He has since begun the grueling, return voyage back to his home planet. But while he was here, we had a chance to sit down and really talk. There's nothing like a face to face meeting with the head of state of an extraterrestrial planet to really put things into perspective. Anyhoo, during our meeting he convinced us to make the trip to the outer reaches of our galaxy and visit him on his home planet of Uranus.
So in honour of Toftorg and our own personal Long, Dark Voyage to Uranus, we here at Sawdust City have launched a tour in support said journey. See the poster below...
Before we leave the planet and begin the treacherous expedition through the deepest recesses of space, we thought we would do a smaller tour closer to home and load up on some beer from some of our closest friends.
First we stopped in the Kitchener/Waterloo area for a special collaboration brew with our pals at Block 3 brewing.
We elected to brew a beer specifically for a very special day, Pi-Day! This particular beer will be a 3.14% Cherry pie saison. A lovely bready malt body, blended with tart cherries. We will be releasing this beer at both our home tasting bars at 1:59 on March 14 (3.14159....for those of you counting out there). Like that last piece of pie, this ale won't last long, so swing by either the Saloon here in Gravenhurst or Block 3's tasting bar on March 14th for a taste!
Next we journeyed to Ottawa for another collaboration with our friends at Beyond the Pale. These guys have been brewing some great beer over the last few years and will be moving into a brand new space real soon, so it was great to visit them at their original location before they open the new space (spoiler alert! The new space is amazing!).
While there, we brewed up an 8% Imperial Wit beer with a blend of 8 unique spices. Guess what we called it? Huit! Right...how has that name not been taken before? All kidding aside, we are really stoked to try this brew, look for it to be ready sometime mid March. Again, it will be available at Beyond the Pales tasting bar as well as at the Sawdust City Saloon.
In between collaboration brews we decided to stop in at one of our favourite spots in Toronto, Thirsty & Miserable, for a good ol'fashioned tap takeover. Being that it was smack dab in the middle of this ridiculously cold winter, we wanted to bring beers that would warm them frigid cockles of your collective hearts. So we brought 7 of our darkest, biggest, most cockle warming beers.
From LDV & The Blood of Cthulhu to the more hop forward Pine Tar Black IPA and unique The Graeme Maple Coffee Alt.
It was a great night and a fun way to say congrats to Katie and her team just days before their 3rd Anniversary.
Lastly, we headed North to visit some new friends, the lads at Stack Brewing in picturesque, Sudbury, Ontario. We hadn't really met before, but we figured what better way to make new friends than over a beer. Turns out they were awesome guys and super gracious hosts, we are really lookin' forward to headin' back to the Nickel City to visit them again and try our collab beer.
What was that beer you ask? Well we decided to brew a beer that celebrated that lovely stretch of highway that joins Muskoka to Sudbury, Highway 69! We put our collective heads together and created a 6.9% Belgian Pale ale with some unique hops from France and a little spicy black pepper. 69 should be ready by mid to late March, so plan on stoppin' by the tasting room at Stack Brewing in Sudbury or at the Saloon for a taste.
Now that we've completed our terrestrial tour across this great province, it's time for us to take off and soar into the heavens. Unfortunately due to some unforeseen spacial interference our communication system will be down and we will not be able to contact anyone on Earth until around March 22. That is when we plan on entering orbit around Uranus. Once we reach orbit we will be able to use their much larger communication array and piggy back a signal back to Earth. Until then this is the last you will hear from us. So before we go into a communication black out, I just wanted to share with you a few more details about some upcoming events & new beer releases at Sawdust City.
Firstly, as we will be reaching Uranus on March 22nd we decided to throw a large party back on Earth so celebrate the fact that we traversed 2.57 billion kms of space and survived (crossing fingers). So on March 22nd in London, Ontario at the Mighty Milos' Craft Beer Emporium, we will be rockin' a 22 tap Tap Takeover! That's right 22 taps folks. We'll have new releases, some old favourites, some one offs just for the event and of course those collaboration brews I mentioned earlier. So mark it in your calendar folks and we hope to see you in London at Milos' on the 22nd of March.
Now for some beer news. Our next release, which will be hittin' our shelves on Friday, March 6th, will be Twin Pine IIPA. A massively hopped double IPA, this 8.8% ale is loaded with tropical hop aromas and flavours. We've been waiting to brew this one for a while (we had to wait until our 88th brew to do it) and we're are super stoked at the results. If you like hops, and I know you do, then trust me your gonna wanna try the Twin Pine IIPA. Peep the label below...
A tribute to one of our favourite 80's Sci-fi flicks, Twin Pine has a few subversive references to the classic film written into the label, Read through it and see if you can find them! But whether your a fan of the film or not, I'm sure your gonna love this new ale. Look for it in 473ml cans in our retail store on March 6th and at your local kick ass beer bar around the same time.
Next up we have an old favourite comin' back, our barrel aged Belgian Golden Ale, The Princess & Girlpants Meet the ODB. In case you forgot what it looks like, here's the label...
The stats on this years release are a little different, it's comin' in around 10% and we made a small adjustment to the draught version this year. After tasting all 10 barrels, we decided to split the batch in to two distinct different versions. The barrels that went to draught got dry hopped with 2.5kg of Amarillo per barrel, while the version that will get canned we decided to leave as is.
The draught version, has a lot of wood & wine on the nose, blended with a nice hint of tropical hops from the Amarillo. It's bone dry and has a nice layer of funk in there as well. Look for the draught version on tap at the Saloon in the next week and at your local beer bar not soon after.
The canned version is more about the wood & wine. There's a little hint of hops left over from the base beer, but the flavour is dominated by oak and white wine. Look for the canned version in our retail store on Friday, April 3rd. And of course, like we've been doing with our Saison de la Maison series, O.D.B will be canned conditioned.
Speaking of Saison de la Maison, the next release in this series is comin' up real soon. To coincide with the Vernal Equinox, we will be releasing the 3rd beer in our Saison series. This one will be called, "There's No Way of Knowing". (Those of you that remember early 90's alternative Toronto rock, will clearly remember The Gandharvas and their epic song, "The First Day of Spring"...this is our tribute to that song).
After ol'Man Winter releases us from his icy grip, Sweet Lady Spring swoops in and brings us a fresh new start. And to celebrate that fresh new start, we've brewed a saison loaded with all that we love about Spring. Comin' in at 5.5%, this light golden ale is our easiest drinking saison to date. Along with a big citrus hit from the Ella hops, we've also added fresh orange zest, lemon verbena and grains of paradise to this light sipper. Yep, you're probably going to want to drink this. Look for it in cans at our retail store on Friday, March 20th. Draught to follow soon after.
Lastly, I just wanted to let everyone know that yesterday was the 100th brew on our brew house at Sawdust City. And in honour of that momentous occasion we elected to brew something extra special...
...yes it will be back at the LCBO this Spring. Look for it early April.
I think that covers it. So as we leave the atmosphere and disappear into the darkness of space, I bid you all a fond adieu...for now....
Anyhoo, that's just aboot it for now. Until next time, keep the beer in your mug and the sawdust beneath your feet.
Sam Corbeil
BREWMASTER