It’s the first week of May and Toronto is in the middle of a string of cool, cloudy days. Mid-afternoon, the Bellwoods Brewery is preparing for that night’s service and the space isn’t ready for photography. Mike Clark, co-owner along with Luke Pestl, suggests we return just before opening. Given the weather, and that it’s [...]

BY: Unknown LOCATION: Kensington Market PHOTO BY: Scott Snider FIELD NOTES: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990s, those dastardly villains Boris and Natasha have been on the down-low, giving Rocky and Bullwinkle plenty of time to kick back and relax. And so you may be wondering, “Where is that scamp, Rocky?” Turns [...]

Beer and hockey. Aside from maybe the beaver and the maple leaf, there are probably no two things more emblematic of our great country. And when those two elements are combined, you get a quintessentially Canadian event known as the Copper Kettle Cup. Now in its ninth year, the annual tournament brings together six local [...]

While we doubt that Toronto’s cultural elite emptied bottles of PBR at their private clubs a century ago, we sense the local importer had a good feel for who this brew could be marketed to: germaphobes and health purists. The claims of cleanliness also make us wonder how lax local brewers were toward sanitizing their [...]

Between Ontario Craft Beer Week, the Toronto Festival of Beer, the Golden Tap Awards, CASK! Socials every couple of months, and myriad new bars, brewers, brewery markets, and sausage halls popping up every time you try to take a break to dry out, Toronto’s craft beer scene has come a long way since that first [...]

“It’s all about curry, beer, and music.” That’s how Vincent Pollard, the charming barman at Stella, describes his establishment. It’s no surprise that he’s from England, a country enamoured with all three. Pollard handles the music and beer, while back in the kitchen his business partner, Bangladeshi immigrant Ronti Hosen, tends to the curry in [...]

The 17th annual Toronto’s Festival of Beer will kick off early tomorrow with the first ever Queer Beer Festival. It will feature more than 150 brands of beer, food—including oysters, barbecue, smoked meats, gourmet hot dogs, and gourmet grill cheese, according to festival producer Les Murray—and music from the likes of headliners Ace of Base, Lucas of Canadian rock band the Cliks, and others.

A pack of about 40 middle-aged people, men and women, charge into an alleyway south of Queen Street. They are all—including the men—wearing pink dresses and running shoes. Someone produces a small insulated lunchbox, and inside are a few dozen Dixie cups of pudding. Everybody takes a cup and slurps it down. Whoever made the stuff used Baileys instead of milk. And so what's actually happening is that all these people are on the street, in downtown Toronto, at about 4:00 p.m., and they're doing pudding shots.

Amsterdam Brewery’s Katy Brown and Erin Mullally celebrate their win with writer Chris Schryer. Last night, the winners of the Ontario Brewing Awards were announced to a packed house at Dominion on Queen in Corktown. The results—just in time for patio season—in 22 categories such as North American India Pale Ales, German Style Wheat Beer, [...]

Construction underway at the first Beer Boutique. Photo by Brendan Ross/Torontoist. The Beer Store, Ontario’s largest beer retailer, is expanding into the self-serve market with a new store format to be debuted in Toronto this summer—a move smaller Ontario brewers say might boost interest in local beer, although the store’s products will remain the same. [...]

The offending Smash Bomb Atomic IPA proposed packaging. Goofy? Sure. But socially irresponsible? Late last year, the Buffalo News ran an article about how Ontarians, including a big chunk of Torontonians, were trekking down the QEW by the busload, crossing over into New York State not for NFL action or deals at factory outlets, but [...]

The two logos in question. The Whistle is a café in Glendale, Pennsylvania, located in a small building by some railroad tracks. Their logo (above left) is extremely familiar. Anyone who lives or gets drunk in Toronto (or Sudbury, or North Bay, or parts of Alberta and British Columbia) will recognize that stylized steamwhistle. It [...]