Amsterdam Brewing Co. Starke Pils

Brewery: Amsterdam Brewing Co.

Beer Name: Starke Pils

Beer Type: Traditional style Pilsner

ABV: 5.2%

IBU: 40

Colour: Golden Yellow

Clarity: clear

M. Rating: ★★★★
This is was an excellent beer. It was more flavourful than I was expecting and had a bit of a hoppy finish. 

C. Rating: ★★★
I didn't dislike it.

Link: http://www.amsterdambeer.com/seasonal-beers/

For the Beer Connoisseurs

Glass type: Pilsner glass

Ingredients: Water: 

                    Barley/Malt: 

                    Hops: Czech Saaz, French Strisselpalt

                    Yeast:

SRM: 

OG: 

FG:

Pairings: 

This is one of Amsterdam's Seasonal Series beers, so it's only available for a short time. We purchased ours at the LCBO in the craft beer section, but it is also available directly from the brewer in Toronto, at both their Brewery or at their BrewHouse.

Cheers!

Woodhouse Brewing Co. Lager Beer

Brewery: Woodhouse Brewing Co.

Beer Name: Lager Beer

Beer Type: North American amber lager

ABV: 5%

IBU: 17

Colour: amber

Clarity: clear

M. Rating: ★★★★
This was a fantastic beer. I would buy and drink this again and again. It was a darker colour than I was expecting, but the flavour was fantastic. The only thing that would stop me from making this my regular beer is the price, at $2.95 for a tallboy, but I get that money can buy quality.

C. Rating: ★★★★
Pretty good.

Link: http://www.woodhousebrewing.com/our-beer/

For the Beer Connoisseurs

Glass type: Pilsner glass

Ingredients: Water: 

                    Barley/Malt: 

                    Hops: 

                    Yeast:

SRM: 

OG: 

FG: 

Pairings: 

We purchased ours at the LCBO in the craft beer section, but it is available at restaurants across Toronto. Woodhouse is a nano-brewery based in Toronto, brewing out of Cool Beer Brewing Company in Etobicoke.

Cheers!

Shiny Apple Cider

Brewery: Shiny Apple Cider Inc. (Small Talk Vineyards)

Cider Name: Shiny Apple Cider

Fruit Type: apples

ABV: 7%

Sugar content: 41 g/L

Colour: pale yellow

Clarity: clear

M. Rating: ★★

This was a very sweet cider. It was crisp and didn't taste strong, but too sweet for my liking. 

Link: http://www.shinyapplecider.com

Pairings: 

We purchased ours at the LCBO in the craft beer section but you can purchase it online in large quantities from their website or by visiting their production facilities in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Cheers!

Sawdust City Brewing Co. Golden Beach Pale Ale

Brewery: Sawdust City Brewing Co.

Beer Name: Golden Beach Pale Ale

Beer Type: pale ale

ABV: 4.5%

IBU: 25

Colour: golden yellow

Clarity: a little cloudy

M. Rating: ★★★

This was a good beer. It was similar to a radler in that there were hints of grapefruit. It was refreshing and would be really good on a patio on a hot summer day. I probably wouldn’t order too many though, it is a little sweet. It’s definitely a flavourful beer.

C. Rating: ★★
I would drink it in a pinch, but if there were other options I'd probably choose one of the other options.  Unless the only other options were ciders; they're terrible.

Link: http://www.sawdustcitybrewing.com/our-beer-3/golden-beach-pale-ale/

For the Beer Connoisseurs

Glass type: Snifter

Ingredients: Water: pure Muskoka water

                    Barley/Malt: Canadian 2-row barley, wheat

                    Hops: galaxy, mosaic, sorachi ace, summit

                    Yeast: California ale

SRM: 3

OG: 10.5°P

FG: 2.0°P

Pairings: salads, fish, poultry, grilled vegetables

We purchased ours at the LCBO in the craft beer section, but you can also purchase directly from the brewery if you happen to be in the Gravenhurst area. 

Cheers!

In the Beginning...

Sometimes it's hard to pick just one

In the beginning there were two people who loved beer. Specifically, they loved craft beer. Problem was, there was no app or website that catalogued the beers that they liked or that they tried in a way that made sense to them. There were lots of acronyms like OG, IBU, SRM that they didn't understand, and some beers they tried didn't even have this information readily available, whatever it meant. So, this blog was born. It was created to make sense of the amazing and crazy world of beer. It was created for the regular beer drinker. It was created to catalogue the beers that they tried, liked, and disliked. We invite you to follow along on our beer discovery journey. If you have a beer that you like and think we should try, let us know in the comments. If we review a beer and you try it, let us know what you think in the comments as well.

We're sure there will be hiccups along the way (no pun intended). We'll try to put as much information as possible, so that if we ever become fancy beer connoisseurs we'll look like we know what we're talking about. We'll try to catalogue the beers in a way that makes sense to the regular beer drinker though.

Since we both have different likes and dislikes in beer, we will both rate and comment on each beer we try… except for ciders. Only one of us will comment and rank ciders, the other thinks they are terrible. We will mostly stick to craft beers, but some big name breweries might make occasionally make appearances.

Here's how we'll rank

★	Hate it. I wouldn’t buy it again, I wouldn’t drink it if offered.
★★	Didn’t like it. I wouldn’t buy it again, but if it was the only thing offered, I would drink it.
★★★	It was good. I might not buy it frequently, but I might order it in a restaurant, or purchase one occasionally.
★★★★	It was great. I would buy it again and I would order it.
★★★★★	Loved it! This is amazing. This is now my go-to beer.