Dieu Du Ciel! In Ontario!

I never did make it up to the Granite on Saturday afternoon but I eventually did manage to get my hands on a Toronto Beer Week tshirt. My arm was “twisted” and I agreed head into Allen’s for a pint after submitting an order for a Black IPA and a Double Chocolate Stout at Fermentations on the Danforth. After this I headed to Bar Volo (I seem to be going there a lot lately…) for the Dieu Du Ciel tasting feature. Beyond knowing they had DDC on tap, and enough choices to push the list to double digits, I didn’t know what I was in store for.

This event was towards the end of the DDC feature week presented by HMH Negotiants. Starting earlier in the week a beer dinner was held at Chancey Smith’s, a beer lunch was held at Caplanskys and a pub crawl staggered it’s way across the city enduring more than 12 hours.  Tonight was the feature event at Volo and the next day was a DDC brunch at beerbistro hosted by Stephen Beaumont. All of this, and Toronto Beer Week had not even officially kicked off!

Getting back to the DDC feature, I was privileged to sample three fine DDC beers. I could not go without tasting the mighty Aphrodite. (Normally I refer to it by its not LCBO-bastardized name but the rhyme there was so appealing.) This top rated stout boasts big hits of cocoa and vanilla with the perfect bitterness. Always smooth and velvety this is a top choice that I cannot ever resist. The two choices new to me were Chaman, an Imperial Pale Ale, and Grande Noirceur, an Imperial Stout. I found the Grande Noiceur very similar (in taste and  excellence) to the Peche Mortel, with the notable difference being the absence of an overt coffee profile. Very easy to drink and could see the dangers in making this an inadvertent and unlikely session beer. The Chaman, copper colour and quite cloudy, was dominated by hops but had a large enough malt profile bring about a decent balance. I don’t think I could session this one even if I tried! Lastly I tried the much hyped Caustic Commencement Saison – the much hyped and highly anticipated collaboration effort from Biergotter and Volo. Saisons are fairly new to me but what I have learned so far is that there is much diversity under the saison label. On initally inhaling the nose I thought I smelled a fruity bathroom cleaner. Perplexed at what I was smelling I had my confusion eased when Chris told me “mangoes”. Once I had identified the mango aspect things fell into place. The mango flavour was competing with a strong hop aroma as well as notes of other tropical fruits. It was a treat to drink and was not out of place with DDC, as the caliber was top notch. Definitely setting the bar high for all future products coming from Volo’s brewery.

It’s fantastic to see that one of Canada’s best breweries is now available in my backyard, both in pubs and the LCBO. Hopefully they are blazing the trail for many others to follow! Cheers to Volo, HMH Negotiants and DDC for creating such great opportunities for beer drinkers in Ontario

Toronto Beer Week – And They’re Off!! – Monday

Excitement was in the air as I approached Volo, the humble craft beer mecca, on the first day of Toronto Beer Week. At only 6pm the patio was rammed and the inside near capacity. Three hours later even more bodies somehow fit themselves into the small establishment and a note on the door indicated the bar was at capacity and no more were permitted in. To officially launch beer week the draft line up was to be 10 of Ontario’s best beers as well as two casks: the finalists in the 2010 Cask Challenge.  As it turned out there were 12 Ontario taps and you would be tough pressed to find argument in the excellence of the choices:

Denison Weissbier, Denison Dunkel, Black Oak 10 Bitter Years DIPA, Scotch Irish John By Imperial Stout, Wellington Imperial Stout, Flying Monkey Smash Bomb IPA,Black Oak Nutcracker Porter, Mill St Tankhouse Ale, Durham Hop Addict IPA, Creemore Kellerbier and Mill Street Coffee Porter.

Most of these choices did not last the night as the exuberant the thirsty patrons guzzled them down. At with beer week in the air and at $4/pint it’s no wonder! The casks were also reduced to empty barrels. Flying Monkey’s Smashbomb IPA and Great Lakes My Bitter Wife had at it and voters eagerly cast their ballots for the 2010 IPA Cask Challenge finalists. In the company of these two casks was a third cask (though not in the finals) the top choice Durham Hop Head on cask.

I spoke to a few others who had attended beer week events in other parts of the city including Mill Street, Granite, Starfish (for Malt and Molluscs Monday) and the early consensus was a “great success.” Hopefully everywhere else this week will be a booming as last night was. And that was just the beginning. Happy beer week everyone!

OCB Week Day 6 – Volo & Flying Monkeys

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.

Double Double IPA IPA Volo Volo!

Continuing the beer weekend noted in my previous post, Saturday (May 29) saw my first serious exposure to the world of double/imperial India Pale Ales at the East Coast vs West Coast vs No Coast Double IPA Challenge @ Volo. I had not previously sampled enough double IPAs to get a proper feel for the style and my knowledge of the style was incomplete. This tasting fixed that. Due to the heavy-duty nature of these beers and because I had to go to another occasion later in the evening I opted to split a tasting flight and what a treat they were! At first my taste buds were disoriented by the onslaught of rich maltiness, triple digit IBUs and overall intensity of flavours but they soon settled and were able to decipher the complex tastes being broken down into rich toffee malts, explosions of grapefruit, earthy woody notes as well as subtleties including vanilla, sherry and candied fruits.

Since I had no real frame of reference of what these beers were going in my guesses were exactly that; guesses. My selections were based on IBU and what I thought were the entries I have previously tried (My Bitterer Wife from Great Lakes and 10 Bitter Years from Black Oak). Volo has since revealed the results from this tasting. Even though the Charlevoix Armadillo Double IPA appears to have been replaced by the Great Divide Hercules I was only able to correctly identify one of the eight samples. Correctly identified was the Great Lakes My Bitterer Wife, and as noted above I have previously tried this beer and remembered a) what it looked like (cloudy like a hefeweizen) and b) a hop content which puckered my mouth, eyes and brain.

Any type of event which allows sampling en mass and the opportunity to try new (and hopefully good) beers is what it’s all about. I doubt that Double IPAs will become a large part of my beer consumption but now knowing what they are I will have a keen and discerning eye when I come across them in future.

What did I learn?: Double IPAs and triple IPAs are both imperial IPAs. (Remember, Imperial means strong.) As a general guideline double IPAs use 50% more malt and 100% more hops than traditional IPAs and triple IPAs use 100% more malt and 200% more hops. Weighing in with ABVs starting at 7% and low end IBUs at 60, these beers are not for the uninitiated and are to be treated with respect.