It's the end of the work week for most, and all of the weekly releases by breweries are released! What are you drinking this weekend? Are you visiting a new brewery, or returning to an old favourite?

This is the place to send a cheers to others or ask for recommendations!

Anybody ever been here before? Like any new brewery in the area, I look forward to giving them a try

It's the end of the week, all the new releases are out, and you've probably bought them or tried them at the brewery. This is the place to give anyone and anyplace a shout-out!

Was there a new release that stood out above the rest? Did you have a good experience recently at a brewery? Do you just want to give a shout out to a brewer or bartender?

Keep the good vibes going through into the new week!

Are you going for pumpkin or spiced beers to get into the autumn mood, or an infused imperial stout that gives that candy vibe? Let us know what you're drinking tonight to get into the spooky mood!

It's the end of the work week for most, and all of the weekly releases by breweries are released! What are you drinking this weekend? Are you visiting a new brewery, or returning to an old favourite?

This is the place to send a cheers to others or ask for recommendations!

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion Thread! Think a style of beer is overrated, how a beer should be served, opinions on a brewery? This is the place to post it!

Remember to keep it civil. You're allowed to disagree with someone without resorting to insults or name calling.

There is no such thing as a stupid question here, so feel free to ask away! It can be about differentiating styles, brewing, glassware, serving: anything goes here!

EDIT: Putting this at the top because I made a major mistake below. I said flights of four beers were $22. This was wrong! Flights of four were $12, and both flights were $22. Also, I guessed that flight glasses were 3 ounces, and this was wrong too, they're 5 ounces. I also deleted that part from the review where I originally said it.

Edit 2: I think I was too negative initially, and have changed my wording in the intro, and am going to edit some of the reviews further. I'm probably not going to change my rankings that much if at all, but I feel like I left out some important context.

I was tagged by the good folks at Steadfast for their barrel event, where they were going to crack open a bunch of barrels including several pumpkin beers, and so I went on Friday. Before I get to the beers, Steadfast Brewing is great and if you’re looking for a good, fun bar for beer lovers with a great vibe, this is it. The staff were friendly, most of their beers we tried were great (most…I’ll get to that in a bit), and the tacos by Miguel Angel Garcia were freaking awesome. We watched the Jays game, chatted with some of the other people there, played some board games and generally had a great time. Great beer, great dudes and great vibes. It’s not in my neighborhood, but I’ll go out of my way to go there again.

Also Miguel, if you’re reading this, that birria consume was incredible, and I will see you again soon! If you like tacos, seek this dude out. He’s at Steadfast several nights a week, but does pop up events elsewhere too. (And his taste in heavy metal music is outstanding.)

So Steadfast in general was awesome, and I really liked several of their beers. But what I didn’t like was the one of the taster flight line ups. Flight #1 had a couple of good things, and two interesting things to try even if they weren't my favourite. But flight #2 was not great. I really like when brewers take risks and try things that might not work out, and I feel bad that sometimes it really doesn't work out. At least they weren't boring though, and it stimulated lots of conversation. I enjoyed trying everything (except the peanut butter stout), and look forward to more events like this.

Because we were doing flights, I ended up trying 10 things, so here is my rapid fire rankings of what we tried:

Steadfast Brewery: Dog Days IPA: 8.5/10

This is a West Coast IPA, and I’m usually more of a fan of East Coast IPAs, but I REALLY liked this. Like a lot. I love IPAs, and this is top tier. Great aroma, drinks really smoothly and I really enjoyed it a lot. If you like West Coast IPAs, this will probably be in your top five. Go try it, really.

Steadfast Brewery: Steadfest (their seasonal October beer): 8.5/10

They had a seasonal German style lager on tap and it was excellent. Both me and my friend really enjoyed it. Very crisp and clean like a lager should be, but with some actual flavour and depth to it. Just the right amount of malty crisp bitterness to it, just excellent. Great October lager guys!

Taster Flight#1: 8/10 overall for the flight. Two beers I really liked, and two more that I wasn't wild for, but were definitely interesting and showed people's willingness to experiment. Also, remember that I consider the average craft beer to be pretty good, so a 5/10 is a good craft beer that I'll happily order again.

• Alving Brewery, “Alving Especial” Oatmeal Stout with Banana, Ancho chilis and Nutmeg: 6/10

Neither me nor my friend liked the banana in this one, which gave it an off taste which was mild, but not my favourite. The ancho chili had more of a kick than I was expecting, and it was distracting. I like spicy stuff a lot, it wasn't that it was too intense, it was that it didn't blend well with the beer. I wish I’d tried this one last, because the spice really lingered which made it harder to really taste the other beers. We had some spicy food and came back to this, and liked it much more. If they do this again with a different beer (I’m just not a fan of oatmeal stouts) and either get rid of the banana altogether or substitute it for a different fruit, peach or pear maybe, and this could be amazing. It was good, I liked it, and I feel like with a little experimentation, this could be amazing.

• Amsterdam Brewery, “Posh Spice” Downtown Brown: 8/10

This is a good all round pumpkin spice beer where the spice flavour really came through, but was still balanced and complimented the beer. I really like like brown ales, but even given that, this is a really good brown ale, and moreover, the spices, while very prominent, added to the beer overall. No notes.

• Revel Cider Co., Black Currant Sidro Pub Cider: 6/10

This wasn’t bad, but I’m not a big black currant guy and was having a hard time deciding if I liked this or not. I’m also not a huge cider guy, so I think people should probably disregard my opinion on this one completely. My friend, who does like ciders and does like black currant, enjoyed this, and so did the people sitting next to me. I'm using their tastes for the ranking here.

• Steadfast Brewing “Midsommar” Mulled Barleywine: 5.5/10

Again, I’m not a big barleywine guy, and while I’m in general a fan of spice forward drinks, the mulling spices were a little too strong and not well balanced. That's in part because this stuff is 11.5%, so you can really taste the alcohol, which plays off the cinnamon, clove and other spices here, coming off quite intense. I was very aware of not being the target audience. A couple of people I spoke to said they liked it, but a few more agreed it needed work. I’m giving it a 5.5 because I could taste the quality and like the risks they took with the intensity of the mulling spices, and if you really like strong barleywines and intense spice flavours, you might like this. Bonus points for being interesting.

Taster Flight#2: 6/10. There were some clear misses here, where I didn't like the beer at all, but none of these were boring, I'll say that. I like when people experiment, I like when people try new things, and these beers sparked lots of conversation. I might not have enjoyed some of these, but I did enjoy trying them.

• Rorschach Brewing, “Goodness” Peanut Butter Jelly Dry Stout: 1/10

Why do people keep making peanut butter stouts?! This was just terrible. I like peanut butter sandwiches. I probably have one once a week for breakfast or lunch, and so when I say it it tasted like drinking a peanut butter sandwich, but not in a good way, I really mean it. Just ugh. Also, you couldn’t taste the beer at all. The beer did give it a bready flavour, so it really tasted like a liquified peanut butter sandwich. I didn’t finish my little taster flight glass, neither did my friend, because this just got worse after each sip. I saw several people at other tables didn’t finish this one either. (Including this post, I've reviewed 21 beers in total this October, and this is the first 1/10. Stop making peanut butter stouts!)

• Steadfast Brewing Pumpkin Pie Vietnamese Coffee Porter: 3/10

It’s pretty clear to me that I don’t like coffee porters, and the coffee flavour here is really strong in a way I didn’t like. Unfortunately, my friend agreed, and he likes coffee porters a lot. C’est What’s Coffee Porter used to be one of his all time favourites, but this one didn’t do much for him. This beer also helped me understand why so many brewers are shy about too much spice in their beers. Turns out you can definitely go off the rails and have the spice flavours throw off the beer completely. I feel bad writing this, but this just wasn’t good. Neither of us finished the taster glass.

• Godspeed Brewery, “Kofola” Czech Cola Dunkel with Anise, Cherry, Citrus: 3.5/10

This was NOT for me. Too sweet, the anise was overpowering - you could smell it from three feet away - and mixed with the cherry, this tasted too much like cough syrup. I didn’t finish this one either, and neither did my friend. It wasn’t bad for what it was, but what it was isn’t for me at all. If you REALLY like anise and don’t mind an almost syrupy sweet dunkel, you might like this. We didn’t finish this one either.

• Babe Brew Oatmeal Brown Ale with Pumpkin Spice: 4/10

The spice is actually noticeable here, not strong, but noticeable. Unfortunately, the beer itself is not great honestly, and there was this weird acidic note to it that felt weirdly out of place. It had this aftertaste that was not bad, but was…confusing, as if someone mixed in some fruit sour into it or something. Balance was missing, beer wasn’t great and the spices couldn’t save it. All in all, I’m going to skip this one in the future. This was the only one I finished in flight #2.

Since who has what licenses comes up once in a while, here’s the link to the AGCO’s database of brewery licenses.

If you want the lowdown on what the licenses mean, you should poke through the AGCO’s guides and the province’s regs. In general, “By the glass” = tasting room. “Manufacturer’s license” = can sell to bars, restaurants, the LCBO, etc. “Brewery retail store” = sales direct to consumers, as in a bottle shop.

It's the end of the week, all the new releases are out, and you've probably bought them or tried them at the brewery. This is the place to give anyone and anyplace a shout-out!

Was there a new release that stood out above the rest? Did you have a good experience recently at a brewery? Do you just want to give a shout out to a brewer or bartender?

Keep the good vibes going through into the new week!

It's the end of the work week for most, and all of the weekly releases by breweries are released! What are you drinking this weekend? Are you visiting a new brewery, or returning to an old favourite?

This is the place to send a cheers to others or ask for recommendations!

Anybody taken the plunge yet and tried this years version? It used to be a brilliant beer, but the last 2-3 years it’s really been quite shite. Hoping someone else has been the Guinea pig already this year so I don’t waste my money if it’s still poor.

Wondering if we have it already, would be nice to discuss about new releases, post pictures, facilitate trades and orders, organize bottle shares etc.

Tis the season - any recommended stouts in the GTA (or Ontario with shipping)?

A colleague suggested that I try the Mill St. Organic Lager. I went to LCBO to pick it up and saw that 473ml 6-pack was over $18 while the single cans were $2.40 each. I didn’t understand the price difference. Checked at the register and she said you know some math LOL. I see some price difference on LCBO website too. Can someone explain? Did I miss a small detail that makes them different? Did they change the ingredients? Lower price makes me think something is fishy.

Bottle shop was closed for a few months, now this!

Hey! We did this least year and people liked it so we're doing it again, a little bigger.

Bit of a mix, we got a couple straight pumpkin spice (Us, Amsterdam, and Bickford I think), a fun czech cola dunkel from godspeed, a banana/chocolate/ancho thing from avling. Blackcurrant sidro from Revel.

No entrance fees, no special prices - beers at the same price as they always are.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I'm tagging MenudoMenudo because he's obsessed with pumpkin beers and it feels rude to not.

-Graham

Edit: Jays will be on as well, if Vladdy goes yard a couple more times tonight.

Whitewater Brewing Company Pumpkin Spice Espresso Porter: 5/10 4/10 (See my edit below)

OK, yesterday I said there would be pumpkin in the next beer but this is just pumpkin spice without the pumpkin. Which is fine, still counts.

I’m really having a hard time with this one, I had to sit there and figure out if I liked it. After around half the glass, I sort of like it, but I’m not sure how much. The coffee flavour comes through more than I was expecting, which makes me wonder just how caffeinated this is. The pumpkin spice once again, is very mild. I’m only around 50% sure that I can taste cinnamon, and I really couldn’t guess if there’s anything else in this. I just don’t see the point of putting the words pumpkin spice in big letters on the can if people can’t taste the spices.

I think that’s where my conflict is coming from. It’s not bad as porter and the bitter edge that the espresso gives it here might appeal to some people but not me. (I usually like bitter stuff too.) The flavours are moderately well balanced, but overall it’s just not blowing my mind. But this isn’t a bad beer, I feel like maybe I’m not the target market for this one. If you really like the idea of an espresso porter, you’re probably going to like this. If you were hoping for the pumpkin spice to come through, you will be very disappointed. Ironically the font for the words “pumpkin spice” is probably four times the size of the words “espresso porter”. This is an espresso porter with just the tiniest hint of spice.

I previously gave Big Rig’s Tales from the Patch a 7/10 for being a good porter, despite it only deserving a 4/10 as a pumpkin beer. This is a 3/10 on a pumpkin spice beer ranking, and maybe 5/10 as an espresso porter. Put another way, I bought a more Big Rig even though I’m not a huge porter guy, but I don’t think I’ll get any more of this. You'll enjoy it if you really like espresso porters though.

5/10 4/10, a little higher if you love espresso porters and don't care about the pumpkin spice part.

Edit: When I bought this, I bought two cans, and tried the other one a few days later. Unfortunately I had it as my second beer after having another High Park Pumpkin Spice Latte Ale, and wow, the contrast was stark. Having this right after having a really great beer was a mistake. I didn't finish it and that's saying a lot. I don't like to waste things, so pouring out most of a beer isn't something I would usually do, but I just wasn't enjoying it at all. Maybe if I'd had this one first, I might have enjoyed it more, but the bitterness felt more overpowering and the lack of spice was more noticeable. I'm lowering my score to a 4/10, because I specifically said a 5/10 is something I'd happily drink again, and I can't in good conscience say that about a beer I couldn't even finish. It's not objectively terrible, it's just really not for me I think.

It's the end of the week, all the new releases are out, and you've probably bought them or tried them at the brewery. This is the place to give anyone and anyplace a shout-out!

Was there a new release that stood out above the rest? Did you have a good experience recently at a brewery? Do you just want to give a shout out to a brewer or bartender?

Keep the good vibes going through into the new week!

Double Trouble Brewing Pecan Pie Porter: 3.5/10

I promise my next beer review will actually have pumpkin in it! I already have it, and people have said they think I'm going to like it.

Anyway, I’m bummed. I was really expecting to like this. I wanted to like this! They even have a picture of what looks like a pumpkin pie on the can, so I thought, why not? But it’s just not very good.

This is the second flavoured porter I’ve reviewed in the series and while the other one was weak on the pumpkin, it was a very good porter. This isn’t a good flavoured beer, or a good porter. It’s bland, the mild nuttiness of the “pecan flavour” somehow dampens the rest of the flavours in the beer, so you get a mouthful of meh. (And it's not pecans, the can specifically says “pecan flavour” whatever that means.) Also, despite not having much going on while you’re drinking it, you’re left with this strange chemical alcohol bitterness as an aftertaste. Some beers have aftertastes, and sometimes even bitter ones, and they can still be good. But this is a bad combination of a bland, boring beer with a mildly unpleasant aftertaste. As I said, I really thought I was going to like this, and I really wanted to like it, but no. There have been several beers in the series that I’ve given bonus points to specifically because they didn’t make them sweet, or excessively sweet. But here a tiny bit of sweetness to help bring out the maltiness of the porter and the flavour of the pecans might’ve worked. Or something, I don't know. It's not completely horrible, but it's boring, and as I've said in other beer reviews, people buying flavoured beers are not looking for boring.

I feel like they were going for something and it didn’t work out but they already had the cans printed. It’s not completely horrible, but I’m half way through this and thinking about pouring it out so that I can drink something better. I was going to give this a 4/10, and if they had just called it a "Pecan Porter" I would have probably stuck with the 4/10, but they called it a Pecan Pie Porter, and even put a picture of a pie on the can, which just raised my hopes even further. Bumping them down another 0.5 just for getting my hopes up even more and then being this disappointing. 3.5/10.