the recent great lakes black ipa year round i would never buy the ones in the states again because they would always beat the yanks on freshness.

"As a whole a good LCBO will easily be on par with a good selection store in the US. Even Consumer's Beverage in Buffalo has a "limited" stock compared to Summerhill LCBO."

a "good" lcbo simply doesn't exist outside of maybe 8-10 stores in ontario and even those are at best equal to consumers (which isn't even that great itself due to hit or miss freshness). those "good" lcbos don't really help the average craft fan across ontario, though, because if you walk into the average "crafty" or "beer abassador" LCBO in a medium sized city and you are hard pressed to come out with a decent selection of styles. sure, they have a bunch of good ontario ipas IF they're fresh and whatever seasonal release they might order in, but good luck coming out with the haul i did yesterday (4 pack a barley wine, 4 pack of old ale, two different goses, two different 6 packs of double ipas, a 2 bourbon barrel aged belgian stouts) and that was from a store the size of the walk in coolers at the new lcbos (the village beer merchant). the fact that anytime of year i can go to consumers, premier, village, and even wegmans and walk out with porters, stouts, saisons, ipas, black ipas, doubles, belgian whatevers kills even then "good" lcbos.

 

agree 100%. just got back from premier this weekend, only spent about $100 and came back with a box full of goodness. nevermind the selection was better, but most everything i looked at was fresh. i came back with a couple bottles of stone's unapologetic ipa and it was bottled at the end of July. most things sit in the lcbo warehouse for weeks if not months before hitting the shelves.

screw the lcbo.

i rarely, rarely even go anymore. i'd rather drive all the way to Toronto and support amazing breweries like Bellwoods and Great Lakes who constantly churn out fantastic stuff, who as mentioned, rival even the best american breweries. now do i wish their stuff was available more often and i didn't have to drive as much? sure. but it's not from their lack of work, it's the lcbo's dictatorships strange hold over everything province-wide.

 

Well, whatever anyone thinks of Ontario's beer scene, I think we can all agree that the above is a pretty poor sampling of the offerings. Likely some of the most easily and widely available, but you're right, the quality of those brews is not great (though I quite like Mad Tom).

 

I have to agree with @CanuckRover here, you are missing out on *a lot* here. You didn't hit a single beer from Bellwoods, Sawdust City, Beyond the Pale or Great Lakes (Canada's top rated brewery ). Hell, I don't judge BC based on Okagagan Springs and Grandville Island. @Zimbo, I think you need to do another sampling (it's really win win in the end )!! Beers like Great Lakes Lake Effect, Thrust, Karma Citra; Bellwoods Witchshark, Farmageddon, Stay Classy, Lambda, Bounty Hunter (Bellwoods anything really!); Beyond the Pale Darkness, Imperial Super Guy; Beau's Bottle Imp; Collective Arts Rhyme and Reason will change your mind.

I will agree that Ontario may be behind the scene in the US, but then again, so is the majority of the rest of the world! But is that even a fair comparison; wouldn't it be more fair to compare to a single state. Personally, I think Ontario would clean up against North Dakota ! In the end, I am happy with the trajectory here and love all the new breweries that are popping up.

 

Yup. Herein is the reason for the perspective.

Like I said earlier, the LCBO selection isn't representative of the quality of Ontario micro-brewed beer.

Although I just had a blonde ale from a new brewery that was altogether pedestrian.

 

I've found that since I started drinking, the beer industry has made leaps and bounds. There's a new brewpub in my town, as well as a brewery that has recently opened up, and they're making some really great stuff, alongside bigger breweries becoming more available - Muskoka, and Great Lakes among others being more available in the LCBO as well as Mill St. being more commonly available in bars. At the end of the day, I'm going to enjoy my beer and keep homebrewing for the most part, and I've been on a bit of a break from beer, drinking more whiskey and mead, but I'll come back around eventually.

 

I just got back from Sauble Beach and found that to be pretty much a beer desert. Probably many places in the US are no better, but it seemed singularly bland there. When I bought imports like Old Speckled Hen and Wells IPA, they seemed also to be dumbed down and bland. Do they spend a long time in storage before they get to the stores?

 

Sometimes... though I've certainly never had a craving for an Old Speckled Hen or Wells IPA, fresh or not.

 

I imagine it's safe to assume that the Sauble Beach outlet doesn't move large volumes of British pale ales, so yes; there is a very good chance that the beers were fairly old. Especially if you bought them at The Beer Store, which does not seem to put ANY effort into keeping track of dates on their beers, at least in my experience. The rural outlets are terrible for this.

Shopping for 'good' beer in Ontario isn't really worth the effort unless you're going to be passing through a major city centre... and there aren't any of those in the Grey/Bruce county areas. Up north and in the smaller towns, the best you can hope for (assuming there are no local breweries) is maybe some Mill Street or Flying Monkeys sixers, along with common imports.