Today is my good friend and colleague Stephen Beaumont’s 44th birthday. In addition to his World of Beer, he also blogs online at On the House and That’s the Spirit. And when you’re in Toronto, be sure to stop in at his beer bistro. Join me in wishing Stephen a happy birthday.

Stephen with Tom Dalldorf at the Great Divide reception at last year’s GABF.

Stephen Beaumont and his fiance Maggie, and me, in the Bay Area for the Celebrator anniversary party a couple of years ago.

Stephen, Tom Dalldorf and me at 21st Amendment for a roast I threw for Tom’s 60th birthday several years ago.

Up against the wall with Judy Ashworth at GABF two years ago.

Today is beer blogger extoradinaire Alan McLeod’s 45th birthday. Alan runs a good beer blog, called — curiously enough — A Good Beer Blog. I’m not sure what came first, the goodness or the blog. Anyway, though I’ve yet to meet Alan in person I feel as if he’s already a great, not just good, friend through our many conversations via e-mail and commenting on one another’s blogs. If you haven’t read his essay in the book Beer & Philosophy yet, rush right out and buy yourself a copy. Join me in wishing Alan the very merriest of birthdays. Cheers, mate.

Alan pondering the mysteries of Stonehenge at age 7.

A night with bald pate, circa 2002.

Contemplating a jump near Prince Edward Island a dozen years ago. Happily, he decided against getting wet.

Last summer, Labatt USA moved its headquarters from Connecticut to Buffalo, New York. The Associated Press is reporting that Labatt USA has now added a buffalo to their beer label to reflect their new business location. “Labatt USA President Glen Walter hand-delivered a case of the newly labeled beer to Mayor Byron Brown Thursday. In exchange, Brown proclaimed Thursday ‘Labatt USA Day.’” I can’t find an image of the new label anywhere, but I’m curious to see what it looks like. Is it a blue buffalo?

Continuing my recent posts about beer and chocolate, my good friend and colleague, Stephen Beaumont, in his monthly feature for February, also tackles pairing the two. He nicely takes to task fellow Canadian wine writer Natalie MacLean, for her own list of wines to pair with Valentine’s Day treats. Beaumont takes her list of ten chocolate desserts and suggests some delightful sounding matches. Since her original wine pairings came from an e-mailed newsletter, I don’t know what wines she chose for the desserts (NOTE: Ms. MacLean has been kind enough to post those wine pairings in a comment, to see them please click on “Comments” below), but they can’t have been anywhere near as perfect as the beer. It will be certainly interesting to see if MacLean takes the bait and agrees to a side-by-side tasting of both.

There was an interesting little piece in Canada’s McGill Daily today, about their alcohol laws. I knew about them to some degree and was at least aware that beer from one province couldn’t necessarily be sold in another without a high tariff. Essentially it’s the same as if you couldn’t sell beer from Oregon in California without a ridiculously high tax that made, for example, Deschutes Black Butte Porter as expensive as Westmalle or Chimay. Naturally, it was done this way to protect local and regional businesses from outside competition but it seems weird that Canada would feel that way about their own provinces. But perhaps we just take the interstate commerce laws we have here for granted. Are the majority of other countries set up with porous state borders or are they protectionist? I’ve never really looked at that, does anybody know? I’ll be interested to hear what my Canadian friends think about this. Stephen? Alan? Greg? Anyone else?

There was an amusing little spoof on the Canadian humor site The Toque called “Plant Your Own Beer Garden.” They suggest simply planting the bottles in the ground, but caution against “over-planting. Too many beers in one garden will result in a watery, low-alcohol “lite” beer.”

UPI has a funny story that happened Saturday night — where else but in Canada — in which a woman was saved from serious injury by beer. At an NHL match between the Calgary Flames and the Vancouver Canucks, Glennis Bradshaw felt beer splatter on her head, which understandably caused her to bolt upright in her seat and look up. As she did, a man fell from the balcony above, landing on her lap instead of her head as would have happened only a split second before. Apparently two men in the upper level both slipped while carrying beer back to their seats and fell over the railing. One landed on Bradshaw, breaking an ankle and knocking himself unconscious, while the other landed two rows ahead without injury. Glennis Bradshaw’s thigh was bruised but was otherwise okay, noting “it’s not often young men fall in my lap. Thing is, normally I’d like them conscious.”

According to an article in today’s Montreal Gazette, Canadians are increasingly looking to buy better tasting beer. And like their American cousins, the big Canadian breweries are flooding the market with faux or stealth microbrews in order to compete with craft brewers. With these faux craft beers, they’re trying to fool customers into thinking they’re getting just want they want, a beer that’s been hand-crafted to taste great.

Labatt has a line called Alexander Keith, named for an early brewer in Nova Scotia. MolsonCoors, likewise, has Rickard’s family of brands. Both Rickard’s and Keith’s are listed on their respective company websites and acknowledged as their brands. Alexander Keith’s own website does disclose that it’s a Labatt brand, but only in the legal stuff like “terms of use.” They certainly don’t go out of their way to associate themselves with the parent company.

An interesting parallel, though the article goes on to discuss tarrifs between provinces and what their removal will mean for small players. I don.t know enough about the market to form an opinion, but it’s an interesting read.

Alexander Keith’s IPA, owned by Labatt; and Rickard’s Red, owned by MolsonCoors.

The Steam Whistle Brewery, of Toronto, Canada, has announced its employees have decided to send a week’s worth of their beer rations, an employee benefit, to Candian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. The company has stated that they’ll match the employee donations. According to the The Canadian Press, “troops are allowed to have liquor on the base three times during the year, including Christmas,” even though as a Muslim nation beer is hard to come by.
 

Canadian troops will receive limited edition Steam Whistle pilsner holiday twelve-packs like the one pictured here.

There was an interesting rant in today’s Canada Free Press by a Dr. W. Gifford Jones who was incensed about a Canadian brewer who was told he could not inform his customers about any health claims about his beer whatsoever under Canadian law. Dr. Jones used that incident as a jumping off place to question the hypocrisy in this aspect of Canadian society, which undoubtedly parallels that of the U.S., at least with respect to this issue.

Sleeman Breweries, of course, has had a for sale sign around it since May so this announcement came as no surprise. Only who had an element of surprise to it. Late Friday, the Japanese company Sapporo announced it has offered $17.50 a share in cash, which works out to $400 million (though some reports say $300 million), for the purchase of Sleeman Breweries.

If the sale is approved and completed, the three largest Canadian breweries will be owned by foreign companies. Molson Coors in number one and number two, Labatt’s, is owned by the Belgian company InBev. Sleeman is currently in the number three spot.

John Sleeman, CEO of Sleeman Breweries, holding a bottle of Trois Pistoles from Unibroue, the best brewery in Sleeman’s portfolio.

Not being a Canuck, I wasn’t too familiar with the Ontario-based Lakeport Brewing, whose full name is the scary-sounding Lakeport Brewing Income Fund. Based on what I’ve read today and from looking at their website, they appear to be a regional brewery that makes primarily industrial light lagers, in other words not a craft brewery. But what I found interesting is that they added canned beer to their portfolio this spring and, according to several stories today in the Canadian press, apparently it’s exceeding their wildest expectations. There are articles in today’s Toronto Star and the Hamilton Spectator. Three of their styles were made available in 355 ml cans — Pilsner, Honey Lager and Lakeport Light.