Ben Coli

I am proud to be one of the 500.

Holy shit.

When I was 18 and learning to drink beer, in Alberta all bars were licensed to 2AM. The the daylight savings time switch at 2 AM felt like it was designed for drunken 18 year-old shitheads like me. In the spring it hit just as the bar closed. In the fall the bar could stay open a whole extra hour!

An important difference between Canada and the US is that Canadians think that other Canadians are good. That helps a lot.

A sad thing I learned last weekend: my sister-in-law and her husband drink over-roasted coffee from Invermere because it is the best coffee available at grocery stores in Lynn Valley.

What is wrong with Lynn Valley? Your access to nature is too good, so you can't have nice food and drink?

The sky's the limit

We've never brewed a kölsch before, but our buddies at The Establishment in Calgary make a banger, so we asked them for advice, which feels like cheating, because now we made an awesome kölsch on our first try.

Next we have Rise Up, a Kölsch-style beer (not from Köln) we brewed with Batch as a fundraiser for the Saint James Music Academy.

This is the opposite of State of Nature on the complexity spectrum. Light malt, light floral hops, light bitterness, perfect crusher. Bottoms up.

Tasting some exciting stuff in the brewery today. This is State of Nature, an IPA with brettanomyces that we're making for the first time since 2019.

It's a hoppy, funky, really wild beer. This is none of your sacch trois IPA, it's a blend of real brettanomyces and every sip tastes different. Crazy

Put down your phone and go outside. You can learn about geopolitical strife after the sun goes down.

Like through my brewery? They can't, there's a university in the way.

I didn't realize. Virtually all of Canada's seaborne oil exports flow under that bridge. Kind of a big deal.

It's broken? How broken? They're still taking trains over it and taking oil tankers up the inlet, as far as I know.

It's very simple: if a young man wants to be beautiful so badly that he hits himself in the face with a hammer, the Globe will run a profile on him.

Last few days I've cycled to work with my hands aching from cold. Today I finally bit the bullet and put on an old pair of ski gloves. Felt a bit like a horse playing a piano operating my Shimano brifters with ski gloves, but so much warmer.

That sucks, but if I had to choose, I'd rather have a functioning democracy than a gold medal in women's hockey.

Look at that club! Beacons of democracy like Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan... Did Kim Jong Un's invite get lost in the mail?

Are you mid-sneeze?

Gutted to hear that our Halifax pals at 2 Crows are closing.

Beer nerds often tell me that good beer will always win in the end, but it's not true.

Good financing is more important than good beer. Good cost structure and sales are too. You don't win by being pure of heart.

Pour one out.

They are terrible, but this isn't talking about greenhouse gases. It's about more local air pollutants, like NO

I just got there in the exact same way and hauled my bike up the stairs.

Great spot for a bike rack, bro!

Staples on Grandview Highway. Not that it matters. Only a maniac would ride their bike on Grandview Highway.

How about a tropical island without enough food? Or one that's ruled by a repressive dictatorship? Or both?

A little bit of fruit to disguise how bad the beer is. Sweet as hell, all three of them.

Put an orange slice on a Hoegaarden and I'll let it pass (it's garbage beer anyway) but on a hefe? Blasphemy!

We have a standing joke in my family: When guests are leaving your house and you have a long, drawn-out goodbye with hugs and thank-yous and so on, as soon as you close the door behind them you say, "who WERE those guys?"

I think it's derived from a joke in National Lampoons European vacation.

I got your back, @jmcelroy.bsky.social

Are you counting horsemen of the apocalypse? I assume that's #3

Naw, the Tories in Teslas can't drive their Teslas over that.

We need a third party to come in and advocate for one. That should really slow things down

I honestly don't know, but the Conservatives think it's not too far for a U-turn. Back to the bridge!