Beer in 2019 - A BAOS Wrap-Up
Twenty nineteen has been a big year for craft beer and for BAOS. To close out the year, the entire squad is sharing some of our favourite moments and shouting out some of the top performers of 2019! Let’s get right into it!
Craig “Cee” Thorn
Certified BrewHead, Host, Administrative Assistant, Rap Singer, #TeamLactose Co-President
Photo by LiquidxHappiness.
Top 3 Beers of 2019
Barncat Artisan Ales Barrel Aged Rat Queen
Tired Hands x Omnipollo Milkshake IPA (Extra Vanilla)
Half Hours On Earth Game, Blouses
Special mentions:
L’Espace Public x BAOS Podcast Bière de Vacances (Brewpub Version 2)
Brasserie du Bas-Canada Guerre et Paix
Triple Crossing Dawn Chorus
Top 3 Breweries of 2019
Style of 2019 - Most Impactful Style of the Year
I might seem biased but I’d say it was any style with lactose in it. In 2019, I drank damn near every style with some milk sugar, from a Pilsner to a Stout, an IPA to a sour, and it only made them better. I can’t honestly think of a beer that was ruined by the white powder of the gods. Even the breweries who initially were staunchly against lactose wound up using it. 2020 is the year where lactose truly shines, mark my words.
Fave Beer Region You Travelled To
This year we were blessed to partner with Tourism Virginia and spend a week in their beautiful state. It was a place I’ve never been before but was high on my list. I was stoked to hang out at some bucket list breweries like The Veil, and discover new breweries like Triple Crossing, Commonwealth, O’Connor, Vasen and Precarious Beer Project, and drink at the USA’s best beer bar, Mekong. Cannot wait to get back.
Beer Highlight of 2019 / Fave Beer Moment
Messorem Bracitorium opening in Montreal. For anyone who follows the podcast, you may be sick of me vehemently complaining about MTL’s severe lack of local haze on a taproom level. Well, the guys behind the Pointe-Saint-Charles brewery have essentially manifested everything I was putting out to the universe. With a focus on NEIPAs, along with sours, barrel-aged stouts and crispyboiz, Messorem is literally everything I could ask for. And to top it off, they’re great guys.
Best Marketing / Social Media
Without harping on these folks, Messorem’s social is insanely good. They came out of the gate with branding and labels that rivalled some of the best coming out of Vermont, they managed to secure multiple GIFs on GIPHY off the rip, and the colour scheme at the brewery reflected the colour of the water tower in their backyard. Impeccably executed.
Predictions for 2020
Clearly 2020 is going to be the Year of Lactose. There’s going to be more lactose beers than ever. Quebec will finally catch onto craft pilsners and lagers. Vermont will continue to get better and better. Haze will continue to be the most popular style. More interesting styles will be created, whether they’re hybrids (India Pale Kolsch) or brand new (Brut IPA). More breweries will be bought out by the big boys, everywhere in the world. Beer festivals will see a downturn in attendance due to oversaturation. And craft beer as a whole will continue to grow and thrive.
Photo by Cee.
Top 3 Beers of 2019
Beere Over Them Mountains
Triple Crossing Deep Dark Woods Blend 1
Blood Brothers White Lies (Sauvignon Blanc)
Honorable mention: L’Espace Public x BAOS Podcast Bière de Vacances (obv)
Top 3 Breweries of 2019
Dominion City (for their beer and more)
Style of 2019 - Most Impactful Style of the Year
My favourite style of 2019 are DDH Double IPAs, specifically from Virginia and New York, but sours came in a close second.
Fave Beer Region You Travelled To
Virginia.
Beer Highlight of 2019 / Fave Beer Moment
Drinking Triple Crossing’s Dawn Chorus on Virginia Beach on my birthday.
Best Marketing / Social Media
Grain & Grit, Allagash, Zero Gravity, Dominion City, Left Field, 33 Acres, Echo Session Ales.
Predictions for 2020
A lot more brewery buyouts.
Nathan “NathanDoesBeer” Lefebvre
Head Writer In Charge, Blog God, #TeamLactose Co-President
Photo by Hops & Bros.
Top 3 Beers of 2019
Half Hours On Earth Advanced Drinker
Barncat Artisan Ales Space Juice
Brasserie du Bas-Canada Guerre et Paix*
*It was seriously tough to pick my fave of Bas-Canada’s next level pastry stouts. Connexion or Substance could just as easily have been in my top 3.
Top 3 Breweries of 2019
Style of 2019 - Most Impactful Style of the Year
Lagers. I’m not ashamed to say I’m an IPA guy at heart, and I definitely don’t think haze hype is going away any time soon, but if you were to ask me which beers stood out in my memory this year, more of them would have been lagers in 2019 than in any other year since I started drinking craft. Two of my favourite beers of summer this year were Blood Brothers Bloodvar and Anderson Summer. In the fall, Bellwoods introduced a wet hopped version of Paper Tiger for an outstanding autumn twist. Tooth & Nail and Godspeed continue to put out some of the best lagers in the province year round. And one of my beers of the year was Advanced Drinker, the mindblowing farmhouse pils from Half Hours On Earth.
Fave Beer Region You Travelled To
Vancouver has been on my travel wish list for a while and I finally made it happen this summer when my wife and I took a long weekend trip for our anniversary. Believe it or not, I didn’t even visit any breweries while we were there - but one of the things that became clear very quickly is that Vancouver is one of those cities where you’d be hard pressed to find a restaurant that doesn’t have a great local tap selection. It was reminiscent of some of the great beer cities in the US like Portland, OR, Chicago, IL, and Burlington, VT. Whether it was happy hour with Twin Sails, brunch with Yellow Dog, dinner with Backcountry or sampling a flight from the amazing tap list at The Magnet, a beer bar on par with some of my favourites, Vancouver is a great place for beer.
Beer Highlight of 2019 / Fave Beer Moment
My beer highlight of the year is a personal one. January 2019 is when I started writing for BAOS. Long form beer writing is something I’d flirted with for a while but had been dragging my feet on, until Cee and Tiff invited me to officially join the BAOS squad and start writing content for the blog. We’re closing in on a year now and I can say it’s been an absolute honour being welcomed into the fam, and a pleasure sharing this platform to talk about my passion. I’m looking forward to the next year. This is just getting rolling.
Best Marketing / Social Media
Grain & Grit have been a standout in beer marketing in Ontario. Their labels are clean with a recognizable artwork style, their social media photography is always on point, with gorgeous photos and always consistent colour and lighting, so it’s hardly surprising that their tap room is also beautiful. It’s an open space with lots of natural light, clean white brick, wood tables and elegant minimalist decor. It looks fabulous and is just a great place to be.
Now that I think of it, there’s a lot of great beer marketing going on in Hamilton, as Merit and Fairweather also have outstanding branding.
Predictions for 2020
In Ontario, online beer sales are going to continue to expand to the point that it will approach becoming the norm as opposed to the exception. In Quebec, contemporary (read “hyped” if you prefer) styles will continue to be brewed more widely, albeit slowly and often reluctantly. The continued success of Bas-Canada and the early booming success of Messorem are forcing the scene’s hand on that. We’re also guaranteed to keep seeing breweries close and get bought out, as is the nature of business.
Scott “Beer” Cole
Beer Enthusiast, Doggo Enthusiast, Enthusiasm Enthusiast, Leafs Fan, Badman
Photo by Scott “Beer” Cole.
Top 3 Beers of 2019
Blood Brothers Mara Imperial Stout - Like drinking a boozy brownie with peanuts. Decadent and delicious.
Great Notion Orange Creamsicle IPA - Cee and Notion (ironic, I know) blessed me with a couple of sips of this juicy orange, full bodied and creamy, loads of vanilla IPA. Fabulous.
Muskoka Ebb & Flow - This was my go to for most of the summer, and pretty much the whole year. Tart, refreshing, and very crushable at 2.4% abv. It’s the beer I purchased most in 2019, and for that it’s my #3.
Top 3 Breweries of 2019
Blood Brothers - With an expanded tap room, and the addition of a small kitchen serving pub fare, along with their ever evolving bottle and can list, Blood Brothers tops my list of breweries in 2019. Paradise Lost, Nitro Sours, Mara. Enough said.
Black Lab - Beer and Dogs. My happy place. Their Kennel Sour series is delicious.
Collective Arts - Can’t recall them ever making a bad beer. The Liquid Arts festival is awesome. If I’m grabbing beer from the LCBO, I’m probably picking up at least one from Collective Arts.
Style of 2019 - Most Impactful Style of the Year
Fruited Kettle Sours
Everything in nitro cans (especially sours)
Fave Beer Region You Travelled To
Nashville, Tennessee
Great weather, BBQ, and cold beer. I’m in.
Breweries/Beer Bars visited in Nashville:
The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium
Beer Highlight of 2019 / Fave Beer Moment
Singing at the top of my lungs with friends at the Toronto Festival of Beer to Dwayne Gretzky’s live cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” while drinking some sort of Lime Margarita IPA (it was last call and I don’t exactly remember) by Flying Monkeys.
Best Marketing / Social Media
Everything that Alvarado Street Brewing post looks delicious.
Predictions for 2020
For everyone’s sake, I hope it’s not Hard Seltzers. More nitro cans would be nice.
Photo by Meghan Norah.
Top 3 Beers of 2019
I could drink bucket loads of all of these -
L'Espace Public x BAOS Podcast Bière De Vacances Creamsicle Sour with Lactose
Left Field x Dominion City 1,000 Victories Ontario IPA
Left Field Wahconah Brett IPA
Top 3 Breweries of 2019
Style of 2019 - Most Impactful Style of the Year
Dry Hopped Fruited Sours
Fave Beer Region You Travelled To
Ontario
Beer Highlight of 2019 / Fave Beer Moment
All of it. Just drinking the best the world has to offer thanks to our podcast and hard work. <3
Best Marketing / Social Media
Predictions for 2020
Hopefully more focus on refinement as opposed to quantity. Some breweries simply cranked out a shit tonne of brews, and I feel that in some cases, compromised the end result. I’m not mad at it for growing the industry and putting more variety to customers, though, just seems like a big rush for no reason.
That’s a wrap on 2019! What were your favourite moments of the year? What were your top beers/breweries? What are you looking forward to in 2020?
Nathan
Nathan is a craft beer enthusiast from Ottawa, ON. He is the Co-Founder of @TeamLactose, he’s passionate about travelling for beer and he loves talking about beer from Ontario, Quebec and beyond.