A View From a Brew

What's next? I'll tell you what's next, the photos I promised from my last post, that's what's next.
So here they are, the pictures of the "little brewery by the lake". A photo documentation of what I must work with and what I'm forced to look at each and every day. It's horrible I know.
The first shot is of the brew house. The instruments of my production. It's the standard 35 hL, four vessel brew house but since it's a little larger than Magnotta's it's taken me a little longer to get to know the ins and outs of each vessel and valve.
But soon, I promise, I'll get to know this system intimately. And hopefully I'll be able to expertly play each vessel like a fine tuned instrument. Coaxing out sweet wort from it's mind boggling number of valves, like some crazy cat jazzman filling the stale, smokey bar air with magical floating bleets from his golden horn...blap, blap, bleep, blap, scat, bap, beep, bop, scat, blat, bleep, bleep, blap....and then behind him, rapping madly, keeping time on the tubs comes the, rap, rap, tap, snap, rap, rap, tap.....then in comes the keys on the Hammond B3 organ to fill the rest of the empty space, dink, dink, wha, wah, dink, tink, wah, wah....or something like that.
My first batch! At the bottom of each fermenter we lovingly label the beer, letting all visitors see what day our bouncing baby beer was born (Did I ever mention how much I hate alliteration?). Can you see the name under "Brew master" there? Yeah, that's me. Seriously though, I still have a long way to go before I'm worthy of such a lofty title.
This particular batch will be bottled and put out to market soon, so look for it on Brewer's Retail and LCBO shelves near you.

And here it is, the view from the brew house. The creamy orange morning sky resting lazily above Kempenfelt Bay as it slowly tries to rub the sleep out of it's eyes. Oh wait, no that's me with crusty globs of sleep still in my eyes. Those gnarly, beige nuggets poking the corners of my ocular cavities. This particular morning I rushed out of the house at 515am to get to work early and hopefully get my day going quickly. Instead when I got there, used the key which I had just received the day before to open the brewery, only to find that they neglected to tell me the code for the alarm system. Oh the fun you can have standing outside a Northern Ontario brewery at 630 on a December morning with the alarm system screaming at you. It brings a smile to my face just thinking about it.
When I did finally manage to get in and shut the alarm off the sun was already starting it's ascent and I was almost a full hour behind schedule. On the plus side I was able to take this picture.
And here's the, "why is it raining and Christmas is only four days away" picture.
Seriously, this is the first time I can ever remember it raining this close to Christmas. Especially in Barrie, which is like smack dab in the middle of the snow belt....hell it's like the belt-buckle of the snow belt. My first three days at the brewery, it's snowed. Two feet of the white stuff in three days. Then over the coarse of the next few weeks it warmed up, rained and melted all the Christmas away. It's not just the weather either. Does anyone think it feels like Christmas? I certainly don't. Maybe I'm just too old to have that same Christmas feeling I got when I was a kid. I don't know. But it just doesn't seem the same. Where's the anticipation? Where's that "can't wait" feeling. All I think about at Christmas is, I get a few days off, I get to see the family and then I get to party at New Years. That's about it. No "peace on earth, good will to man" shit either, just vacation, family, drunk, then back to the salt mines. Maybe someday when I have kids of my own I'll be able to get the feeling back, but until then, what's next?

Filler

What's next? I'll tell you what's next, the weekend, that's what's next. And none to soon let me tell you what.
With my first full week at The Robert Simpson Brewing Co., mercifully finished and under my belt, I've never desperatly pined for the gentle relaxing call of the weekend like this before. It's not that the work at the RSB is any harder or more demanding on my ever aging bones than that of Magnotta, it's just that it's oh so much harder to wake up at 5 in the morning then I remember. When that stupid alarm wails in my quietly sleeping ear at that ungodly hour, I feel like snapping it's cord out of the f'n wall, wrapping it up into a neat little package and punting it out the window. But usually I just swear to myself, roll out of bed, stumble around in the dark, then stub my toe as I narrowly miss castrating myself on our dangerously sharp bedposts and then cry all the way to the bathroom. It's almost enough to make me think about moving out of the city to a more Northern location just a tad bit closer to Barrie. But then I drive down Dufferin and onto Lakeshore Blvd., and I see city's coast line as it bends westward towards Mississauga along the shores of Lake Ontario and quickly remember why I love this city so much.
Sure Toronto looks great during the day, back when I used to hold down a 9 to 5, tucked away in grey cubicle in some filing cabnet off Bloor street I used to look out my window and imagine the city as a mountain range. I could see all the way to foothills of suburbia in the distant east and all the way down to the industrial area by the lake, which became the base of the range. The CN tower was like the summit that reached up and almost fingered the gray clouds looming just inches above. I could look down towards the street and see thousands of people rushing through the streams of traffic in the valleys below. All trying to make it to their destination upon boats of rubber and steel. The streets were like great chasms, boring their way through the tones and tones of girders and glass, where just a few hours ago I almost got washed away in the raging waters myself. I could see steam rising up from the cracks and fissures in the mountains across the range. Releasing the near volcanic pressures of the day that had been built up by the infinite stresses of the diligent workers inside the great man made monoliths. Yes, it is quite the city.
But it's at night when this city really shines. I still love driving into the city from the west at night. Approaching the shimiring tower lights, elevated high above ground level on the Gardiner. The city, way off in the distance appears tiny and insignifigant, but as you approach it, the towers quickly start to grow taller and taller almost touching the sky and then your in it, swallowed up by the streets and buildings. I don't know why, I've made that drive a thousand times, but I still feel the same way as I did the first time I remember doing it.
Recently I've starting running down to the lake, right along the shore, either at night or right at dusk and just watching the city as I approach it. I don't know maybe I'm just scared of being alone in the dark, but it gives me comfort to know that there are thousands of people living behind those lights off in the distance.
So although I have to struggle to get up at 5am and drive an hour to work, I don't see myself leaving this city any time soon. My life is here. My wife is here. My friends are here. My house is here. My home is here.
Anyhoo, during my first full week at RSB, I managed to brew my fist batch of Confederation Ale. I totally meant to take a picture of it too and post it on this here web blog. But lo, I forgot. It used to be that I never took pictures. In my infinate youthful wisdom I used to live by the mantra, "I don't need to take pictures. If it's important enough to me I'll remember it". Oh what a wonderful sentiment. This of course is not the case. I have all of three pictures of my University days and I've all but forgotten them. Mind you I did do a fair bit of drinking then so it's quite possible most of the damage is self inflicted. Infact my three main hobbies during those four years were drinking, eating nachos and getting fat. Never the less, if you put all of my floor mates from first year in a line up, (which for many years I regarded as one of the best and most fun years of my life), I don't think I could name any of them. So now I take pictures. Lots of them. Of my three old hobbies I still regularly practice one of them, that of course is drinking, which is probably the most harmful on me old noggin. So I promise you, there soon will be a posted picture of my new work place, it's spectacular view and of course my first batch of beer. Lest I forget it and the memory of my first batch dies and floats off to the land of ghost and wind.
So what's next?

Out With the Old, In With the Nucleus

What's next? I'll tell you what's next, a new job! That's what's next.
So the title isn't really that apt, but I just wanted to throw in an obscure Simpsons's reference somewhere. So if you don't like, go take a flying fuck at the moooooooooooooooooooon! (That was my obscure Kurt Vonnegut reference).
There, I'm done with references now.
So yeah, my days at Magnotta have offically come to an end. They were good times though. You know what they say, "you never forget your first". And Magnotta was my first brewery.
I learned a lot in my short 5 month stay at Magnotta. Mike Ligas, the brewmaster, designed some great beers and I had the destinct pleasure of making them almost every day for those five months. And Simon Cowe, yes the same Simon Cowe from the quietly forgotten band from the UK, Lindis Farne, which put out a few hits back in the early 70's, managed to impart some great brewing knowlege upon me. And lest I forget to to mention Mustaq and Erica, who also made working at Magnotta a pleasure.
But lo, those days are gone now. Vanished into memory, like so many drunken Friday nights.
And like so many rough, pasty mouthed Saturday mornings, I've picked myself up, swallowed a glass of Sumol Passionfruit drink and moved on to bigger and better things.
Robert Simpson Brewing Co! Yes, my new job and title is the brewer at The Robert Simpsons Brewing Co, the small brewing by the lake in lovely downtown Barrie. And it's not just a lovely town, but the brewery itself is astonishingly beautiful. My day to day view, is floor to celing windows that look out on to the pristine waters of Kempenfelt Bay. Much better than than my view of concrete walls inside the Magnotta Winery. Does life get any better than that? I get to brew beer whilst looking out onto a lake. Damn.
But outside of that, the people at Robert Simpson are great. Everyone seems to be part of the family there, actually a lot of people are from the same family, but you get the point. I've only worked there three days and I already feel at home.
A new adventure and a new path in that ever changing road that is life.
It's funny, when you try to go back and look at all the off ramps, short cuts and switch backs your own personal road of life has taken, it's hard to imagine that you made it to where you are in the first place.
First off, it quickly becomes quite obvious that you don't have a map. You frantically take exits or side roads that frequently lead to dead ends. You've retraced and backtracked over those same roads time and time again, hoping and praying that just one of them will lead you to that one open highway, that takes you to easy street. Where you can sit back, relax, set the car on cruise and just drive off into the sunset.
But as you get older you start to realise that it isn't so much the destination as it is the journey. The sunset is just an illusion. A mirage, mocking you.
So next time you find yourself freaking out cause your uncontrollably bombing down a twisting moutain highway, looking for the next off ramp that will hopefully slow you down and lead you the promised land. Just slow down, take you foot of the gas. Gently pull into the next rest stop. Get out of your car and enjoy the scenic vista. You'll probably find that you are right where you want to be anyways.
What's next?

Never Hear the End of It

What's next? I'll tell you what's next. Sloan at the Koolhaus, that's what's next.
It had been a while, infact this was my first Sloan show in almost four years. After Navy Blues, the next two albums where a little weak and that urgent, youthful desire to see them each time they came to Toronto had dwindled somewhat. I still remember eargerly flipping through Now and Eye Magazine each week, checking the listings to see who was coming to town that month. If Sloan was in the listing, I was off to the Ticketmaster wicket to get my seats for the show. I just couldn't miss it man, I mean, what if this was their last show! Heaven forbid!
But alas, those days are over now and for what ever reason I just couldn't make it off the couch to go check them out for the last few years. But after their lastest release, Never Hear the End of It, which saw them return to form, I figured it was about time that I went out and saw one of my old favourites again.
Standing there on the Koolhauses' expansive concrete floor amid a sea of teenage girls and twenty somethings, it quickly dawned on me that I was in the minority. I was now the creepy, older guy standing at the back of the show, with a beer in one hand, the and the other in my pocket. Too tired and too cool to go up to the front and start dancing, I've been relegated to the back, to sip my beer and mouth the words in relatively quiet seclusion.
I'm okay with that. And as Mike D, Toby and I were standing on the floor waiting for the show, discussing bands we like and cool shows we've seen over the years, I began looking around at all the young people , wearing clothes that I don't understand and drinking those super sugary alcho-pops instead of beer and I started to think about my Dad. When he was thirty would he be at a concert on a Thursday night, pulling pints like there the last beers on the planet. No I don't think he would be. For starters music wasn't a big part of our lives growing up. My parents didn't impart any of their worldly musical knowledge upon us. Forcing their favourite bands down our thoat in an attempt to get us to love the things that they loved. Infact in our childhood car, a large orange Chevy van, the kind oft described in Police issued warnings about a kidnapper on the loose, we only had a few tapes to choose from. Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, Men at Work Business as Usual and a selection of Esso's Solid Gold 50 tapes that you ould buy at any of their gas pumps. So no, my parents weren't big music freaks. But mostly I can't picture my Dad at a concert because when he was at the age I am now, he had three kids, a house, a dog and lived in small town Northern Ontario. I'm not saying that what I'm doing at thirty is any better or worse I'm just saying it's different. He was already a responsible adult. I' m still waiting for that proverbial slap in the face from the adult Gods, telling me to get my shit together.
When I think about the age thirty, it sounds old to me. But then I say to myself, "but dude, your thirty"! And I don't feel old. I'm just as old as I am. And I'm not old.
Am I supposed to have kids now? Am I supposed to want to stop going to concerts and getting drunk on a school night? Am I supposed to want to settle down? And if I am supposed to do these things, when? Now? When am I going to want this?
You look at your parents as a template for adult hood. They are your role models. But when I look at my life and compare it too my parents, they just aren't that similar.
Maybe I'm just a big kid and I'm refusing to grow up and face the music. Or maybe thirty is the new twenty. I don't know. I haven't figured it out yet. When I do, I'll let you know.
Anyhoo, back to the show.
As far as Sloan shows go, this was middle of the road. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Maybe it was just me. I was there but I wasn't in to it like I was when they played those 4 nights at the Palais Royal back in the day. I can remember being right at the front, the floor boards heaving under my feet as the sweaty, mass of arms and legs jumped in unison around me, shouting SLO-OAN, SLO-OAN, SLO-OAN. Now that was a rock show.
I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe next time I should just stay home and read a review of the show in the paper the next week. Then again, maybe not.
What's next?