When Volo announced they will be having special taps and casks it’s usually about 50-50 chance that it’s a special event. Though it was OCB week this event was not officially on the agenda but that did not stop the faithful from pouring into Volo. Arriving at 4pm on the dot we grabbed a shady-ish spot on the patio and previewed the cask menu of the day.
Six (or more?) casks on offer plus a number of familiar taps from the BelgOntario days earlier in the week. The casks included Black Oak Marmalade Saison, Granite Hopping Mad, Duggan #99 Double IPA, Great Lakes “does this moo moo make me look hefe?” Imperial hefeweize, Beau’s Festive Alt as well as Beau’s Beaver River.
The light malt, citrus and grassy notes of Black Oak’s (standard) seasonal Summer Saison make it a perfect choice for quenching a thirst, so I was keen to see how the Marmalade version would fare. Visually it looked very similar but the citrus aroma and flavour were considerably more pronounced. I do not think they used actual marmalade but a considerable amount of orange and grapefruit (from fruit) hit your tongue and added notable amount of tart bitterness to compliment the hop bitterness. Would I have it again? You betcha, though drinking it quick enough to stop it getting warm OR keeping it out of the sun would be a wise decision.
Next up was to be The Only Cafe for a Night of Flying Monkeys however we decided to lengthen our trip from downtown to the Danforth and make two pit stops.
The first stop was at Allen’s. Always a great selection of beers but not always a lot of seating. Our party of 6 was SOL in grabbing some seats so we headed next door to Dora Keogh’s. In keeping with OCB week I tried to locate something on tap from Ontario but had a hard time seeing anything. We asked the barman to run down the tap list for us and the last one on the extensive list was ESB from County Durham. On cask. Bingo. Also available on cask was Fuller’s London Porter, and I think our group was evening split between the two. After leisurely putting back our pints we ambled along the Danforth and off to our second stop: Messini Authentic Gyros. I won’t say much about this, but if you have never been there: Go. Pork gyros, everything on it. Do it.
After the bite we finally made it to the Only Cafe. Now twelve people strong we found a spot in the cozy couched area of the The One (the attached coffee shop). Coming into the bar we were greeted by the rep (Peter?) from Flying Monkeys with samples of cask Hoptical Illusion. Also available for the evening were bottles of Smash-bomb IPA. I thought there was to be a cask and Peter indicated he thought so too but there wasn’t one to take. I suggested perhaps it was all consumed at last night’s Great Lakes Project XXXX. The night progressed smoothly and a large proportion of our group took to the Flying Monkeys offerings. It’s decent beer AND it was being sold at a promotional rate. We were informed there would be prize giveaways and our group was targeted to answer a number of beer related questions. I don’t recall the questions off the top of my head but they were along the lines of the Flying Monkeys (ex Robert Simpson) branding, beer and brewing terms and definitions including some terms I had never heard before (though I still maintain ‘purifist’ is not a real word). Before the questions started I was barred from answering any because I had demonstrated enough knowledge beforehand that I would have won everything. That said, I tried to fill in the blanks were needed and was awarded a prize at the end.
As far as what I went into the evening looking for it was better than I expected. The beer was a good price, I learned a fair bit about Flying Monkeys and some of my friends got to learn about/continue to enjoy Flying Monkey beers. The majority of my folks tapped out early-ish as one of them was getting married the next morning and we all needed to be up early. When there were only a handful left we got a sampling of the other Flying Monkeys brands, including Netherworld Porter and Antigravity Light Ale. From drinking super hopped Smash-Bomb and Hoptical Illusion all evening my tongue was not able to discern the subtleties of these two but they were enjoyable enough.
Thanks a bunch to The Only Cafe for hosting this wonderful evening as well as beer supplied by Flying Monkeys and Peter. Or was his name John? Whoever you are, cheers.
On tap for the rest of OCB week:
Day 7 – Saturday – TBD (wedding to attend)
OCB week, redux:
Day 1 – Sunday – Rebel House and “Granite”
Day 2 – Monday – BelgOntario @ Volo
Day 3 – Tuesday – The Day That Wasn’t
Day 4 – Wednesday – Cass’ & Troy’s First Annual OCB Pub Crawl
Day 5 – Thursday – Project XXXX
Beer With Me 