Photo by Graeme & Sara Bunton & Peele, used under Creative Commons license

Here’s your future

July 15, 2013July 15, 2013 Dan Dickinson1 Comment

A week ago tonight Toronto was hit by rains of historic proportions. We got pounded. We got soaked. We learned to convert metric to cubits.

The story of the storm and the aftermath has been well-covered in the usual places. Torontoist had lots of great pictures, including of the overnight extraction of passengers from a hot, stranded, snake-ridden GO train.

Nellie had a bit of an ordeal getting home, but for the most part we got off easy. I know people who lost their basement or lost their car, or both. Half the people in the GTA had brutal commutes home, often abandoning their cars after they ran out of gas.

For my part I was lucky, with maybe a little farmer’s son’s weather instincts thrown in there too. I was working away at my office when, around 4:40PM, I turned and looked out my window. It just looked…wrong outside. It was too dark, and the sky was an odd colour. My window faces south, so I couldn’t see the huge cloud coming south toward us from the north. Still, my gut was telling me this wasn’t going to be just another rain storm, and I didn’t have an umbrella — the weather forecast hadn’t called for anything other than sprinkles at noon. I brought up my favourite weather site, and it said there would be no rain for 20 minutes. 20 minutes is just enough time for me to get home, so I went for it. I put my computer to sleep, grabbed my bag, and took off. I wouldn’t normally do that. I’d normally wait it out, or borrow an umbrella from someone, or just be okay with getting wet. But this seemed different.

Once I got outside I was even more sure that it was going to be heavy-duty. Growing up on the farm we could always tell when it was going to rain, but yesterday I felt that sensation much stronger than I remember feeling it before. I looked north when crossing Yonge Street, giving me a clear look all the way to the top of the GTA. I saw the biggest, blackest cloud I’ve ever seen. It actually looked like the cloud-covered UFOs from Independence Day. I hurried up.

Luckily a subway train came quickly, and a few stops later I got off. This picture was taken from the 70th floor at Scotia Plaza, probably around the time I was getting off the subway. I got to our building, feeling only a few tiny drops as I entered the lobby. 30 seconds later, by the time I’d taken the elevator up to the condo and looked outside, I saw this:

So yeah…I was pretty lucky. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what we experienced was minor compared to the flooding in Alberta or especially the train explosion in Lac-Megantic. But I’m still glad I didn’t get caught in it.

.:.

Photo by Graeme & Sara Bunton & Peel, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by Adam Fagen, used under Creative Commons license

I couldn’t decide whether to call this post “the risin’ of Weizen” or “the Porter new order”

July 7, 2013July 7, 2013 Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a former colleague, an ex-Torontonian who now lives in England. He knows I’m a beer fan, and mentioned that a few night before, at some bar not necessarily known for the their beer selection, he’d been able to try a Le Trou Du Diable Shawinigan Handshake. Over his week-long visit he’d noticed a much more extensive penetration of craft beer around Toronto than when he’d left four or five years ago.

I’d slowly started to recognize the same thing of late, but hearing my friend’s observations just cemented it. Places like Smokeless Joe, C’est What, and Rebel House had been carrying the torch for craft beer, especially Ontario craft beer for ages, but I’d noticed a shift in the clientele of such serious beer places, especially Volo. It wasn’t the same faces, the same beer geeks, every time. We’d see people trying new beers, searching out new releases, willing to be educated. Beerbistro was probably at the front of that tide, with places like Bar Hop, Wvrst, Bellwoods, and Indie Alehouse forming the second wave.

The size and makeup of the crowd at this year’s Session Toronto was a huge indication of how craft is quickly becoming the expectation. Another is the fact that Spotlight Toronto has run a ’30 days of Ontario beer’ feature the last few years, and Mike DiCaro’s series wrap-up post does a far better job of exploring and summarizing this shift than I’ve managed here:

“Sure there was the rare brewery making weissbier and seasonals like an imperial stout, but the vast majority of what you encountered were pale ales with an amber ale or IPA being exotic. Even though it was only ten years earlier that time feels like eons ago. It has evolved into a completely new environment for craft beer lovers today. The bold, flavourful and hop-forward American-style IPA has become de rigueur and you can find a local craft example of just about every style imaginable […] .”

My favourite example of the shift might be Triple A, for all intents and purposes our new local. Make no mistake, it was the food that drew us here, and the food that’s kept us coming back. The beer selection for the first few months was basic; the most adventurous beer on tap was Mill Street Tankhouse. For the past several months, though, while the menu still contains the PBRs you’d expect in such a lo-fi place, they also carry Kensington FishEYE-PA, Flying Monkeys Stereo Vision, and Amsterdam Big Wheel — none of them exemplary beers, but a definite step-up from their original mass offerings, and a nod to the demand out there for decent, interesting, local beer.

I, for one, welcome our delicious new overlords.

.:.

Photo by Adam Fagen, used under Creative Commons license

Image by Jen Riehle for Smashing Magazine

Happy Pride & Canada Day Weekend!

July 1, 2013July 2, 2013 Dan Dickinson1 Comment

A wise man once said, “The best weekends are spent with good friends and family, but are measured in good wine and beer.” Actually, no one’s ever said that. No one famous anyhow, just me. Like, just now. That wise man was me. So yeah, we drank a lot this weekend, is what I’m saying. But we drank well, and with a narrative in mind.

On Friday we escaped work a little early and prepared dinner for our friends Kaylea & Matt. That it was #cdnwine day on Twitter (apparently?) was just a bonus. We grilled steaks from Cumbrae’s and drank lots of Canadian wine (with a few others thrown in for international flavour) and beer (courtesy of K&M) and welcomed three of their friends and actually made use of our balcony for pretty much the first time this year. It’s possible that we ate too much and drank too much and didn’t get enough sleep, but it was worth it. Here’s what went down (our gullets):

Wine

13th Street 2011 Pinot Gris
Malivoire 2007 ‘Moira’ Pinot Noir
Nyarai 2011 Viognier
Pearl Morissette 2010 ‘Black Ball’ Riesling
Shypoke 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon
Versado 2010 Malbec
Featherstone 2011 Cabernet Franc (thanks Steph!)

Beer

Beer Academy Hopaweizen
Beau’s Festivale Plus Sticke Alt
Goose Island Sofie
Parallel 49 Gypsy Tears Ruby Ale

The next morning was basically an exercise in how fast we could get a peameal bacon sandwich and giant-ass Fahrenheit coffee into each of us, before sending Matt & Kaylea on their way. Then Nellie and I plopped ourselves on the couch, inexplicably watched the wretched Movie 43 (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and eventually Uber’d up to our friend MLK’s, where CBGBLB were visiting. We enjoyed their backyard while GB made some amazing barbecued ribs. We took along a few more treats for dinner too:

Pearl Morissette 2010 ‘Black Ball’ Riesling
13th Street 2011 ‘Arome’ Essence White
Tawse 2009 ‘Laidlaw’ Pinot Noir
Tawse 2010 Wine Club Syrah

It wasn’t a late night, obviously, given the yesterevening’s festivities. We took a quick stroll through the Pride-related mayhem on Church Street on our way home, and were reminded that it’s totally legit for ladies to go topless in Toronto. Bless.

Sunday, much like Saturday evening, was sunnier and warmer than expected, so we found our way to a patio. The Bier Markt patio, to be exact, wherein I drank two ice cold Erdinger weissbeers and earned myself a sunburn. North of us, the Pride Parade snaked its’ way around central Toronto. We could see the tail from our balcony as it formed, even that far north. In honour of the day, we drank a bottle of Daniel Lenko 2008 ‘Chardonngay’ Chardonnay with dinner.

And then what better way to spend Monday — Canada Day — than watching the White House get trashed, a la how the British/Canadian troops did it in 1814, in the risible Die Hard rip-off White House Down (imdb | rotten tomatoes)? Well, I guess we did come up with a better way: Nellie made a meal of shrimp and scallops and corn paired with a Southbrook 2004 ‘Poetica’ Chardonnay (the label for which featured a poem by Martin Tielli, one of my favourite Canadian musicians) and lamb paired with a Stratus 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon. Canadian food, Canadian wine, Canadian talent. Delicious patriotism!

.:.

Image by Jen Riehle for Smashing Magazine

Session 101

June 23, 2013June 23, 2013 Dan Dickinson4 Comments

Okay, it wasn’t actually called that, but I’ve been thinking of it as the third annual Session 99 beer festival…hence 101. Officially, though, it’s just called Session Toronto now.

Since the festival had moved from 99 Sudbury up to Wychwood Barns, taking Uber there and back — especially on such a stinking hot day — was a worthwhile splurge. And when I say stinking hot, I mean hot enough that pretty much everyone was sweaty and various degrees of stinky. I was stupid enough to wear jeans, and spent the whole afternoon yelling, Nick Miller-like, at the sun. Going inside didn’t help as the humidity in there was worse…especially when it came time to make my one and only bathroom stop. It must have been over 50° in there with the humidity, and by 7pm the situation had become something less than sanitary. I vowed never to go back in, no matter how dire the bladder situation became.

Right, with all that out of the way, let’s get to the beer…so much of which was outstanding this year.

Oast House ‘Hef’ hefeweizen
Sawdust City ‘Red Rocket’ coffee stout
Left Field ‘6-4-3’ double IPA
Great Lakes ‘Thyme Lord’ saison
Beau’s ‘The Tom Green Beer’ milk stout
Spearhead ‘Jamaican Fire’ ale
Wellington SPA
Lake Of Bays ‘River Walker’ summer ale
Highlander Brew Co. ‘Lion Grass’ summer ale
Muskoka ‘Dragon slayer’ tripel
Indie Alehouse ‘High Maintenance’ Belgian strong ale
Central City ‘Red Racer’ IPA
Flying Monkeys ‘Machete’ oatmeal stout
Muskoka ‘Dragon slayer’ tripel (again)
Left Field 6-4-3 double IPA (again) as we stopped in to buy me a shirt
Black Oak saison

Also: a killer pulled pork sandwich from Hogtown Smoke, and cupcakes (Spearhead Moroccan brown ale teacupcake, Canadian mancake) from The Sassy Lamb.

We left shortly before closing, and walked around the corner to The Stockyards to pick up dinner. Sadly, it seemed like all the other Session-goers had the same idea, and when we heard the chef yell that it would take at least thirty minutes for any fried chicken orders, we bailed. We picked up some wings on the way home, and ate them with an ice-cold Shawinigan Handshake from Trou du Diable. Beer day for the win.

Photo by images_of_money, used under Creative Commons license

The key word here is control.

May 11, 2013May 11, 2013 Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Oh, right. The LCBO might go on strike. Yawn.

Seriously, I don’t see this as a problem at all. Which is probably not what the LCBO wants to hear, since they’re counting on using the threat of a strike on the eve of May 2-4 weekend — Think of all the poor cottagers! And where are frat boys supposed to buy their Laker?! — for leverage. But, living where I live, it’s a minor inconvenience at worst.

I assume that resourceful establishments such as Volo, Beerbistro, Bar Hop, and Wvrst will still have a healthy supply of beer coming in. If I want to bring excellent beer home I can always just pop by Bellwoods or Beer Academy.

And I get that I’m lucky (though I prefer to think of it as being well-prepared) to have >100 bottles of wine at home just waiting to be opened, but — like the rest of Toronto — I’m an hour away from Beamsville and Vineland, where we can buy stellar wine from the likes of Thirty Bench, Rosewood, Hidden Bench, Fielding, Daniel Lenko, Tawse, Kacaba, Megalomaniac, Foreign Affair, and Vineland Estates. People at the east end of the GTA or Ottawa are 2-3 hours from Prince Edward County, where they could enjoy the scenery and stock up on more than enough outstanding wine to get them through an LCBO blackout.

Remember: nature abhors a monopoly. It also drinks local.

.:.

Photo by images_of_money, used under Creative Commons license

“Friends, relations, tribe, nation, common people.”

May 5, 2013 Dan Dickinson1 Comment

I spent most of last week at a conference just outside of Phoenix. This was my view each morning:

Not bad, right? But with this trip coming right on the heels of the previous week’s trip to Boston, I was ready to come back to Toronto and have a couple of quiet weekends. Fortunately while I was away the long Toronto winter finally breathed its last. I arrived home Thursday to find runners and cyclists swarming the waterfront, leaves finally breaking out on trees, and the Canadiens playing their first playoff game.

As sure as those are signs of spring, so too is Hot Docs. My travel schedule kept us from seeing our usual five screenings this year, but we did manage to squeak in a few. First, after a bite and a beer at The Oxley followed by a few spectacular glasses of wine (my ’99 Peter Lehmann Shiraz really stood out) at Opus we took in a late screening of Blackfish. I get emotional every time I think about Tilikum or Dawn Brancheau or pretty much any other part of that film so I’m not going to describe it much more here. I’m just going to say this: SeaWorld can go fuck itself. So can MarineLand. So can anyone who goes there.

After our customary pre-Hot Docs stop on the patio at the Victory Café…

…we hit our second screening: Which Way Is The Front Line From Here: The Life And Time Of Tim Hetherington. It was directed by the author Sebastien Junger, with whom Hetherington had shadowed an army platoon to create a book called War and a documentary called Restrepo. Not long after the documentary was nominated for an Oscar Hetherington was killed in Libya covering yet another war zone. Junger made the documentary to explain who Tim was, why he was so possessed with telling stories this way, and sharing more of his brilliance than we were likely to ever see otherwise.

After that we needed another drink. We made our way (slowly, happily) down to Bellwoods Brewery, which we’d shamefully not yet tried despite it being named the 3rd-best new brewery in the world last year. We had several tasty pints and ate bread and salumi and rosemary fries, and sat in the perfect inside-but-almost-outside weather.

Spring!

Is it spelled Thirphy? Or Thurphy?

February 10, 2013February 10, 2013 Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Well, that was quite a weekend.

(Again.)

For Nellie’s birthday weekend I had decided to surprise her by flying two of her best friends — the Murphy girls — in from Halifax. My plan was well-thought-out and probably would have come off cleanly but for two things: a massive snowstorm wreaked havoc with flights into Toronto on Friday, and Nellie started drinking at Bryden’s with co-workers at noon. So now I was dealing with two forces of nature messing with the plan.

Fortunately I steered Nellie (along with half a dozen of her co-workers) to AAA and enlisted their help with the surprise. It wasn’t easy, but we kept her under control and oblivious while, after an epic travel ordeal, the girls arrived. There was an long, amusing moment when Nellie didn’t recognize one lifelong friend but did recognize the older sister, but that was soon overcome. And then the crying started. And lasted for about ten minutes. We finally got ourselves out of there and trudged through the snow back to our place, where we opened wine and listened to music and watched Nellie run and up and down the hallway yelling “Best! Birthday! Ever!” (vraiment?) The co-workers retired shortly after 1AM and we finally let the weary travellers get some sleep.

We dragged our asses up the next morning, not feeling our best but determined to maximize our day together. Some Fahrenheit coffee helped wake us up, and peameal bacon sandwiches from Carousel settled our tummies. We spent the afternoon catching up, napping, watching The Hunger Games, and scratching cat bellies. Eventually Nellie needed a little more nap action, so the Murphy girls and I walked through the quiet downtown to one of their favourites: Chipotle. After eating one of their near-football-sized burritos we were all worried about our ability to take on our big dinner planned for that night at Richmond Station.

We’d been meaning to try this place since it opened — it’s so close to us, and had been getting great reviews. The four of us met up with two more friends, MLK, and decided on the chef’s menu + wine pairings for the table. And manomanoman, were we glad we did. In retrospect it would have been a grand idea to write down the courses, but I was too busy eating. I skipped the oysters but loved the lobster puffs, paired with an Organized Crime Fumé Blanc. There was a great honking pile of a few different salads, replete with fried head cheese, paired with a fantastic Chablis. Then the main course: an enormous platter of pork…pork in all various forms, including kielbasa flowers (which is what I’m naming my band someday) and wild boar loin…it was epic. It was also paired with a truly stellar Rosewood Riesling. We were all about to pop, so luckily the next course was a small but tasty sampling of cheeses, paired with a Gamay. Finally, dessert: and while we didn’t let the kitchen know it was Nellie’s birthday, it was as if they’d customized it to her. De-constructed carrot cake, de-constructed apple pie, and a lemon mousse-ish thing with a crispy camomile foam. We each ordered a glass of Lailey late harvest Vidal. And then we were well and truly done. It was an outstanding meal, and I see us going back a lot from now on.

This morning was a little easier to face, but we were still full from the night before. Finally, around 10:30, hunger drove us down to Hank’s for breakfast. Then it was time for the Murphy girls to return home, thankfully with clearer skies than those which welcomed them here. We were said to see them go, but the whole weekend’s effort might have been worth it just for this moment.

Happy birthday, Nellie.

#100

November 30, 2012 Dan Dickinson1 Comment

I’ve never been a huge football fan generally, nor of the CFL specifically. I did support the Edmonton Eskimos as a kid — I distinctly remember them winning Grey Cup #75 back in 1987 — but was never obsessed with them the way I was (am) with hockey and the Montreal Canadiens.

However, when my friend CBJ asked us if we wanted to see the 100th Grey Cup right here in Toronto, well…how were we to pass that up? We let him do all the ticket-ordering work (and take in all the pre-game festivities in the days leading up) and met him for a little pre-game barbecue at Triple A in the quiet part of town on Sunday, before taking a slow streetcar to the Rogers Centre.

Thoughts on the game:

While I don’t generally back either Toronto or Calgary (the Edmonton bias still lingers), I was obviously pulling for the Argos because…well, home town.
The opening play from scrimmage was a Calgary interception, so it didn’t look good early on. But Toronto just put the pedal down in the first half and coasted from there. Calgary didn’t score a major until the final seconds, so the game wasn’t even as close as the 35-22 score suggested.
Chad Kackert was a monster. Jon Cornish was all but shut down.
It wasn’t a classic game, but any time you can see the 100th championship it’s pretty special.

Thoughts about everything surrounding the game:

Seats at the Rogers Centre suck balls. Even the really expensive ones.
CFL fans are hardcore. This city was filled with people in BC jerseys, Edmonton jerseys, Montreal jerseys (okay, not many of those), Winnipeg Jerseys, Hamilton jerseys (okay, not many of those either) and Saskatchewan jerseys (TONS of those!), even though their teams weren’t in the Grey Cup. And the arena was filled with far more Riders fans than Stamps fans, even though Calgary was playing. Crazy.
Those same out-of-town fans, were scandalized, SCANDALIZED I tell you, by the price of beer. Obviously $9.75 for a tall boy of Bud is ridiculous, but we Torontonians are used to it, whereas it was a special sort of hell for all the prairie boys.
Also, one gentlemen I saw who was clearly from Hamilton seemed awfully concerned about all the “faggots” in Toronto, and made sure all of us in line knew that. I’m not sure why he thought all Torontonian faggots were at the Grey Cup, or why they were interested in accosting him in particular, but he seemed to have his reasons. My guess: insecurity and a terrible upbringing.
Strangest exchange of the night, with a man dressed/painted entirely in red, who spoke to me in the concourse on my way to buy a beer: HIM: “You look like a man on a mission! Are you looking for a pepperoni?!” ME: “Ummm…no.” HIM: “OK, I’ll help you!” ME: *slides quickly into nearest line* HIM: *Continues ranting about pepperoni all the way down the concourse, not noticing that I was no longer alongside him*
The entertainment was…well, embarrassing. Burton Cummings must have been wasted, because he fucked up “O Canada” twice and sang it over a clicky-beepy drum & bass line you expect to hear from a cheap Casio keyboard. Carly Rae Bieber Trench were a continuum of disgraceful lip-syncing over pre-recorded fluff; Bieber in particular got his ass booed but good. I know he was there for TV ratings, but they had to expect a CFL-football-loving crowd was not going to react well to that juvenile calliope. Thank goodness for Gordon Lightfoot, who actually SANG. And PLAYED. REAL. MUSIC. And REMEMBERED THE WORDS, Burton. Not one of these performers was from my era, but I can recognize the ones with an actual ability to perform live music.
Walking out of the Rogers Centre and through downtown Toronto with a lot of excited fans gave me a tiny, tiny taste of what would happen if the Leafs ever won the Stanley Cup. Fortunately, that will never happen.

Pics from the night:

"It's pronounced verst."

October 8, 2012 Dan Dickinson1 Comment

After a very long week, Nellie and I wanted some place to relax, drink a few good pints of beer, and eat some great food. I convinced her that we should take a chance on Wvrst (ratebeer), a place on King West I’ve been wanting to try for a while.

And man, did it pay off. We had a great night. We’re already anxious to go back.

Here’s why we liked it so much:

The space is pretty different: it was a giant beer hall with communal tables, somewhat smaller tables along the side, a long bar, and a kitchen on the south wall. We chose to sit at the bar; everything else seemed to be reserved.
The atmosphere was pretty unlike what I’d expect to find at a newish place on King West. Read: not at all douchey. It was a very young crowd, but there were no popped collars or sunglasses on backs of necks. These, we would discover later, were unofficial house rules of the place. Which made us like it more.
The house speciality, as the name suggests, was sausage. Many, many kinds of sausage. I went basic with a calabrese, but can’t wait to try some of the more advanced options like venison or wild boar or kangaroo. You could also choose whether to eat the sausage on a bun or in a tomato curry sauce; I chose the latter. Nellie, meanwhile, had a pile of Belgian-style fries with chipotle and maple/rosemary dipping sauces. I ended up eating a lot of those too.
The beer selection was very solid indeed. I had a Dieu du Ciel Route des Epices, a Black Oak nut brown, a Central City Red Racer, and a Dieu du Ciel Peche Mortel. Nellie had equally tasty selections. While we both steered toward Canadian offerings, they had some interesting international bottles on offer as well. Definitely worth some return visits.

Throughout the course of the evening we ended up meeting the manager Bram, who gave us a couple of samples and introduced us to Justin from the Beer Academy. Twitter: helping tipsy introverts meet each other since 2009.

If I weren’t still full of turkey (MLK and CBGB had us over last night; we ate their food and they drank our wine…the perfect symbiotic relationship!) I’d be there right now.

Skirl | Dan Dickinson

Skirl: (skûrl) n. A shrill wailing sound

Category: Toronto