Being The Blockchain Beerologist definitely has its perks, including but not limited to getting paid to tour breweries and sample new beers! When I am not globetrotting and chugging pints, my fridge looks like a colourful mosaic of regional craft beer I enjoy sharing with the #beersaturday alliance of #beer bloggers on #hive.

This week, I am hopping back into blogging mode after a few weeks capping off late summer adventure mostly off-chain. There have been some drinks so lets share that part of the adventure.

Not Beer

Ever get beered out and look for something better? Me neither. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy a nice cocktail occasionally! Some of those occasions are when visiting fancy restaurants, photographing for client's social media, or maybe in the back woods when a bottle of bourbon is more convenient to pack across miles of bush when backwoods camping. All of which were the case in the last couple weeks.



These wonderfully fresh beverages can be found at
Raja Fine Indian Cuisine which happens to be both my favourite Indian restaurant in the region AND one of our favourite clients at Town Crier Marketing Besides the care and fresh ingredients that go into them, it was neat to find out the back story. Turns out the owner always had the dream of opening a cocktail bar in his hometown of Dhaka, Bangladesh which I have come to know is the 9th largest city in the world. Exotic city and exotic cocktails to kick of #BeerSaturday.

Back to the Beer

You can imagine, with my professional #beerologist discipline and social schedule that my recycling bin is always quite full. I am a little too lazy to return the empties more than every few months and too cheap to recycle them for zero dollars. Over the years, I have come to take 1 of each new beer and put it up on the shelf instead of in the bin as a bit of a display, and a reminder then it is time to return the empties for $.10 each.

Here is the shelf before I destroyed it in favour of $22.50 worth of return last week. I keep looking at it for all of the different colours, breweries, styles and beers I have enjoyed over the summer. Predominantly regional craft beer as advertised ad a hint of summer radler and lighter lagers and session IPAs. Such a rainbow of labels and taste for your viewing pleasure.

Pumpkin?!

I love to hate on pumpkin. Screw pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie can suck it, and a long booooooo to companies releasing Halloween style stuff while I am still battling to deny the end of summer. You must know it is a labour of love and a noble falling on the perverbial sword when I pick this Great Lakes Brewery brew off the shelf for you, one of the legion of followers and #BeerSaturday revelers.



I passed GLB Pumpkin Ale on the shelf with my nose turned up but had to stop as I am supposed to be exploring new beers for the blog. It also might be quite funny to tell the world how bad this beer is and brow beat breweries from my blockchain soapbox. Why not grab one?

Some neat poetry on the side of the label prematurely puts you in the late October state of mind. Cracking the can, there is only slight hints of anything spiced or haunted. I steeled my senses for the first sip, thinking about the insults I would have for the people who put pumpkin in my beer and tossed the German Purity Law aside in favour of spiced contaminants. Truth is, this beer was not bad! The "generous amounts of locally grown pumpkin" made for a much more subtle hint of new flavour and the syrupy I expected turned out to be fairly well balanced and nice.

Despite all efforts to the contrary, I did not hate this beer! I may get heckled for awarding the coveted seal of approval but I am not often pleasantly surprised like I was with this decent beer. Touché GLB!

Camping Beer Conundrum

I may as well tease my upcoming camping adventure posts which will give you a paddler's view of my recent sojourn into Algonquin Park. Leaving the details 'til later, just know that hiking a case of beer through the woods, across lakes and through portages is not the ideal way to back woods camp. I opted for a skin of wine and bottle of bourbon but smuggled a couple cans of beer in just to be safe. So did the other campers and we chilled them in the lake on the end of a rope in a mesh bag. The water bugs were not able to steal them on us and the lake didn't actually cool the beer more than the chill September air but there was beer!

Skipping ahead a few days, the perfect punctuation for our pilgrimage was to hit a pub once we hit the grid again and celebrate with a beer or 2. This one is [Pineapple Ninja Wheat Ale(https://shop.muskokabrewery.com/collections/beer-shop-all/products/pineapple-ninja-wheat-ale) as I appreciate the occasional detour from IPAs and am a fan of pineapple both in beer and on pizza. Deal with it.

Not only was it a nice welcome back to civilization with a great outdoorsy crew, it was sweet and refreshing as it washed away a few days of fireside bourbon.

#BEERSaturday!

Start 'em early! You can join @detlev and instantly become a beer blogger here https://hive.blog/hive-187719/@detlev/beersaturday-324 for this week's edition.
This week for #BeerSaturday, I would like to invite my new friend @astrea who is into Inspiration - Happiness - Life - Nature and maybe beer? Take a few pictures, tag #beersaturday and raise a glass with us on Hive!

Cheers to our global family of beer-drinkers!!

I am honoured to curate for:

Pumpkin in your beer or Pineapple on your Pizza?