Does This Make Me a Social Media Guru?

It’s been a while since I last mentioned it here, but I’m still doing a some writing for TAPS Magazine, the quarterly publication that looks at the beer and brewing industry from a Canadian perspective – although since changing the subtitle from “Canada’s Beer Magazine” to “The Beer Magazine” a few issues ago, the scope has expanded to include more content from beyond our borders. It’s a magazine that keeps getting better and better, and even if wasn’t writing for it, I’d be reading every issue from cover to cover.

While my “Beer Styles 101” column is no longer appearing in its pages (since, as I noted last summer, I pretty much ran out of major styles to feature), I’m still on the review panel for the “Tasting Notes” in each edition, and I’m contributing other stuff from time to time. Amongst that other stuff is an article in the Winter 2010-11 issue looking at how Canadian breweries are using Twitter, Facebook and other social media to promote their brands and connect to their customers.

My original intention was to write an editorial-style article with quotes interspersed here and there from some brewery folks that I interviewed via email. But when I started getting fantastic answers back from the interviewees – including Steve Beauchesne of Beau’s All-Natural Brewing, Karen Gaudino of Creemore Springs Brewery, Tina Wolfe of Wild Rose Brewery, and Ferg Devins of Molson Coors Canada – I realized that running the four Q&As pretty much in full along with a short introduction would give a better idea of the whats, hows and whys of beer and social media in Canada than anything I could write myself.

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Quick Quaff: Garrison Blackberry Wheat

Garrison Blackberry Wheat isn’t exactly the most seasonal beer to be drinking on a cool evening in March – quite literally out-of-season, in fact, as it’s only available from the brewery in May through September, and this bottle was sent along with a few other east coast brews as an Xmas present by my brother-in-law in Halifax. So I can’t even be sure exactly when it was brewed and bottled, aside from knowing that it’s at least six months old. Not promising, especially for a 4.6% abv beer.

It still seems to be in good shape, though, with an inviting aroma of slightly tart blackberries and toasted grain malt coming off of the golden body and large white head. It’s light and crisp on the tongue, and malt and berry notes come together in the flavour to evoke something close to blackberry pie, with a hint of orange and herbs joining in the subtly hopped finish.

Definitely one of the better non-lambic fruit beers I’ve tried, and hopefully I can convince my bro-in-law to send me a few in the summer when they’re even fresher and more suited to the weather.

Quick Quaff: Alexander Keith’s Harvest Ale

My biggest weakness as a blogger has always been my habit of writing so-called “blessays” – i.e. long posts that take a lot more time to write than I usually have to spare. The result has been a blog that is often neglected for days or weeks at a time, while the backlog of things I want to write about – and beers that I intend to review – keeps getting bigger and bigger.

In an attempt to avoid this trap in the future, this post inaugurates a new and hopefully regular series called “Quick Quaff,” where I’ll be posting fairly short tasting notes on beer (and occasionally spirits) that I’m drinking. And somewhat fittingly, I’m starting with a beer that I meant to review when it was sent to me a few months back, but didn’t get around to due to the various personal matters that had me out of commission for a while…

Released last October in limited quantities, Alexander Keith’s Harvest Ale is the first in a new “Brewmaster’s Series” of smaller batch beers that seem aimed at giving the Keith’s brand a bit more of a craft beer cachet. (The second brew in the series, Tartan Ale, was just released recently, with reviews popping up here, there and everywhere – I’m guessing the lack of a sample being offered to me can likely be chalked up to my delay in writing about the Harvest Ale, which is perfectly understandable, as if I were Labatt‘s PR company, I’d probably hesitate in sending more beer to a deadbeat blogger like myself…)

My initial impressions of this beer are good – it pours a really gorgeous mahogany colour with a thin tan cap, and the aroma is appealing, with notes of caramel and cherry candy (I almost wrote “cherry cough drops,” but it’s not quite so medicinal). The body could do with a bit more heft, but it’s still adequate to carry the flavour, which follows on the aroma with some caramel and dark cherry, joined by a faint nuttiness, a suggestion of cocoa, and a moderate bitterness in the finish that doesn’t quite balance the sweetness, but comes pretty close.

In the end, it’s undeniably a fairly mainstream product, with the aromas and flavours being more restrained than they might be in a similar beer from a small craft brewery. But for a brewery the size of Keith’s/Labatt, it was an admirable and generally successful experiment, and one that has me really curious to try the Tartan Ale.

Canadian Beer News for February 7th-20th, 2011

Here’s a round-up of my posts for the last two weeks over at Canadian Beer News:

Feb 20th: Kichesippi Launches Growler Sales and Juvenile Diabetes Charity Campaign
Feb 20th: Spinnakers Northwest Ale To Be Previewed This Week
Feb 20th: Amsterdam Spring Bock Returning This Week
Feb 17th: Plan B Releases Limited Edition Imperial Stout
Feb 17th: Molson M To Be Available Nationwide
Feb 16th: Prud’homme Beer Certification Coming Online in March
Feb 16th: Barley Days Preparing Barrel-Aged Sugar Shack Ale
Feb 16th: Great Western Original 16 Coming Next Month
Feb 16th: Hop City Happy Hour Premium Ale Now Available
Feb 15th: Brewers Given Special Exemption From New Food Labelling Legislation
Feb 14th: Les Brasseurs du Temps Starts Bottling
Feb 14th: Barley’s Angels Comes To Canada
Feb 13th: Alley Kat Brews Two More Sherbrooke Exclusives
Feb 11th: Granville Island Irish Red Out Next Week
Feb 11th: Muskoka Reveals Their Next Seasonal Beer
Feb 10th: Garrison Celebrates Canada Winter Games With 3 New Beers
Feb 10th: Half Pints Collaborates With CKUW Radio and Announces $ellout $tout Day 2011
Feb 10th: 2011 Beer Weeks Coming Together
Feb 9th: Bombers and Hop Bombs from Phillips Brewing
Feb 8th: Beau’s Announces Next Wild Oats Beer and LCBO Release for Seasonals
Feb 8th: Swans Coconut Porter Returns

Moving Day

You might notice that things are looking a little different around here – the reason being that I’ve moved the ol’ blog from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress install. This will allow me to do more with it – some things that will be noticeable to readers, others more back-end in nature – and will eventually allow for more integration with my other sites, like Canadian Beer News.

(This is the second time I’ve moved the damn thing – the first was a move from Blogger to WordPress back in 2007 – and hopefully, it’ll be the last.)

It still needs some tweaking – I haven’t decided if I’m completely happy with the theme, for example – but all of the old content is here, and everything seems to be working the way it should. If you happen to notice anything weird, please let me know.

Canadian Beer News for January 24th to February 6th 2011

Here’s a round-up of my posts for the last two weeks over at Canadian Beer News:

Feb 4th: Labatt Quietly Rolls Out Rolling Rock in Ontario
Feb 4th: Labatt To Distribute and Brew Keith’s in the USA
Feb 4th: CAMRA BC Launches Fraser Valley Branch
Feb 3rd: Welly One Off Series Continues With A Limited Edition Stout
Feb 3rd: Alley Kat Planning New Big Bottle Series
Feb 3rd: Pacific Western To Launch Natureland Organic Black Stout
Feb 1st: Canadian Food Blog Awards 2010 Winners Announced
Jan 28th: RateBeer Best 2011 Includes Some CanCon
Jan 25th: Propeller Continues One-Hit Wonder Series With Double IPA
Jan 25th: CAMRA Vancouver Awards 2011 Announced
Jan 25th: Kichesippi Buys Scotch-Irish Brands
Jan 24th: Dead Frog Chocolate Mint Brown Ale Now Available

A Week of Whisky: Red Stag by Jim Beam

Right. So, my weekend off from writing means that what was supposed to be a week of whisky posts is now extended into a second week. Let’s just pretend, shall we?

I’ll start this one by stating right up front that I don’t hold much truck with flavoured versions of traditionally unflavoured spirits. I make an exception for booze that’s house-infused at fancy bars, since they’re generally working with natural ingredients, and doing interesting things with the end result. But store bought hooch that’s spiked with artificial flavouring? Call me crazy, but when I drink gin or rum or bourbon, I usually want to taste gin or rum or bourbon.

So when a bottle of Red Stag by Jim Beam (LCBO 198200 – $26.95/750 mL) arrived last week, and I saw “Black Cherry Flavoured Bourbon Whiskey” emblazoned on the label, I’ll admit that I was predisposed to dislike it even before I opened it. Seeing “Sugar” and “Artificial Flavour(s)” * on the ingredients list didn’t do much to alleviate my concern.

* Yes, the bottle in the photo above says “Infused with Natural Flavors”. It’s from the U.S. website. So either they’re using a different formula south of the border, or the rules about what’s “Natural” are looser down there.

But as always, I did my best to tamp down my prejudgment so I could approach and review this new-to-Canada product as fairly as possible.

(See what I do for you people? I really hope you appreciate it.)

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Canadian Beer News for January 17th-23rd 2011

Here’s a round-up of my posts for the last week over at Canadian Beer News:

Jan 20th: Barley Days Releases Working Man’s Stout
Jan 20th: Cannery Brewing Expands With New Fermenters
Jan 20th: Driftwood Singularity Russian Imperial Stout Now Available
Jan 19th: Ancestry.ca Explores the History of Canada’s Brewing Dynasties

A Week of Whisky: Master of Malt – Drinks by the Dram

As I noted a couple of posts back, I’m far from being an expert on whisky, and a lot of that has to do with the limited exposure I’ve had to it.

Sure, I’ve been lucky enough in the past couple of years to attend a fair number of media tastings, and the samples that arrive at my door from time to time are appreciated as well. But even with all of that, I know that I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there in the wide world of whisky (and whiskey, and bourbon, etc.), and quite frankly, the main thing holding me back from becoming a serious whisky nerd is the cost. I’d love to have a cabinet stocked with all my favourite spirits from Scotland and Ireland and the Southern US and beyond – but until I win the lottery or find some other path to wealth, it just ain’t gonna happen.

The folks at Master of Malt, a whisky and spirits mail order service the UK, know that there are a lot of people like me out there. And while they can’t go so far as to start sending us free bottles of anything we want – because as nice as that would be, it’s really not much of a business model – they’ve done the next best thing with an initiative called Drinks by the Dram, in which they’re offering a selection of items from their inventory of 3000+ whiskies and spirits in 30 mL samples that start at £1.95 per cute l’il bottle.

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A Week of Whisky: The Macallan

While I do get around to writing about whisky eventually in this post, there’s a bit of meandering along the way. If you only care about the booze, feel free to skip to the last few paragraphs – but if you do that, you’ll be missing a good rant!

Also, sorry for the crap photos – I forgot my camera and was using my two-years-old-but-already-ancient iPhone.

And yes, I know that I’ve already missed a posting day in this supposed Week of Whisky. No need to rub it in…

Writing for TAPS Magazine, TasteTO, this blog and a few other places has put me in an odd position of being somewhere between a blogger and “real” media in the eyes of many PR firms and others who are looking to pitch stories. And believe me when I say that there can be a big difference between the way that some PR folks approach and treat bloggers versus more traditional or established media outlets.

In the case of blogs, pitches are often filled with loads of mumbo-jumbo about “tastemakers” and “social media outreach” and “influencers” and such. They can  also try to build a false air of mystery around whatever product is being promoted, saying only that we should “save the date” for the launch of an “exciting new high end spirit” at a “trendy downtown location,” or similar nonsense.

Pitches aimed at more traditional media, however, tend to be straightforward and to the point. The PR companies know that people who write for a living generally don’t have the time or the patience to deal with extraneous fluff and bullshit, so they simply say what’s going to be offered, where and when. Easy peasy.

A couple of months back, I was able to make a good comparison of these two approaches when I received invitations to a tasting event for The Macallan whisky from two different sources.

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