Archive for the ‘Great Lakes’ Category

The OCB Discovery Pack is a special six-pack sampler featuring a half-dozen unique and refreshing pre-selected OCB beer brands. It’s on the shelves now!! Visit your local LCBO to pick up this great pack!

The brands featured in Discovery Pack No. 1 are: Wellington Special Pale Ale, Great Lakes Red Leaf Lager, Walkerville Amber Lager, Mill Street Organic Lager, Lakes of Muskoka Cream Ale, and Brick J.R. Brickman Pilsner. Check out the Ontario Craft Brewers webiste to learn more about the OCB Discovery Pack and pick up some great recipe tips!

We’d love to hear what you think and hear some of your adventures while you ‘Discover’ these and other great Ontario Craft Brewers Brands this summer! Tell us what you think of these beers, and to give us your suggestions as to which beers should be inluded in our next Discovery Pack.

Cheers! and Happy Discovery with the OCB!

Posted in Wellington, Great Lakes, Ontario Craft Brewers, OCB, Brick, Mill Street, Walkerville Brewing Company, OCB Discovery Pack (No1) | No Comments »

Howdy all,

Well, somehow we all survived the trip to San Diego for the Annual Craft Brewers Conference. Don’t ask me how…especially with a daytrip to Tijuana thrown in for good measure.

Anetta, Peter, Mike and I all made the trek down and were joined by a bunch of our fellow OCB members. The brave souls included John from Church Key, the two Jason’s from Cameron’s, George from F&M, Doug from St. Andre’s, Steve and Matt from Beau’s, and some other familiar faces including Chris from the Rhino (great bar at Queen & Dufferin), Paul from Pepperwood Bistro in Burlington, and Mirella from Beerology. Quite a crew!

We attended a number of interesting seminars, none of which were better than one called “Thinking Outside the Pumpkin” with the three wise men from the US: David Buhler from Elysian, Marty Jones from Oskar Blues, and Greg Koch from Stone. Not only the most inspring seminar, but by far the funniest too. We listened to their stories and those from the audience on how to get attention from consumers and the media by, well, thinking outside the pumpkin. So stay tuned for some fun Great Lakes events in the future (such as our Orange Peel Ale release party…more info to come).

The highlight of the trip for me was visiting Stone in Escondido. It was the Disneyland of breweries. Unbelievable. I was fortunate enough to go twice, once for the opening reception with 1500 other brewers, and secondly for a private tour and lunch on their ridiculous patio. If you’re ever anywhere even remotely close to this place, you owe it to yourself to stop in for a visit.

All in all, it was an amazing trip, and it has inspired me to get in touch with our customers more than ever while continuing to brew great beer. Stay tuned for a Great Lakes blog page where we’ll have lots of fresh news…

Posted in Great Lakes | No Comments »

Show Notes:

Episode 15

Interview John Bowden of Great Lakes Brewery

01:05 – John talks about the Orange Peel Ale, available at the Great Lakes Brewery beginning in late March and at select LCBO stores this summer.  He discusses the brewing process, how the brewery keeps it local and what makes the Orange Peel Ale so unique. 

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Posted in Podcast, Ontario Brewer Podcast, Great Lakes, Ontario Craft Brewers, OCB, Orange Peel Ale | No Comments »

Sweet, I get to make the first post about the 2007 Canadian Brewing Awards.

Another year of great times with some of the best people around.  Tonight was like the Oscars for us folks in the Canadian brewing scene and although the weather sucked, fun times were had by all.  Since it's a little after one in the morning I'm going to keep this short and let everyone else follow it up with how they did and give their $0.02.  We had a good showing tonight bringing home an award in the North American Lager and Cream Ale categories, congratulations to our brewers Jason Britton and Adam Ramanauskas for brewing great beers.  Congrats to all the brewers that won tonight especially the well represented OCB group.

I only managed to get a few pictures due to a technical issue (I forgot to recharge the battery) but check them out below. 

Cheers

Jason Ellsmere 

 Mike Laba (Cameron's Brewing), Kevin Brauch (Famous Guy), Anetta Jewell (Great Lakes)

 Mike Laba (Cameron's Brewing Company) and Greg Clow (Bartowel.com news editor)

Anetta and Jamie from Great Lakes 

A guy with a sweet fish wearing a Cameron's hat. 

Posted in Brewmasters, Links, Great Lakes, Ontario Craft Brewers, OCB, Cameron's, awards, Cameron's Brewing Co. | 5 Comments »

The 12th Toronto Festival of Beer, presented by our friends at The Beer Store, starts this week, so get your tickets while you still can.  In the meantime, here's a story from Aonghus Kealy at Metro News about the festival that represents the Ontario Craft Brewers very nicely. 
still can. 

Aonghus's story features his 12 things not to be missed at the fest…we draw your attention to #12:

12. Ontario Craft Beers … yum!: Eat and drink locally. And there are a number of reasons to try some OCB beers:

• Beer ice cream, by Great Lakes Brewing (Booth 55), served out of a bicycle fridge.
• Neustadt Springs’ re-introducing Scottish Pale Ale in Booth 47. “It’s only 4.5 per cent and it’s ideal because it has afor the summer,” said Neustadt’s Val Simpson. nice bite to it
• Brick’s Waterloo Wheat finally ventures into Toronto. Booth 56.

 If this doesn't make you thirsty, see a doctor.

Posted in Great Lakes, Brick, Neustadt, Toronto Festival of Beer | No Comments »