As you might have seen in previous posts, we spent a lot of time at the Air Canada Centre between Christmas and last Monday. We watched about a dozen World Jr games there, which means we saw the same people, watched the same between-periods entertainment, and heard the same terrible in-arena songs. It also means we had no options for good beer.

I’ve never understood the need that some people have to drink beer while watching sports. I mean, if it’s good beer, or even moderately decent beer, then yeah, great. But I can’t imagine what madness seizes the brains of the people who paid $15.25 for a glass of Coors Light, Molson Canadian, or MGD. I mean, maybe a Creemore (which cost $17), but those weren’t even very easy to find. I’d wait and drink real beer at Cork’s between games, like Black Oak Nut Brown or Great Lakes Winter Ale. Bonus: I didn’t spend 20 minutes lining up to piss.

It’s not like the ACC is the only Toronto arena serving shitty macro beer though. Skydome Rogers Centre has taken flack for not serving any craft beer at Jays games after severing ties with Steam Whistle — which brews their beer literally next door. That practice led to Toronto being rated near the bottom of all MLB teams by the Washington Post, and from what I can tell saved from being dead-last only because the Post gives them a better uniqueness score than other teams, presumably because other teams don’t carry Keith’s.

But back to the ACC: given all the beer nearby, and in province, and in Canada, it’s inexcusable that they’re still serving the mass produced foreign-owned (or half-foreign-owned) crap. The Canucks now serve craft beer at their games. Nashville has an annual craft beer festival for Predators fans. Nashville, fer chrissakes. We may not be in Quebec (speaking of which: get on it, Canadiens, you have world-class beer on your doorstep) but we do have breweries like Beau’s, Muskoka, Nickel Brook, Sawdust City, and Wellington in Ontario and the likes of Bellwoods, Black Oak, Great Lakes, Left Field, and Steam Whistle right here in the GTA.

All I’m saying is that it would have been nice to drink a real Canadian craft beer while watching Canada win gold. Who knows, maybe when the tournament returns in two year it’ll happen. Hey, the beer store monopoly appears to be in the midst of death throes, so anything’s possible, right?

.:.

Cover photo by Rob Nguyen, used under Creative Commons license