What's 10 Months Between Friends?

Yep.

10 Months.


It's been quite a while. There are excuses, there are reasons. Mostly I've been busy. This summer I ran a food truck which consumed ALL of the time I had... and I mean all. Like 6 days a week 12 to 14 hours a day. The only time I had left was dedicated to sleeping, and mugging down a beer or two without much thought. Things still happened. I got out to Funk Fest at Sawdust City again this year. 4th year running. I got to see Stephen Stanley's solo performance at the brewery as well. Also managed to hit a couple of trivia nights. Other than that it was Fish and Chips, Burgers, Tacos and a metric tonne of french fries. I've only recently been able to get all of the grease out of my pores. After the truck finished for the year I embarked on the renovation our kitchen here at Pint Jockey Headquarters. What was supposed to take 1 week has now taken over 2 weeks and I still have a number of small jobs to finish. It was one of those things where everything you touched took twice or three times longer than expected. Plus it came with several surprises like having to replace the toilet and the bathroom floor before I could finish fixing the plumbing in the kitchen. It is pretty much done now and completely usable so I figure I can afford some time to myself to pick up the blog again.

Halloween is fast approaching and we are knee-deep in pumpkin beer season. Fortunately, I haven't seen many around. I think we tried 2? when we went down to Stratford for our annual Festival trip (I'm spotlighting two new breweries in two new posts stay tuned!). One was by Big Rig out of Ottawa and tasted like Dr. Pepper. I really hate pumpkin beers... please breweries, stop making them or at least make them taste good.

Big news is coming! There is a major trip coming up for the Pint Jockey Household. I'm holding back details until all the tickets are bought and passports acquired but we are going somewhere cool in December(?) and I'm taking the blog along. That does throw a wrench into my 2-4 Beers of Christmas Blog Series which is my most popular set of posts each year, however, I have it covered! I am working hard behind the scenes right now to fill up all of those posts and set up a publishing schedule so they go out daily while I am away. I still hope to add posts from our trip but the Internet will be (very) spotty and I'm not taking the chance. If I can't get anything published on the trip, it will all post in January when we return, but The 2-4 Beers of Christmas will run on schedule. Plus I will keep daily posts going through Instagram so make sure to follow me and keep up with my adventures in December.

That about updates you sports fans... Sorry for the long blank stare from the Pint Jockey Pages but work, sadly, always comes before play. Hopefully, we can all settle into a nice groove here and taste some beers.

Stay tuned...

Cheers
CJT

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Happy New Beers!

Yeah, yeah... I know it's the end of January... but what are you going to do? It's been a busy couple of weeks. We ended up having to hold a second Christmas because some family could not make it up over the holidays, and it seems like we have been going non-stop since mid-November. I did, however, manage to get a few beers put away in the back pocket over the holidays so I have quite a few to post today and over the next few days. (Including the last of the #2-4beersofchristmas) I was kind of upset with myself last year especially when I realised my post count was one of the lowest over the last 10 years (REALLY!?) yes this is my tenth year. I guess time flies when you drink. I remember one of my biggest goals was to try and reach 1000 beers, and I honestly didn't think that would be too hard. But here we are, ten years in and I am only about halfway. So I decided to make a promise to myself to do at least 100 posts again this year. I did it a few years ago and it worked out fine. I think since this is not really my job, and I don't have any real accountability in posting on a regular basis, having a self-imposed quota really does help. It is hard to remember sometimes that this is just a hobby, it does take up a fair amount of time and money. I have to travel to find new and interesting beers, I have to curate them (I have a huge library of beers in the #fridgeoffame, and the closets, and the basement. I really need my own room to do this. I also have to photograph, keep the blog looking fresh, and try to have a social media image. Twitter and Instagram is a huge time suck sometimes! But I do enjoy it. discovering new beers really gets me excited. The Queen knows (all too well) that if we are travelling somewhere that if I am quiet with my phone out, looking at maps... I'm usually plotting directions to the nearest brewery. She is very patient and loving with my addiction...

Plans for the year are a little up in the air. The Headquarters needs a new kitchen so, my vacation is going to be used for a greater cause than roaming the countryside looking for new beers. I wanted to try and hit a new beer festival this year, other than our local FunkFest, but that will remain to be seen if I can work that in. The other goal this year is a big family vacation South, way South... I will tell you more when I have tickets in hand (It's exciting! and yes there will be beer!)

As for the blog this year I have been thinking of some changes. I enjoy my current format but I am always looking for something that could streamline the process for me and help encourage me to write more. I may try a few new formats out this year but the content will still be the same. I am pondering dropping the numbering system. It was there for my original goal of getting to 1000 beers, but it seems to have lost it's meaning and doesn't add anything to the process. Plus it does seem that most people read the blog out of order anyway. So don't be surprised if that goes away I may retire it at beer # 500. I have also quietly added some embedded Google brewery maps that go mostly province by province. I have a few more to put up and I will try to revisit them regularly to make sure they are up to date. I am also working on the photojournal of breweries I have visited. So check out the new content. Hold on for some changes, because like George Lucas I just can't leave well enough alone. Have a good year Sportsfans and try to be nice to one another, it's a pretty tiny rock we live on.

Cheers

CJT

Where I have been...

Well sportsfans, I am back again after another too lengthy absence. The winter took a bit of a toll on me what with having 2 bouts of sickness and some pretty severe exhaustion due to an unusual workload; I haven't had much time to sit and write. Mind you I have had time to pick up interesting beers and sock them away much to the chagrin of The Queen of Pint  Jockey Headquarters who regularly insists I move them/drink them/ or just do something with them. I am however gearing up for the summer beer festival season Funk Fest is on the horizon, as is Sessions Muskoka ( which should be interesting to check out this year as stewardship of Sessions have switched to Sawdust City Brewing Company after Gryphon Events decided to exit the festival. I have a couple of road trips planned where I want to visit a few breweries that have been on my radar for awhile (more details will follow as plans firm up). If all goes well I may also have a big year end trip to somewhere special to write about, I'm not going to say much until I have the tickets in my hand but it is somewhere I have always wanted to go, stay tuned!

In other news, I have been streamlining the site for the last couple of days. I was always dissatisfied with my brewery links page and decided it was time for it to go. It was a monumental task to try and keep updated and honestly it is much easier to find web links these days so I didn't feel it was necessary. Instead, I put in a link to Mom and Hop's Ontario beverage Net's Brewer's List which is one of my go-to sources for beer information, and theirs is kept up to date (it's like they have staff or something... not just a cat like me...) Sadly it's only for Ontario, I can not seem to find a comprehensive list of all Canadian brewers, and while that does sound like a fun job... I do not have the time. The other link I have added is to directly replace the brewery links and it is more of a photojournal page. Every brewery I visit I will add in and post the main information about the brewery and some photos I took on my tour. I thought this would be easy, but as I started digging through my picture archives I do have a lot of brewery visits under my belt. I have a few in there now, check them out. I will add more as I go along.

Speaking of brewery visits, I had a chance to visit my second home townlast weekend: North Bay, Ontario. So I visited Highlander Brew Co. and New Ontario Brewing Company on my way up and came back with a little stack of loveliness. I am posting a few of these today and more as the week progresses.

Other than that. I'm just sitting here looking at my garden waiting for spring. Because my window has an over abundance of pepper plants in it. (My other hobby growing super hot peppers).


So lot's of new stuff coming (I'm excited are you excited?) keep in touch, check out the new links, and follow me on all the media platforms because I Instagram almost daily

Cheers

CJT

Carolina Reapers, Satan Strain Morugas, Apaches, Aji Limons

Fish, Black Panther, and more Apache peppers

Happy National Cat Day!

Perry says: Screw your camera... gimme the treats.

Happy National Cat Day from our Pint Jockey Headquarters Editor at Large and Chief Typo Inserter  Perry  (Periwinkle) T.

Well back at it again. I was hoping to spend more time with the blog this week as I was away from that thing which pays me money yet cuts into my drinking time. I believe the term for it is "Vacation," sadly it is not a word I use often enough to remember if that is the correct definition. I have a couple of posts coming up tonight and a few more tomorrow... before I have to go back to that place that pays me.

As Editor Perry says it is National Cat Day. I hope if you have a cat at home you can spare an extra few belly rubs, a treat or two, or a few extra tosses of the catnip mouse for our self-designated furry overlords.

Cheers

CJT and Perry

More Updates

In case you didn't guess. The title of yesterday's blog is a line from one of my favourite Cowboy Junkies songs:

This darn cold will not go away I still have a pretty beefy headache and a sore throat. However, I intend to soldier on. I have my tastebuds back and my nose is functioning adequately so I will continue with regular tastings. I did manage to get a bottle of Cheli's Barrel aged Pale Ale from Lake of Bays Brewery so look for that one, probably tomorrow night. Tonight I am dipping into a beer I have been dying to try. It comes from the Yukon!

Yukon is NORTH!

Next to the Icelandic beers, this will be one of the most Northerly Breweries I have tasted. And I think that only one of the Alaskan Breweries is more Northerly in North America. Other upcoming events here at Pint Jockey Headquarters: May 30th to June 6th is Ontario Craft Cider Week Which we will be celebrating by doing another week long spotlight on Craft Ciders (and maybe one or too not so craft ciders... we have to make fun of somebody...) And a week after that is the BIG EVENT in Toronto. OCB Week returns again launching on Father's Day weekend. I was hoping to get down to Session Toronto but my work schedule doesn't look promising. So I may be going down midweek again this year for the second Installment of my Live Blog OCB Week.

So stay tuned, lot's of good stuff coming down the pipe!

Cheers

CJT

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Updates

Brewery Links

I have been very busy this last week working behind the scenes to make the site more comprehensive. I have had some pages up for over a year that were intended to be links to the various breweries around Canada the US and the world. However, they have never been truly complete or organised. So I have filled in some of the blanks and will continue to do so for the next little while until most of the information is up to date. I will not even pretend to think that this is a complete list or that all the information is 100% accurate. Please feel free to contact me if you find any missing or inaccurate information, I will be more than happy to update it. You can send corrections to my Email pintjockey@gmail.com or comment on the bottom portion of this post. Also check back frequently as I continue to update the site. Thanks for reading!

Cheers


CJT



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Where's Waldo and Project Update

Back Again...

Well sportsfans I have returned... it has been a long, hot, grueling summer with not a lot of spare time to sit and think and therefore, as always, I must put aside my blog for a bit. However the job front has slowed and I feel I can breathe so it is time to delve into the fridge of fame again and return to the things I enjoy the most... Tasting beer and talking about it.

When I left you, oh so long ago, I planted a teaser. I announced "Project Dzunukwa" I am happy to report it's successful completion.

Meet Dzunukwa...

Dzunukwa is the planned replacement of my aging and long suffering main computer Prometheus. It is also my first purpose built computer, and was quite a fun project. I undertook the work with two very smart young men ages 8 and 10 who did all the heavy lifting... while I supervised (granted I did stay up all night working out the bugs, installing the software, and tweaking settings). It has an AMD 8 core  processor, an ASUS Crosshair V formula Z motherboard, 32 Gigabytes of Corsair Vengence RAM, 6.25 Terabytes of Storage, and a 2 Gigabyte Sapphire Radeon Graphics card. Oh yes, it makes my little nerd heart go pitter-patter. I plan still, a few more upgrades: expansion to 12.5 Terabytes of hard drive space, and another graphics card (for an extra monitor). After that I should be able to enjoy my newly built computer for quite a few years.

If you are wondering about the name...  I was planning a big beast of a computer so I needed a big beast of a name. I prefer to name my computers after Mythology, hence Prometheus (The bringer of Fire). So I was shopping around for a good name when I had a discussion about Haida woodworking and Kwakwaka'wakw masks. I came across a mask I really liked called Dzunukwa: This one.

Dzunukwa is called the "Wild Woman." A fearsome ogre that frightens children and will eat them if she catches them. She is often associated with Sasquatch (which was the deciding factor for me!). It is said the Kwakwaka'wakw people captured Dzunukwa and burned her for many days to destroy her. Eventually, when she could not rise again, her ashes floated off and became mosquitoes. 

Well I am off again on another adventure of beer tasting. If you would like to read a bit more about the fascinating Kwakwaka'wakw people there is an article Here. I would also suggest going to Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver if you are able to.

Thanks for hanging out with me... Crack open a beer and stay awhile.

Cheers

CJT