In Halifax....

We made it to Halifax!  Our Westjet flight took less than 2 hours to get us to our destination and there was a lot of beer waiting for us at the Garrison Brewery.  

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cass Enright and Chris Kebbel (who are importing Garrison into Ontario for private orders), my fiance and I, decided to come to Halifax for the weekend to hang out with the crew from Garrison, sample all their product, visit a number of their key accounts, and hit the other beer hot-spots in the city.  

We were greeted by Garrison's sales manager, Todd Johns, when we stepped off the plane and were whisked right to our hotel (Four Points by Sheraton -  a fantastic hotel right near the harbour) where we checked in, and were surprised with a gift bag courtesy of Four Points that was filled with some beer from Propeller and Sea Level Brewing!  

After putting the beers in the fridge for later we headed to the Garrison Brewery where owner, Brian Titus, was waiting for us with samples of their Sugar Moon Maple.  An excellent beer.  The initial taste was full of fresh maple syrup.  I thought it may have been a little bit over the top, but the second and third drinks the maple syrup was less dominate and it turned out quite nice indeed.  

By this time we were a bit hungry, so the first place we had to visit was the Henry House.  My personal favourite.  Bill and Donna Alsop, the owners, were there and we had a great time catching up.  The Best Bitter Special from the Granite was pleasant as usual and the food was terrific.  We sat around the table and discussed the importation of the Garrison beers to Ontario (Enright took a picture of the pallet waiting to be shipped), talked about the Ontario and Nova Scotia brewing industry, and we had a long talk about the Free Our Beer website that Enright is working on.  Speaking of the Free Our Beer website, Enright managed to write three separate articles while in mid-flight, so head there to read about the latest FOB updates.

Back to Garrison where more samples of the rest of the line-up awaited us.  Imperial Pale Ale, Nut Brown, Irish Red, Ol' Fog Burner Barley Wine, and more.  The Barley Wine was excellent.  More of it later.  We toured the brewery as Titus filled Enright and Kebbel in on the history behind Garrison and had more samples before heading to Maxwell's Plum for Firkin Friday.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was a blast, but my head hurts to much to continue writing, so more to come later.  I'm off to get a coffee.