Canadian Beer News is a news blog dedicated exclusively to coverage of Canada’s beer industry. Presenting information with minimal editorializing, CBN features announcements of new beer releases, brewery openings and closures, news about festivals and events, and other information from breweries all across the country. [more]
TORONTO, ON – This past Saturday evening at beerbistro in Toronto, the winners of the 2010 Golden Tap Awards were announced, representing the best in beer and brewing in Ontario. This annual awards event is overseen and organized by Cass Enright, founder of The Bar Towel, a website and forum dedicated to covering and promoting the Ontario craft brewing scene.
The winners, as selected by online voting by the general beer-drinking public, were as follows:
Best Brewery for Cask-Conditioned Ale in Ontario (presented in partnership with CASK!) – Granite Brewery, Toronto
Best Bar for Draught Beer Selection in Ontario – C’est What, Toronto
Best Bar for Bottled Beer Selection in Ontario – Bar Volo, Toronto
Best Bar for Cask Ale in Ontario (presented in partnership with CASK!) – Bar Volo, Toronto
Best Brewpub or Tied House in Ontario – Granite Brewery, Toronto
Best Regularly-Produced Beer in Ontario – Beau’s Lug-Tread Lagered Ale, Vankleek Hill
Best Seasonal or Specialty Beer in Ontario – Black Oak Ten Bitter Years, Toronto
Best Cask Ale in Ontario (presented in partnership with CASK!) – Granite Hopping Mad, Toronto
Best Beer of the Festival (based on votes at the event) – Church Key Black IPA, Campbellford
Four Editor’s Circle awards were also handed out, recognizing significant achievements in the Ontario beer industry. The Editor’s Circle awards were determined by Enright and a panel of Bar Towel members and associates. They went to:
Set to take place September 20th to 26th, not many details have been announced yet, but organizers have issued a press release that describes it as follows:
Toronto Beer Week (TBW) is a collective series of events dedicated to the celebration and advancement of the craft beer movement. TBW will showcase authentically brewed and flavourful beer, the talented brewers who create them, and the licensees who proudly support them. It’s all about good beer – no bland, mega beer permitted!
The event will kick off the day after the Toronto International Film Festival comes to a close, and will feature dozens of events held at some of the city’s finest restaurants, bars and pubs.
TORONTO, ON – After a successful run last year, Amsterdam Brewing has brought back Oranje Weisse as their seasonal beer for summer 2010.
Despite the name suggesting it to be a German-style weissbier, Oranje Weisse is actually closer to the Belgian-style witbier, as it is an unfiltered wheat beer brewed using coriander and two types of orange peel.
According to Amsterdam brewmaster Jamie Minstry, “This year we modified the recipe a little bit by increasing the unmalted wheat content to aid with the natural haze and slightly increased the sweet and bitter orange peel to achieve our goal of heightening the citrus notes in the beer.”
Amsterdam Oranje Weisse is available now on tap at select bars and restaurants around Toronto, and in a limited run of 120 cases of 500 ml bottles available only at the brewery retail store.
TORONTO, ON – Voting has opened for the 2010 Golden Tap Awards, a publicly-voted awards event recognizing the best craft beer achievements in Ontario, with categories including:
Favourite craft brewery and brewery for cask-conditioned ales in Ontario
Favourite craft regularly-produced beer, cask-conditioned ale and seasonal or speciality beer in Ontario
Favourite craft beer bar, both for draught, bottled and cask-conditioned ale selection in Ontario
Favourite brewpub or tied house in Ontario
Voting will remain open until August 10th, and the winners will be announced at the Golden Tap Awards party on Saturday, August 21st at beerbistro in Toronto. The event will also feature an Ontario craft beer festival, and there will be a real-time Golden Tap Awards vote for the best beer available at the festival.
New this year will be a special Golden Tap Awards craft beer dinner on Friday, August 20th. This will be a seven-course dinner with exclusively Ontario craft brewers, including Beau’s, Black Oak, Denison’s, Grand River, Granite, Great Lakes and Mill Street. Each brewery will have one of their beers paired with a course created by Chef Brian Morin.
Votes can be placed now at www.goldentap.com, and more details about the dinner and awards festival will be announced there soon.
TORONTO, ON – Just in time for upcoming Canada Day celebrations, Great Lakes Brewery has released a new batch of their Canuck Pale Ale.
As with the original batch that was available during the Winter Olympics, the beer is “brewed with heaps of Cascade hops, and dry hopped for extra flavour and aroma.” What has changed, however, is the logo, which now features a baseball cap and loon replacing the toque and skis that appeared on the previous edition.
Canuck Pale Ale is available now for a limited time at the Great Lakes retail outlet and select LCBO locations.
TORONTO, ON – As part of the lead-up to Ontario Craft Beer Week, taking place throughout the province on June 20th to 26th, the Ontario Craft Brewers have just release a promotional video entitled “I Am An Ontario Craft Brewer”.
Influenced by the “I Am A Craft Brewer” short film produced by American craft brewers last year, and the BC-centric “I Am A Canadian Craft Brewer” video released to promote Vancouver Craft Beer Week in May, the video features clips of brewers and brewery owners from all over Ontario discussing their passion for beer, and why craft beer is better than mainstream products:
TORONTO, ON – Mill Street Brewery has released two previously draught-only beers, Schleimhammer Roggenbier and Betelgeuse Tripel, in bottles for a limited time.
Schleimhammer Roggenbier was first released as a seasonal beer last fall, and is a traditional German-style rye beer, a style rarely seen in North America. It has 5.3% abv, and is described as having “rich fruitiness and a clean, dry, quenching finish.”
Betelgeuse Tripel is a 9.1% golden Belgian-style ale, with “peach, pear, apple, citrus, clove and bubblegum notes, and starts out sweet but finishes quite dry.”
Both beers are available for single-bottle purchase in the retail outlet at the Mill Street Brewpub in Toronto, and also in select LCBO locations along with bottles of the recently released Mill Street Lemon Tea Beer (which is also available in cans and in a Mill Street sampler pack, as noted here previously).
Beau’s first became aware of CAFE last fall when they were invited to speak at the Ottawa chapter about their experience as a successful family-run business. They subsequently won the Ottawa chapter’s annual award in February, which in turn led to their nomination and win for the national award, which was announced and handed out an a ceremony in Regina on May 28th.
TORONTO, ON – Mill Street Brewery has introduced Lemon Tea Beer as their newest retail product, following on a test batch last year that was available only draught at the Mill Street Brewpuband several other select bars and restaurants in Toronto.
In a press release, the beer is described as follows:
This refreshing brew is made by adding several kilos of black tea to the cold-aging tank to infuse flavour. Lemon is added after filtration to give it a bright, citrusy flavour that begins subtly and grows with each sip. The finished beer is light amber in colour with a rocky white head and 5% alc./vol.
The new and more widely available version of Lemon Tea Beer is Mill Street’s first canned product, packaged in 473 ml cans that are currently available at the Mill Street Brewpub retail outlet, and will soon be available at LCBO outlets.
Lemon Tea Beer is also featured in the newest Mill Street Brewpub Sampler, a six-pack of bottles that also includes Mill Street Pilsner, Tankhouse Ale, Stock Ale, Organic Lager and Belgian Wit. The Sampler is available now at the LCBO.
BAYSVILLE, ON – As first reported last September, Lake of Bays Brewing opened in Muskoka on Victoria Day weekend, and launched their inaugural beer, Lake of Bays Pale Ale.
The brewery describes the beer as follows:
Our Pale Ale is light in colour, but don’t let that fool you — this beer has flavour enough to satisfy even the most demanding connoisseur (known in the industry as a “beer geek”). A beautiful, slightly sweet malt flavour, with just a hint of roasted grains, is balanced by medium hop bitterness and fresh citrus notes from our premium imported hops. An amber-coloured ale for beer drinkers of all stripes.
Lake of Bays Pale Ale is currently available in bottles and kegs at the brewery, as well as at select bars and restaurants, and will soon be available at LCBO outlets throughout the Muskoka region.
TORONTO, ON – This past Saturday evening at beerbistro in Toronto, the winners of the 2010 Golden Tap Awards were announced, representing the best in beer and brewing in Ontario. This annual awards event is overseen and organized by Cass Enright, founder of The Bar Towel, a website and forum dedicated to covering and promoting the Ontario craft brewing scene.
TORONTO, ON – Just as 
TORONTO, ON – After a successful run last year, 
TORONTO, ON – Just in time for upcoming Canada Day celebrations, 
TORONTO, ON – As part of the lead-up to 
TORONTO, ON – 
VANKLEEK HILL, ON – 
TORONTO, ON – 
BAYSVILLE, ON – As 
