ThirstyMates.com

Heineken followed up on their walk-in fridge ad with this gem.

Speaking of gems I can’t wait to head to my local The Gem for a pint tonight!

Beer Wars has popped up on my radar a few times in the last few months and I thought that seeing as how it will be released on Thursday (April 16th) I’d throw up the trailer and a few thoughts. Check out the trailer then follow through to my thoughts.

And from the official site:

Director Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate one of America’s favorite industries.

I’m pretty excited for this movie. I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to see it because there doesn’t seem to be any Canadian screenings set up yet. But being a fan of documentary films and a fan of beer I’d like to experience this insider’s perspective of what’s going on in the American beer industry.

Not to mention it would be good homework for opening my own brewery. But that will have to wait till after the OLG realizes I’m overdue for a payout.

When I first moved in to my neighbourhood (3 and a half years ago) from Oakville I severely missed my regular trips to my favourite bar of the area. Now that I’ve been in Toronto living in the Davenport Village I’ve discovered a few bars and pubs in the area that I have come to refer to as my “locals”. I have also come to the conclusion that (for any serious drinker) one must have a local haunt to drift to when the thirst takes hold.

When I was living in Oakville for school I held a job working in the local mall. There was an East Side Mario’s in this mall and it was a natural place for myself and my coworkers to drift after a long day of selling overpriced footwear and other skateboard paraphernalia to snotty nosed kids and their overpaid, underworked parents. This bar/restaurant became my local unbeknownst to me at the time.
After moving to Toronto there was always something missing for me in the way of drinking. Friends would visit from out of town and I’d have no idea where to go. No direction to take them to sit and have a quiet pint. Even when wanting to relax and unwind on a Saturday afternoon or after work there was something missing while sitting on the couch drinking beer from a can.

Now that I have put some time in though in the area and discovered one or two pubs that I don’t mind frequenting I’m happy with my drinking selection and my ability to leave the house and find some suds that I don’t have to pour myself.

My Locals

The local pub brings things that sitting at home can’t. I have two pubs that I consider my locals.

• The Gem - The Gem is located at 1159 Davenport Road and has a deep Rock-n-Roll feel to it. With a ’61 Seeburg (considered by many to be the Cadillac of jukeboxes) as the main focus when you walk in and a constant stream of good ol’ Rock-N’-Roll playing over the radio throughout the bar this place feels warm even on the coldest days. The owner Eddie is a great guy through and through and the bar staff are more than welcoming at all times. This place can get pretty packed on weekends and there’s no question as to why. Their food is incredible (I recommend the hummus or the quesadillas) as is the beer. In most cases one will not know what will be on tap at anytime but it’s sure to be something from Mill St. The Gem is a place that you just can’t go wrong with whether you’re sitting on the patio sipping a Mojito or nestled at a booth escaping the cold.
• PM Toronto - I consider PM Toronto (1245 Dupont Street in the Galleria Mall) not to be a local out of a love for the people or the food or even the beer. But out of sheer proximity to my residence. If I’m ever too lazy to take the ten minute walk over to The Gem, PM Toronto is where you’ll find me. The beer on tap isn’t marvellous and I’m pretty sure they need to clean their tap system. Being a sports bar they serve the regular domestics such as Molson Canadian and Labatt’s Blue and such but they have just acquired Steam Whistle on tap and this is enough to quell my inner beer snob (it also doesn’t force me to grumble and accept a pint of Keith’s “IPA”.

What makes a good local?

• Locality - A local has to be just that. Local. If it’s too far away it’s not a local it’s just a bar you like or frequent. In my opinion I’d say anything more than 15 minutes travel and you’re not in local territory anymore.
• Interactions with regulars - The regulars at my The Gem are one of the reasons I keep coming back (aside from their regular rotation of Mill St. product). I’ve made some pretty decent “at the bar” friends who have helped me out outside the bar as well. Being a Rockabilly-esque bar there’s a lot of motorcycle owners that frequent The Gem and their guidance has been essential to me finding and purchasing my first bike and helping me out when it broke down right outside.
• Interaction with strangers - Strangers in a small pub environment bring more life to it. Sitting on a barstool at your local chatting in passing with the bartender most often sparks up a conversation with someone sitting down the bar. At a true local you never feel as if you don’t have a place in the conversation. Some of my favourite times at The Gem have been had when a stranger has chimed in to a conversation and we’ve hit it off. Have I ever seen these people again? Most of them no. Even if I have there have been times when it hasn’t gone farther than a nod or a wave. Like the “Single Serving Friends” theory from Fight club. This point however does not apply to my #2 local. I stay as far away from the strangers here as I can due to the fact there is an adjoined off track betting parlour it can bring in some undesirables.
• Relaxability - Okay I made that word up. But it applies. If you can’t go to your local and relax you’re in trouble. I like to think of my locals as somewhere I would go by myself if I was in need of an unwind and I would be able to relax there.

My final thoughts

Without a local I can surely live. But I do enjoy having a place to go and relax that is outside my house. The local is a long standing tradition in the drinking culture and it’s one that earned some serious thought from myself and hopefully the few readers that frequent this blog.

What’s your local? Why do you love it? Put the thought in and I’m sure you’ll appreciate it a lot more after you’ve done so. How about a comment to let me know what you love about it?

And next time you’re in the Davenport area stop by The Gem and buy me a round!

Welcome to all that have come over from Random As Rhyme.

A big thanks to Dave for the shout out in yesterday’s post.

ThirstyMates is always happy to have new visitors!

The internet never stops bringing great beer related things to my plate. This photo found through the news sharing site Digg instantly struck me as an anti prohibition protest.

After a little digging I found out that it is in fact an anti-prohibition protest by the Labor union members in Newark, New Jersey taken on Halloween, 1931.

I’m glad they eventually got their beers!

Well Heineken seems to be on a roll with their ads lately. they’ve just dropped another great ad where a beer bottles life flashes before it’s eyes (if it had eyes I supose). I won’t give anything else away check it out.

and here’s some credits:

Martin Krejci gets nostalgic as a Heineken bottle’s life flashes before its eyes in this new one from Stink and McCann’s in Dublin.

Credits:

Agency: McCann Erickson, Dublin
Production Company: Stink
Director: Martin Krejci
Creative Director: Shay Madden
Art Director: Ray Swan
Copywriter: Emma Sharkey
Agency Producer: Genie Dorman
Post production: The Mill, Absolute

Just a quick one to note that my first batch is bottled and sitting quietly in the closet. Letting all those yeasties gobble up the sugar I added and carbonate my beer!

Check out that nice golden color though! I had a few tastes and it seems to taste great already and it isn’t even done yet. It might be true what they say. That the best tasting beer is the one you brew yourself.

I didn’t have much time to take photos. It wasn’t much special to see. Maybe next time.

I managed to get 19.5L of the beautiful golden stuff!

Also sorry about the wonky alignment and berivity of this post but I’m about to fall asleep at the keyboard on account of 2am noisy Wednesday night neighbors. ugh.

Highbrow games has released a new game in the “community games” section of Xbox live arcade on the 13th of this month (I don’t know how that slipped past me).

The game titled Barf and Beer is solely based on who can drink the most. Here’s the description from marketplace.xbox.com:

This game was classified by the community with the following category scores – Violence=2/3, Sex=0/3, Mature Content=3/3. Chug your beer as fast as you can! Drink too much without burping and you’ll puke, wasting valuable drinking time! Punch your opponents while they’re burping to make THEM puke! Test your drinking skills against up to three other human or computer players at five difficulty levels!

I’m not sure how this game will go over but it’s only a measly 200 Microsoft points ($2.90) so I’ll be picking this up tonight and getting a real feel for it later on.

Expect a review.

Expect it to probably be bad.

Tonight I transferred my lovely smelling beer in to its secondary fermentation vessel, a 22 gallon food grade plastic carboy with bung and airlock.

The siphoning went well thanks to a tip from a home brew forum of filling the siphon tube with water then submerging the racking cane and allowing the water to pull the beer out of the bucket using simple physics. It worked really well and left me with nothing but trub in the bucket and a full carboy.

From Wikipedia:

In the process of brewing beer, trub (trubaceous matter; rhymes with “pub” in England but with “lube” in the U.S.) refers to the layer of sediment that appears at the bottom of the fermenter after yeast has completed the bulk of the fermentation. It is composed mainly of heavy fats, proteins and inactive yeast.

Side note: I automatically pronounced trub to rhyme with pub and not as “truoobe”

Here’s some pictures of the trub in the bucket after siphoning (unfortunately with a really long siphon hose two people were needed so my photographer was unable to take pictures).

 Click the pics for larger views

I filled the air lock with vodka which is a suggestion taken from How to Brew. I used the vodka method because I don’t have any taste safe sanitizer and not wanting to use water just in case of the off chance of it being sucked back in to the carboy and contaminating the beer. I moved the carboy to its new home for the next couple of weeks a.k.a. our hall closet.

 Click the pics for larger views

Just a few weeks now and I’ll be ready to bottle.

Excitement level is now steady at 3!

Just an update on day three. I just checked on the fermentation and the head has completely dropped. Might have to cancel the between TV show plans I had and rack to the secondary fermenter instead of dropping off a birthday present on the day of (Chris will understand).

An exciting note. I happened to inhale as I opened the bucket and it actually smells like beer! Not like wort!

Excitement has reached level 2.