Benjamin T. Johnson

This post originally appeared on Torontoist on January 2, 2013.

Beer industry insiders say big breweries spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year trying to influence what your bartender decides to put in the fridge.

Photo by The Nexus, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

You may think, when you go to a bar, that your choice of beer is entirely yours. But that decision may have been made well before you even put on your drinking pants—and not by the bar owners. According to industry insiders, it’s often the brewers who dictate what’s on tap.

In fact, insiders say, sometimes it’s brewers, not bar owners, who cover the expense of putting in those very tap lines. Because in Toronto, and across Ontario, keg-fridge space is expensive real estate. Read the rest of this entry »

An edited version of this post originally appeared on blogTO on March 6, 2012.

The LCBO is about to increase its stock of Toronto craft beer. Coming soon to a liquor store shelves are cans of Kensington Brewing Company’s Augusta Ale and Double Trouble’s Hops and Robbers.

While Toronto beer fans should be excited that we’ll now have a chance to take home a little more local variety from the city’s burgeoning craft beer scene, the accomplishment is all the more admirable when one has a little knowledge of just how daunting the LCBO’s process can be.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post was originally written as a proposed submission to blogTO to cover the event. Sadly, due to circumstances beyond my control, it was never actually published. 

Given that I went to the trouble of writing it and that the folks at Mill Street were good enough to cover the cost of my ticket, I thought I’d post it here so that at least someone might read it. 

The pictures were snapped by my friend, Leon. 

“And on my birthday, drink a ton of beer.”
~Robbie Burns

Read the rest of this entry »