One thing I learned during my time at McGill is that not much the administration says or does makes sense – which is why I was so relieved to find an independent outlet within the McGill community to exercise my journalistic curiosities and, heck, even teach me a thing or two.

The editors use the phrase “The McGill Daily School of Journalism” to describe an annual spate of lectures and workshops offered to members of the Daily Publications Society (that’s any student at McGill), but it also refers to the paper itself. Without a structured, academic forum to learn about the importance and possibilities of journalism, the student body turns to its newspapers to foster debate, offer perspective, and inform opinion.

Every hand that works to produce an issue of The Daily – editors, designers, cartoonists, writers, and those they interview – invests in the promotion of community dialogue and profits from the experience of its creation. Detractors often question the relevance of an independent news source paid for by the student body. They see a campus divided into Trib readers and Daily readers, and form stereotypes accordingly. I assure you though, McGill needs The Daily every bit as much as The Daily needs its contributors and your $6 a semester.

Besides offering an opposing voice to an otherwise one-sided discourse, The Daily provides an exceptional training ground for a profession in dire need of quality journalists. Many alumnni have gone on to notable careers or prestigious journalism schools with only The Daily on their resumes. Their rallying cry of “a voice for the voiceless” strikes at the heart of journalism’s purpose and is the seed of journalistic integrity.

One dollar is hardly a price to put on The Daily’s invaluable service. Its absence would be an unpatchable hole in the fabric of McGill.

Joseph Watts was Daily Coordinating Culture editor, 2004-2006, and a Daily columnist, 2007-2009.

Read more alumni letters here.

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Though there are, and will always be, those for whom beer is a golden, tasteless alcohol, our status as college students makes us receptive to such encouragement. We seek out variety in all we ingest – food, drink, fields of study – and right now we drink more beer than we ever will again. Writing a beer column in a university newspaper is like advocating safe sex in a whorehouse. Sure, it looks good on paper, but the idea’s a no-brainer.

Beer journalism is important, but if this is your first time reading or your first time paying attention, it’s also your last. So what’s a student to do? Luckily, there’s an event approaching that will accomplish for the novice beer drinker in one afternoon what a year-and-a-half of beer columns might get you through.

Montreal’s largest and most successful beer festival, the Mondial de la Bière, enjoys its 16th annual installment during the first week of June. The event has garnered substantial respect from beer geeks both foreign and domestic, due in part to the festival’s reputation of deftly showcasing remote international breweries alongside little-known breweries from right here in Quebec.

This formula for success becomes apparent when Jeannine Marois, the president and founder of the Mondial, explains why her festival is devoted to beer: “Because I love it. It’s a great community of small businesses filled with passion and it extends wherever you go. You can travel the world drinking with nice people.”

The Mondial de la Bière was surely a labour of love. It lost money in each of its first seven years. However, if the crowds of recent years are an indication, 2009 will be a fruitful year for Marois, with over 120 breweries submitting about 300 beers.

Montreal is truly the perfect city for an international celebration of handcrafted brews, because, as Marois explains, “We are an open city. People are willing to discover new things which I think is part of our cultural signature.”

This is what makes the beer festival such an effective entrance to the world of craft brewing. Whereas the world of microbrewing, characterized by small business and regionalism, is often derided for its exclusivity, the conglomerate beer festival is a solution to this. You can read about the stuff all you want, but it’s a whole different story when you go out there and have a beer.

For the uninitiated, a beer festival can be a daunting place. On June 3, the Mondial de la Bière will kick off five days of festivities at Windsor Station, spilling out into the courtyard directly adjacent to the Bell Centre. The concept is simple: get a tasting glass and a fist full of tickets costing a buck each, then mill around the booths getting a three-or-four-ounce sample for one to five tickets. If that’s not enticing enough, there will be panels of professional brewers discussing the biz, a contest judged by an international jury, and plenty of entertainment.

Yet, the true value of the Mondial de la Bière is its global spectrum. The inclusion of multiple beers from beyond North America makes the festival a forum for the interaction of many brewing cultures. For the first time, seven Japanese breweries will be featured, including Kinshashi, Harvest Moon, and Brewmaster, which is said to be rare even in Japan.

Marois traveled to Japan to personally hand-pick each microbrewery, but she says it was worth the effort just to give the foreign breweries a venue. “We bring breweries that have never been to Canada and that you won’t see anywhere else. That’s something pretty amazing to do.”

The added effort is not designated solely to beer from great distances. For the seven breweries from Ontario that will be featured this year, provincial importation policies and tariffs added consternation for Marois and her team. “Getting beer from Ontario was as difficult as getting it from France because the SAQ makes it hard and costly,” says Marois. “If I was doing this to make money, I would never do it.”

Luckily for Quebec’s brewers, this has made the Mondial de la Bière primarily a showcase for local beer. Around 70 per cent of the breweries featured this year will be from within the province, and size is not a barrier. Booths have been given to groups like Distribière, a co-op of smaller breweries from as far as the Îles de-la-Madeleine north of Prince Edward Island, which makes it possible to sell their beer in Montreal.

Marois acknowledges that a festival like hers may be essential to Quebec beer. The grouping of the many elements of a large provincial industry unifies a local beer community and, as mentioned before, informs the beer-drinking public of the merits of said community.

Furthermore, Marois will be doing Quebec beer an even greater service when she features local breweries this October in Strasbourg, France during the first Mondial de la Bière in Europe.

As a final counsel to my readers, if you are staying in Montreal for the summer, head to Windsor Station in early June for an excellent start to the city’s many summer festivals. Keep an eye out for me; we’ll grab a beer.

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It’s not hard to admit that the prevailing undertones of the beer world are masculine ones. If we are to believe the dated notions that beer is the working class beverage and working class families are supported by a sole (male) breadwinner, then the brews in the fridge must be Dad’s, right? Wrong, says the growing number of women who drink, brew, advocate, and otherwise enjoy beer, and they want you to know it.

In honour of last Sunday, International Women’s Day, I propose a look into the crusade to eradicate gender discrepancies from beer. With goals ranging from the promotion of female presence in the brewing community to the eventual erasure of fratboy beer marketing, there are women upsetting the male-dominated breweries of North America.

Alyson Tomlin was drawn to beer after teaching others how to brew at a brew-on-premises store 11 years ago. But when she decided to pursue her love of beer in a career as a brewer, she was met with negative feedback. “I even had one old guy say, ‘You can’t brew; you’re a girl,’” says Tomlin. “Well, then I had to do it.”

Now, at 31, Tomlin is the operations manager at the R&B Brewing Company in Vancouver and one of the relatively few female brewers in Canada. Even though the staff of R&B is 50 per cent women and 50 per cent men, she still sees herself as “one of the guys.” Entrance into the “old boys club” of professional craft-brewing is difficult, Tomlin says, due in part to the physicality of brewing on small, manual systems. “When I was hired, my boss said, ‘If you can’t physically do it, we’re letting you go.’ I’m sure he doesn’t say that to guys.”

Such constraints hinder the development of a female presence in the brewing profession and reinforce the stereotype that women don’t know beer. For the record, Tomlin believes women make better beer drinkers with better palates, and I agree. Just take a look at the Pink Boots Society, which counts Tomlin among its members.

Started by Teri Fahrendorf in Portland, Oregon, the Pink Boots Society was “formed to inspire, encourage, and empower women to become professionals in the beer industry.” The society has members from all over the world but most successfully advocates for the recognition of female brewers in North America. “It’s a sisterhood,” says Tomlin, “It says we can do this and we worked our asses off to do it.”

At this year’s Craft Brewers Conference in Boston, the Pink Boots Society will participate in seminars on women in craft-brewing and women as a target audience for craft beer. If you want more evidence that the gender wall is breaking in the world of beer, just look locally: Laura Urtnowski co-owns and brews Boréale, Ellen Bounsall co-owns the McAuslan Brewery, and Jeannine Marois founded Montreal’s major beer festival, Le Mondial de la Bière. It may be a small community, but it’s growing fast.

With gender more equalized in the brewing world, perhaps a unified Canadian beer culture might more easily emerge. Tomlin is optimistic. “Maybe that’s the secret part about being a girl that the guys don’t see – the idea that if we work together, it’s going to benefit us all in the long run.”

Tell Joe about your favorite High Life ad at allhoppedup@gmail.com. All Hopped Up will be back with more brew-news every other Thursday.

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1. All good beer begins in the mind of a good brewer. More often than not, a brewmaster starts brewing on his stove and upgrades his set-up again and again, until one day he has a brewery. For Mercier, homebrewing was a “super cheap way for a 19-year-old to make 12 per cent beer.” But as craft brewing picked up in Montreal, it caught his interest.

Mercier is fascinated by both Belgian brewing traditions and highly-hopped West Coast styles. The tap list at Benelux aims for originality with creative hybrids like the Semuta, a Belgian saison supercharged with hops from the Pacific Northwest.

2. Today Mercier brewed his West Coast India Pale Ale. Rather than employing Belgian influences, Mercier toned down a recipe for a strong Imperial IPA he concocted when Benelux opened in April 2006.

Like homebrewing entirely with grains, the first step is to mash barley malt and extract all the sugary liquid. The second step, the sparge, is contained within this commercial mash tun.

3. Assistant brewer Philippe Tremblay adds a dose of hops to the brew kettle as the unfermented beer, known as wort, boils.

Though Mercier and Tremblay both deny their status as beer geeks, citing professionalism, Mercier’s eyes light up when he talk about hops. “Pacific hops can be broken down into three categories of taste,” he explains. “For instance, you can taste grapefruit flavors in most big American varieties, but Simcoe hops have interesting resiny cedar flavors.”

4. Still, it’s not hard to at least look like a geek in a brewery. After the wort cools, it is pumped into 900-litre fermenters seen here. One major difference between homebrewers and professionals is the attention given to yeast, held here in flasks. Major breweries will have scientists and labs devoted to culturing yeast and keeping it healthy. Their methods and yeast strains are often kept under tight lock and key.

Keep an eye out for Benelux’s 3rd anniversary bash in April, and for inside tips on the best beers of the bunch, e-mail Joe at to allhoppedup@gmail.com.

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Kate the Great, as the beer is called, wasn’t such a hot topic before December 2007, when the readers of BeerAdvocate Magazine rated it the number one beer in America and the number two beer on Planet Earth. The magazine is the periodical of the popular web site beeradvocate.com, which has over 175,000 members, most of whom are self-labelled beer geeks – lovers, defenders, and sometimes, to a fault, crusaders of craft-brewed beer. Such an accolade for Kate the Great created enough hype to give rise to Kate Day, the name given to the not-to-be-missed celebration of its release.

Kate, an Imperial Russian stout, named after the Russian Empress Catherine II (an old style which lent the term “Imperial” to the extreme beer movement) connotes a beer more concentrated in flavour, character, and alcohol.

These extreme styles of beer are often given very limited releases because their market base is composed of exactly the type of craft drinkers who would make such a big hype. The beer-drinking public is not typically drawn to such beers. Yet, on Monday afternoon, a line will form around the block at the Portsmouth Brewery, with people travelling from afar to secure one of about 900 bottles. If the most recent Kate Day this past June is an indication, they’ll sell out within 24-hours.

The anticipation for Kate the Great is bred at online beer-rating web sites like beeradvocate.com and ratebeer.com. Their member forums overflow with predictions on changes in ranking (currently the stout is number five overall online), the distances travelled to make it to Portsmouth, and even arguments as to the motives of beer geeks.

“I am fascinated with the modern beer geek who has to have everything – at any price usually – just because it has been deemed the latest and greatest on the Internet,” writes one member of beeradvocate.com about Kate the Great. The buzz that a high ranking generates appears to be the main draw for many drinkers, who respond to such cynicism with validation – “I want [Kate the Great] because of the hype around it. I haven’t had it yet so I want to try it.”

However, others say that it’s as much about the journey as it is about the reward. As much as these beer geeks believe in drinking locally and supporting regional brewers, the thrill of attaining a bottle they have heard much about is a major draw.

Whether time and money is expended in trading for these limited-release beers – there is an intricate trade network made possible by these web sites – or great lengths are undergone to acquire the beer at its source, beer geeks find the search fulfilling.

Montreal’s own Dieu du Ciel! brewpub once had its own buzz-worthy beer. Another Imperial stout, Péché Mortel, elicited as much clamouring as Kate the Great – that is, before Dieu opened a large-scale bottling brewery and saturated the market. At 16th overall on beeradvocate.com, Péché Mortel holds its own, but after seeing it in a beer store on the West Coast, I knew that it was no longer in the same league.

It’s hard to say if Kate the Great will follow Péché Mortel’s path. So long as the Portsmouth Brewery maintains its rarity and there are still beer geeks jonesing for that ultimate Imperial stout, the hype will live on.

All Hopped Up appears every other Thursday. All grail-related mail can be sent to allhoppedup@gmail.com.

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Where to buy good beer is the question I’m asked the most. It seems that people are interested in drinking quality brew but reluctant to shell out $7 a pint at a bar. But never fear! There are deps that suit your purpose if you’re after something more than a Molson Ex. Well, actually, some aren’t deps – in fact they may scoff at the stereotype that beer needs be sold next to bottles of Porte d’Enfer. Nevertheless, these four establishments are the best purveyors of local, craft-brewed beer in the city. Along with a description, each review has the manager’s pick, my own, and a reason to go more than once.

All photos by Joseph Watts / The McGill Daily

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Les Délires du Terroir

6406 St.-Hubert

This small shop in Rosemount is big on beer, as long as it’s from Quebec. Owner Sylfranc Côté orders beers with age in mind so that two or three years from now that strong beer will be at its best. Côté is also passionate about pairing beer with food. They have a fine working relationship with sausages from Le Queue de Cochon, the artesian butcher next door.

Selection: 195 styles, all from Quebec

Manager’s Pick: La Barbarie – India Pale Ale

All Hopped Up’s Pick: À l’Abri de la Tempête – Corne de Brume an aged scotch ale

Reason to come back: When the Saint Reserve beers from Microbrasserie Charlevoix arrive, you’ll have a chance to taste what Côté considers to be Quebec’s best beer.

Épicerie José inc.

470 Duluth E.

The “most like a classic dep” dep. You can stop pick up a loaf of bread or cigarettes on your way home and get lost amid a staggering beer selection, or roped into one of their weekly beer, cider, or wine tastings. Épicerie José gets brownie points for having the best prices of the bunch with lots of deals on 12 packs and 6 packs you can make yourself.

Selection: 350 styles total, about 200 from Quebec brewers

Manager’s Pick: Les Trois Mousquetaires – Signature Series

All Hopped Up’s Pick: Something from the brand new Brasseurs de Montreal

Reason to come back: Tastings. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, from 5-9 p.m.

Super Marché Rahman

151 Laurier O.

The ultimate beer dep, “Le Paradis de la Bière” has been a purveyor of Quebec microbrews for 18 years. Its massive selection places forties of Black Label next to magnums of nobler stuff, but the shining stars are the five kinds of house beer. Rahman himself formulated the recipes for the Paradisiac beers – traditional styles brewed with Indian spices, all bottled at local breweries.

Selection: around 500 styles, 250-300 of which are from Quebec

Manager’s Pick: Paradisiac Scotch Ale

All Hopped Up’s Pick: Paradisiac Cuivrée – a strong, hoppy beer Reason to come back: Trying a different beer each time you come in will keep you busy for years.

Fromagerie Atwater

Atwater Market

Okay, it’s a cheese shop, but they’re serious about their beer. With 20 new styles in since Christmas, they’re constantly updating their supply with the freshest, most current offerings from Quebec’s micro breweries. The best part is that you can shop for the best cheese to pair with your beer in the same store. Just ask any of the knowledgeable staff who will gladly tell you what complements what.

Selection: 125 styles total, 95 from Quebec brewers

Manager’s Pick: Au Maitre Brasseur – Noire de Fromagerie Atwater

All Hopped Up’s Pick: Buy a bottle of Maudite from Unibroue and a cheese called Le Fêtard which spent its formative years being washed in the aforementioned stuff

Reason to come back: Lots of beer, lots of cheese, lots of tasty combo possibilities.

Find All Hopped Up in the Mind&Body section every other Thursday. Can’t wait? Send Joe your top ten encounters with your elderly, smiling dep manager to allhoppedup@gmail.com.

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I’ve skipped over a few things – you’ve got to sanitize some stuff here, and let other stuff cool off there – but this is the general process, from raw ingredients to finished beer. Get all your supplies at Chope à Barrock (4709 St. Dominique), where the helpful owner will answer any questions you might have.

1. Mash: Malted barley that has been very coarsely ground is mixed with water and heated in a vessel called the mash tun. This process converts all the starches into sugars that will later be turned into alcohol by the yeast. Homebrew beginners often skip this step, as they don’t work with raw grains.

2. Sparge: The mashed grains are sprinkled with hot water to make sure all the sweet liquid (wort) is rinsed into the brew kettle.

3. Brew: A sample of the wort is taken before adding it to the kettle where it will be boiled for about an hour.

4. Pitch/Ferment: Yeast comes in either dry or liquid forms. After adding, or pitching the yeast to the now cooled wort, the proto-beer will ferment in clean and sealed containers for around two weeks. (The real last step is bottling, but you can figure that one out yourself.)

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My favourite remedy for a mid-winter cold is a hot toddy – heated lemonade with a shot of scotch and a spoonful of honey. A Saturday of snow fights and sledding is finished best with a hot chocolate doctored with the deliciously herbal liqueur Chartreuse. But this isn’t to say you should run from beer when it drops to the negatives.

The Winter Warmer is a style of beer hailing from the English brewing tradition. These malty sweet brews are all about body and alcohol in the flavour. They have little hop bitterness but are often spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and other festive aromatics, influenced by the archaic “wassail,” a heavy ale mixed with spices drunk during Twelfth Night and Christmas ceremonies.

It makes sense then that Winter Warmers are often referred to as holiday ales or Christmas beers. Their seasonal release has many Quebecois brewers formulating new brews. One such beer is La Rudolphe ($13.99 for 750mL) from Microbrasserie Saint-Arnould in Mont-Tremblant. This self-proclaimed ambrée des fêtes is a true Winter Warmer. It pours a cloudy ruby red with a beautiful, thick head on top and has a spicy aroma that conjures up images of sugar plum fairies.

The taste follows suit: a malty sweetness is fronted by caramel tones and underscored with hints of spruce and even cranberry. The spices used in brewing bring out these wintry flavors while the 6.2 per cent alcohol by volume (ABV) brings some warmth.

I also found that there are ways to ruin a perfectly good festive beer. Brasserie Breughel’s Bière de Noël ($6.29 for 500mL) is a downright Grinch of a beer. Though I’m sure the yuletide spirit thrives in the tiny village of St-Germain de Kamouraska, it has escaped the brewers of Bière de Noël. Listed as an Extra Strong Dark Ale, this brew clocks in at 11 per cent ABV and is flavoured with hops and coriander, a spice usually relegated to Belgian Wit beers.

The taste is harsh – like rotgut whiskey – and relies on the coriander to back up the alcohol, unlike other Winter Warmers which employ a traditionally malty body for a hearty, warming beer.

Generally, Winter Warmers are best when eaten with sweets (enter all Christmas food), dark chocolate, or sweeter cheeses. Another beer that achieves the same results is the German Doppelbock. The syrupy sweet Aventinus ($3.50 for 500mL) from Bavaria’s G. Schneider & Sohn is brewed with wheat, adding a sour contrasting note to the sweet flavour. The result was a perfect pairing for the sweet mooncake left over from the recent Mid-Autumn Festival in Chinatown.

Both Quebecois beers are available at the vastly underrated dépanneur Épicerie José inc. (corner of Duluth and Berri), and the Aventinus is supposed to be available at all SAQs, but I only found it at the SAQ Express on Mont Royal and Clark. Once you track these beers down, it will make your winter drunker, warmer, and definitely more bearable.

Feel like Christmas is coming too early this year? Blame Joe. You can find him at allhoppedup@gmail.com.

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When a company spends so much money on advertising, every decision is made with the calculated precision of branding. In 2009, a 30-second slot during the Super Bowl, arguably Budweiser’s most effective medium, will cost an average of US$3-million. That much money makes even an absurd ad campaign – like two guys on couches yelling “Waazzaaaaaa” into the telephone – a planned investment on the part of Budweiser.

[Note: this particular advertisement has come back to haunt Anheuser-Busch in the form of an Obama ’08 support spot. The brewing company, which never bought the full rights for the concept when the original ad ran eight years ago, can do nothing but watch as the popularity of their product is used to endorse a presidential candidate. Google “Wassup Obama” to catch the clip.]

Anheuser-Busch’s has rolled out yet another American campaign for Budweiser, this time heralding it as “The Great American Lager.” Now, I may be wrong, but apart from the value judgment of “great,” this statement is a given. Nothing short of apple pie is more American than an ice-cold, red-white-n-blue can of Bud, preferably drunk while wearing a trucker hat, unironically. With the amount of branding behind the Budweiser behemoth, what would prompt them to such redundancy? Actually, it’s a good story.

Anheuser-Busch was America’s largest brewing company – it made US$16.7-billion last year. I say was because as of this summer, its owners are no longer Americans. In a dramatic turn of events, Belgian-Brazilian beverage mega-corporation InBev bought Anheuser-Busch for almost US$52-billion. InBev, the largest brewing company in the world – owners of Stella Artois, Hoegaarden, Leffe (hence the convenient mix-packs at Provigo!), and 200 other brands including Canada’s own Kokanee and Labatt – can now boast the addition of the American heavyweight to its line-up. To save face, Anheuser-Busch now needs to explain to all those red-blooded, McCain-votin’ Bud drinkers that their beer still loves freedom and hates abortions, no matter how Belgian its brewers are.

That is why Budweiser is now being pushed as “the Great American Lager,” and it doesn’t stop there. After 132 years of brewing nothing but lager, and its variants, Budweiser brewed an ale. And, surprise, they named it Budweiser American Ale. It hit shelves in the States last month. For the uninitiated, lagers and ales are the flora and fauna of the beer kingdom. Every beer is either one or the other, and they differ in the type of fermentation: lagers ferment cold and generally produce light, crisp beer, while ales ferment warm and are generally heavier and more flavourful.

Earlier this year, the new Budweiser ad campaign, “Lager Lessons,” featured a buxom barmaid or b-list funny man extolling the virtues of the “refreshing lager” over the “heavy import” [read: ale]. Releasing Budweiser American Ale after explaining why a lager is so much better might seem counterintuitive, but I see it as just another marketing strategy. Their target is now another important North American market: the craft beer drinker.

Craft beer drinkers in both America and Canada are largely ale drinkers. This may be due to the reimagining of styles like pale ale and India pale ale in North America, or it may be a revolt against the shit lagers that dominate the fridges of those who don’t care what they drink, like Molson and, you guessed it, Bud. Anheuser-Busch does have a “craft beer” brand, Michelob, but it’s not their flagship, Budweiser is. So either Budweiser is diversifying its brand or they lost a bet. But for those who know Budweiser for what it is, it’s hard not to see American Ale as anything but a craft beer knock-off.

But beer geeks are curious, so I tried it. Bud’s proclaimed goal is a “new style of ale…one that is not too heavy or too bitter,” and it’s hard to say if they succeeded. Budweiser American Ale is a dark copper, lightly carbonated beer with very little body and, consequentally, too much hops. It is close enough in approximation to Boréale Rousse to be compared, but it has a hoppy quality that our dive bar favourite lacks. It has a sharp, metallic and medicinal bitterness that lingers long after it is swallowed. This is not a beer that needs to be tried twice to grasp its intentions, but I doubt that will hurt sales.

The lesson here is that Anheuser-Busch is a genius when it comes to marketing its product. Perhaps this is why it was recently named “Large Brewing Company of the Year” at the prestigious Great American Beer Festival. Their American Ale is a double whammy, aimed at both the craft beer drinkers and the I-only-drink-Bud-from-the-can drinkers. The bottle lists ingredients and their origins like any craft beer, but insist that their barley is grown in “America’s Heartland,” or, you know, Sarah Palin’s “real America.”

In the end, what the American Ale looks like to me is an attempt by Anheuser-Busch to bridge the gap between those who drink Budweiser religiously and those who’ve moved on and probably haven’t drank it since they stole it from the fridge in their dad’s rumpus room. However, they should have brewed a better beer if they wanted to hold the beer geek’s attention. But then again, after the InBev merger most beer geeks turned their eyes to this piece of good news: with Anheuser-Busch’s sale, the largest American-owned brewery has become the Boston Beer Company, not only the owner of Sam Adams, but a craft brewing pioneer.

All Hopped up appears every other Thursday in the Mind&Body section. Send your “Wazzaaaaaa’s” to Joe at allhoppedup@gmail.com.

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I like to think that beer should be drunk with barbeque because the two share an amazing regional quality. Ribs, like beer, are unique to wherever it’s made. Each regional variation of barbeque has its own sauce, and the belief that all others are inferior. In North Carolina, vinegar-based sauce is king, whereas South Carolinian barbeque has a mustard-base; that familiar tomato-y stuff most of us think of as “Bar-B-Q sauce” hails from Memphis.

As a Yankee with no sauce to pledge allegiance to, when I chow down on ‘que I try as many as possible with hopes of chancing upon just the right combination of flavours. The same approach should be taken to pairing beer with barbeque, and with all food. We need to go beyond the image of a suburban dad manning the grill, “kiss the cook” apron on, ice-cold light beer in hand.

As a general rule, when pairing food and beer try for a good match: hearty food requires hearty beer, more delicate food needs a pilsner or similar lager. You’ll soon find most food has a beer that will enhance its experience. For barbeque, it’s ale.

To test this theory I paired two beers against a spread of chicken, beef ribs, and pork ribs, all from Bofinger Barbeque Smokehouse (5667 Sherbrooke O.).

A trip to the ultimate beer depanneur, Super Marché Rahman – known to many as “La Paradis de la Bière” (151 Laurier O.) – yielded an imperial IPA brewed especially for Rahman by Au Maître Brasseur in Laval: La Paradisiac Cuivrée. It is a strong, hoppy beer that can stand up to the intense flavours of Bofinger’s ribs. At 7.5 per cent alcohol by volume (ABV), La Paradisiac Cuivrée has plenty of malty body to answer the intensely smoky meat, while the strong bitterness from the hops plays well with the flavourful sauce.

To eat with the chicken, which had a sweeter, apple cider vinegar sauce, I broke out the spoils of a recent trip to the States. Brother Adam’s Bragget Ale is a barleywine brewed with honey from Atlantic Brewing Company in Bar Harbor, Maine. Barleywines are very potent beers packed with malt, known for their alcohol and sweetness. The honey in Brother Adam’s Bragget keeps this sweetness in the foreground while an 11.8 ABV gives it enough balls for barbeque.

An equally appropriate, local choice is La Brune au Miel, from Microbrasserie du Lièvre. Though not a barleywine, this honey brown ale provides the answer to any finger-lickin’ sauce and a 6.5 ABV provides a little oomph.

Next time you head to Bofinger, or any barbeque joint, put some thought into what you’ll be drinking as you tuck into that smokey goodness. Sure Bofinger Moosehead on draft, but hopefully by now you will agree that such wimpy beers will hardly suffice.

Send tips on where to buy a sweet “kiss the cook” apron to allhoppedup@gmail.com.

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In Munich there’s a Hofbrauhaus
One, two, drink!
That’s where the kegs are rolled out
One, two, drink!

Everyone has an idea about what Oktoberfest is – the German word for binge-drinking, lederhosen and dirdl-clad Bavarians running amok, or maybe just any old brouhaha. The real Oktoberfest is happening right now in Munich, the capital of the German state of Bavaria, and with over six-million visitors, its true definition is the largest folk festival in the world.

The first Oktoberfest was to commemorate the 1810 marriage of the future king and queen of Bavaria, Ludwig I and Therese, but it soon became a 16-day harvest celebration. This bounty is reflected in the spirit of the modern Munich Oktoberfest, from the massive tents overflowing with people, to the hundreds of thousands of sausages dished out. Then, of course, there is the beer.

While Oktoberfest is much more than litre-sized steins of specially brewed beer, virtually every visitor comes thirsty. Known the world over for its beer, Bavaria has taken the art of brewing and drinking beer very seriously. The Bavarian Hofbräuhaus is the world’s only state-owned brewery, Augustiner Bräu, one of Munich’s most popular breweries, is almost 700-years-old, and every brewery, including Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Spaten, and Löwenbräu, sponsors a tent at the Oktoberfest. These draw a big crowd – each tent can be found packed full of folks enjoying beer while standing on tables singing oom-pah songs like the one above.

This week at Three Bares Park on lower campus you may see a similar, though ever-so-slightly smaller tent with people sipping beers, complaining about midterms, and chomping on some less than authentic skewered sausages. Oktoberhaus is a three-day OAP-style beer tent put on by AUS in conjunction with the Swiss Club of McGill. If you scoff at the lack of beer variety at Oktoberhaus – just Boréale due to the exclusive contract SSMU has with Brasseurs du Nord – know that the selection isn’t much better in Munich.

Märzen, or Oktoberfest beer, is brewed especially for the festival and is the only type served. Brewed in the month of Märzen, or March, from which it borrows its name, and aged in large wooden kegs in underground caves all summer, Märzen is a pale lager with twice the alcohol of other local beers like the Munich helles.

Maybe if you bring your own stein and lederhosen to the Oktoberhaus at McGill it might feel more like the real Oktoberfest, but chances are that you might have a better time at one of the other Oktoberfests closer to home. Kitchner-Waterloo, for instance, has one of the largest festivals outside of Munich, entering its 39th year on October 10. Meanwhile, Montreal’s own mini-beerfest, the Oktoberfest at Marché Atwater, will feature samples from 19 Quebecois breweries during the hours of the market, October 10-12.

If all else fails, the next time you have a beer in your hand raise it high, sing a song, and be sure to say “prost!”

You can discuss the merits of a nice frosty Boréale with Joseph at Oktoberhaus, happening the rest of this week at Three Bares Park. If he really isn’t there, send your beer-inspired revelations to him at AllHoppedUp@gmail.com

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Enter Josh Schaffner McGill grad (’06, Geographical urban systems) and wavemaker on the New York beer scene. At just 24-years-old, he has conceived and brought to fruition NY Craft Beer Week, featuring 95 beers from the northeastern United States and happening right now in New York. The festival is organized around a number of events, including bar crawls in nine neighbourhoods, partnering craft beer with specific watering holes that exemplify that neighbourhood. The result is a festival where it is as much about where you are drinking as it is about what you are drinking – championing the local allure of craft beer.

I caught up with Schaffner at the height of Craft Beer Week to talk about the work he’s done and how his motives relate to beer culture, and specifically that of Quebec.

The McGill Daily: Did your affinity for beer have an outlet during your time in Montreal?

Josh Schaffner: I never lived in rez, but instead made a home at Dieu du Ciel. I lived only a couple blocks away in each apartment I moved to over the years in Montreal; an unintentional circle around the place was a side benefit.

MD: What challenges do you see for craft beer culture, both in general and in Quebec?

JS: There’s the main challenge of craft beer being relatively new and so successful that it’s creating its own hurdles. It’s a crisis of identity for a small brewery to ask, “What does it mean to have national distribution? How does that change the identity of your brand and your product?” [Ed. Point of Reflection: How does this crisis affect a brewery like Unibroue, now available all over the U.S., but with roots in rural Quebec?]

MD: Could Craft Beer Week happen up here?

JS: I think it would happen in a different format, but with the same goal of promoting the idea of better beer. I got the idea from Philadelphia, adapting it to fit New York, and since then San Francisco has a beer week slated for February. More and more cities have expressed interest. I think that one of the motives for me doing this is that there is no reason for it to be specific to one place. There are so many places with great beer culture and there’s always room for more.

MD: How do you see the role of geography, your field of study, in beer culture?

JS: Actually, it’s rather profound. In the U.S., and also internationally, beer has a history of being extremely regional. At its current stage, it is at this point of transformation where you have beer identified as being local distributed nationally, and beers that are found to be regional distributed internationally. There is a strong association and identification of place with beer. As much as certain breweries being distributed nationally has blurred regionalism, it is still rather definable and stark.

MD: How does this feed the “local appeal” of craft beer week?

JS: I am rather proud of the expression of “local” in this festival; be it the local neighbourhood, be it the local community, be it the local brewery, be it the local food that is being paired with the local beer. My over-arching goal, though, is simpler: to promote better beer to more people. Bringing the concept of enjoyment and flavour behind beer to as many people as possible.

MD: Given the amount of time and money you have expended getting Craft Beer Week off the ground, would you say it has been a success?

JS: If you mean that after devoting thousands of dollars and hours, I’ve turned a profit, then no, but in terms of my over-arching goal, yes it has been a success. Beer has been brought to the table, both literally and figuratively, and I think Craft Beer Week will be around next year.

For a roundup of some bars, featured in Craft Beer Week, not to missed on your trip to New York, see below.

All Hopped Up appears every other week, serving up a frosty mug of beer news, commentary, and culture.

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Where to drink if you’re in New York and it isn’t Craft Beer Week

or, What Josh Schaffner taught me about getting drunk in the Big Apple

The Diamond
43 Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn (718-383-5030) thediamondbrooklyn.com

The industrial warehouses that make up this area of Greenpoint make this bar a diamond in the rough (pun very much intended). The essence of this bar is a lowkey establishment that doesn’t have the longest tap list (8), but certainly one of the most carefully crafted. Pairing regional brews from the northeastern US and beyond with time-tested staples from Europe, The Diamond is often a smaller brewery’s introduction to the New York beer scene.

Barcade
388 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718-302-6464) barcadebrooklyn.com

Appealing to the beer drinker’s inner child, this bar juxtaposes old-school cabinet-style arcade games with an imposing selection of craft beer on draught. You wanna rock some classic Super Mario Bros? They got it. How about trying your hand at Tapper, Budweiser’s 1983 video game where you play a bartender slinging suds for thirsty customers? Just don’t drop your beer while shooting for that high score.

Blind Tiger
281 Bleeker Street, West Village, Manhattan (212-462-4682) blindtigeralehouse.com

Voted one of the top ten beer bars in the country by Beeradvocate Magazine, The Blind Tiger has been a champion of the New York beer scene for 12 years. Besides having 28 taps (including three casks) and a long bottle list, their cellar has been aging beer for many years, giving you the opportunity to try something like a 2000 JW Lees Harvest Ale. With such quality, it’s easy to see why this bar has lasted as long as it has.

George Keeley’s
485 Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side, Manhattan (212-843-0251)
georgekeeley.com

Imagine an Irish pub with a scope beyond Guinness and Smithwick’s. Rather than a bunch of drunks sipping their Jameson and beer-backs, there’s a bunch of beer geeks debating the differences between a black and tan and a half and half. Euro football on the tube, 21 taps, and some fine pub fare from the kitchen draw in the crowds.

Chelsea Brewing Company
Chelsea Piers, Pier 59 (18th Street), West Village, Manhattan (212-336-6440)
chelseabrewingco.com

New York’s ONLY BREW PUB. Yes, the only bar where the beer is made and served on the premises. They have the monopoly on a market where, in cities one-third the size of New York, there is five or six times as many brewpubs. Needless to say, this beer is good, fresh and has dominated the scene since the mid-ninties. What’s more, that view over the Hudson can’t be beat.

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However, thanks to a 25-year-in-the-making revolution in beer taste, craft beer is all around us. If you’re sitting outside at OAP reading this, chances are you’re sipping a Boréale from Les Brasseurs du Nord, a brewery that has been filling taps around the city for 21 years. They are the exclusive supplier of all SSMU functions – including Gert’s – thanks to a switch in contracts from the Coors-owned macrobrewery Molson back in 2005.

Why should you care, let alone be proud of Quebecois craft beer on campus? Because consuming locally is a more sustainable, responsible, and delicious way of eating and drinking. No one would disagree that Jean Talon market has higher-quality ingredients than the downtown IGA. Food and drink produced in Montreal and its surroundings carries with it the flavour of the region.

In a piece on local food in the current issue of The Mirror, it’s noted that in Quebec, “eating well has been moving out of the insufferable foodie preserve and into the mainstream,” citing the appeal of “avoiding long-distance imports.” As barley and hop farming in Quebec grew to supply the market, a wholly local beer became a reality. The rise of the “locavore” deserves credit for propelling the popularity of craft beer and piquing interest in bière d’ici.

Craft beer is distinctive in that it picks up attributes of the regions in which it is made. The Boathouse Brewpub in the tiny town of Ely, Minnesota, where wild rice is harvested in canoes 16 kilometres from the Canadian border, uses this local ingredient to make a beer that is spicy, bold, and unique to its surroundings. More locally, Brutopia (1215 Crescent) revived the proud Quebecois tradition of spruce beer, brewed in New France for almost 400 years.

To sample the beers of Quebec – which boasts more than 60 breweries – is to sample the regional variety from Chicoutimi to Chelsea. Provincially, the Quebec Microbrewers Association forms vital connections amid this decidedly underground community, while advocates within Montreal are found behind the numerous taps at Vices et Versa (6631 St. Laurent). And closest to home, here at All Hopped Up, local beer is the name of the game. Check back all year for everything devoted to the craft of the draught.

All Hopped Up serves up commentary on the world’s best libation every other Thursday.

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Here in Quebec, Belgian beer is certainly celebrated. Some breweries, like the American Allagash or Ommegang, or the Chambly-based Unibroue, excusively brew Belgian-style beers. Others, like the local brewpub Dieu du Ciel, keep a few tried and true Belgian styles on the roster. Over centuries of practice, Belgian brewers have crafted so many different beers that the Belgian style is easily assimilated into modern beer culture.

“In Belgium…anything can happen when you open a bottle,” remarks Dieu du Ciel’s brewmaster Jean-François Gravel. His brewpub in Mile End, which has taken North American beer scene by storm since it opened in 1998, keeps three Belgian-style families on the tap list. The witbier, abbey-style, and saison provide a general overview of the styles one might expect to find in any Belgian bar.

The witbier is the equivalent of the blanche beer that many enjoy on Montreal terraces during the summer. Light and fruity, it gets its name from the cloudy, “white” quality of the unfiltered yeast that remains suspended in the beer. The fruity quality actually comes from byproducts produced by the yeast during fermentation. In Belgium, brewers at Hoegaarden brew their witbier with orange peel and coriander seed, while in Quebec the blanche comes adorned with a slice of lemon. Hoegaarden is nice, but rather expensive as an import. Instead, try Dieu du Ciel’s Blanche du Paradis, Unibroue’s Blanche de Chambly, or Le Cheval Blanc’s signature beer.

In Belgium, monks brew the Abbey-style beers, hence the name abbey. The most serious brewers of abbey-style beers are the Trappist monks, who brew some of the most famous Belgium beers. Chimay, Duvel, and Orval are all available at most SAQs. These are examples of the Belgian blonde, dubbel, and tripel Trappist styles known for the complexity given by the yeast and alcohol content.

Dieu du Ciel and other local breweries have appropriated the abbey-style for their own variations. Dernière Volonté is Dieu du Ciel’s hoppy abbey blonde ale. “There’s nothing like it on the market,” claims Gravel.

Whereas most Belgian breweries are located in the Flemish part of the country, the Saison represents Belgian’s French brewers. Also known as farmhouse ale, the saison is characterized by a spicy, sturdy flavor and earthy yeast tones. It is one of only a few French styles, but has found a revival in North American craft brewing. Gravel says that he is currently fine-tuning his saison recipe in order to find the perfect varieties of yeast and grain. “We try different grains – rye, buckwheat, wheat – so in the future we will probably have a family of saisons,” he says. Until then, the classic, and Belgian, Saison Dupont can be found at any large SAQ.

The popularity of Belgian beers in Quebec might be attributed to the astonishing beer culture that has flourished there. Montreal brewers like Dieu du Ciel have captured a small part of this culture in the attention they have paid to the Belgian styles. Thanks to them, we can appreciate a substantial portion of the global beer macrocosm without leaving the island.

Dieu du Ciel is located at the corner of Clark and Laurier.

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In that vein, I bring you facts on drinking like the Irish, who enjoy a beer as much on Monday as they do on Saturday. The lovely Guinness, whose influence has grown well past the Emerald Isle and their domestic competitors, Beamish and Murphy’s. The Irish stout, a dark, dry beer that is as much associated with its nitrogen-induced creaminess as it is with its black-as-night colour, is as regional as any other beer. So when searching for “a pint o’ the good stuff,” keep an eye out for Guinness’s countrymen, Beamish and Murphy’s.

As much as we love the Irish Car Bomb (a shot of Bailey’s and Jameson dropped into a half-pint of Guinness), its inflammatory name connotes troubled images of IRA violence. Just as inflammatory is the Black and Tan – named after the English secret police – a layered mixture of Guinness and Smithwick’s (pronounced Smiddick’s). If you’d rather be served with a smile, order a Half and Half.

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