Garrison Imperial IPA Makes Its Toronto Debut Tonight

The second shipment of beer from Halifax's Garrison Brewing Co. finally arrived in Ontario last week and the beer has been released to all those who ordered cases.  Toronto's barVolo was one establishment to get in on the order, and tonight they'll have their share available to purchase - Imperial IPA and Hopyard Pale Ale.  So if you're in the city tonight, and you didn't get in on the order, head over to Volo to indulge in some of the best from the east coast.

These two Nova Scotia beauties will also be part of Volo's new bottle menu, which I got a glimpse of first hand yesterday during an afternoon session.  The new menu is chalk full of terrific beer from all over Canada and includes beers of all styles from (in alphabetical order) Alley Kat, Central City, Charlevoix, Dieu Du Ciel!, Driftwood, Half Pints, Les Trois Mousquetaires, Paddock Wood, and Phillips.

There are also some awesome beers from well known international breweries like Brooklyn, Flying Dog, Meantime, Moylans, Panil, Rogue, St. Bernardus, Stone, and Southern Tier.

barVolo opens at 4pm. *Please note the beer will not be on tap, bottles only.

Garrison Imperial IPA Accepted For LCBO's Autumn 2010 Release

I was on the phone with Cass Enright back on December 24th and he mentioned he had heard some terrific news from the LCBO earlier in the day - Garrison IPA, a beer Enright represents here in Ontario as he represents the Garrison Brewery, was accepted for the 2010 Autumn release.

Back in October Enright and Brian Titus (Garrison Brewing Co. owner) agreed to submit the beer for consideration and it was tasted in November. You see, the LCBO sends out a pdf. file by the name "Product Needs" to breweries and importers for various intake periods and this particular one (Autumn) was calling for single serving format preferred (500 mL), which is exactly how the IPA is sold.

The file also had the terms "proven track record in other markets” and “award winning”, and if you know your beer, you'll know that the IPA was named the Canadian Beer of the Year in 2007 and 2008 at the Canadian Brewing Awards. That's a pretty easy sell. The LCBO would also have had to look at the two private orders Enright put together, which sold out very fast (in fact the first one soldout in 4 days).

Enright and Titus put together the required paperwork and sent it off, and that email Enright received from the LCBO on Christmas Eve was a nice early gift. The price hasn't been set as of yet, but if it comes in under $4.00 a bottle, which could be the case, it should be very popular with the hopheads.

What's really great about this news is how it's come to be. Yes, the beer is fantastic and having it be available at LCBO retail stores, even for a short period, is great. But all this happened because of Enright's drive to document the process for bringing a beer, even if it's from another province, into Ontario for consumer consumption with his Free Our Beer site. What started out as curiosity turned into a small business venture with Ontario beer drinkers reaping the rewards.

Head over to Enright's Free Our Beer site to read his latest post on the acceptance.

Garrison Private Order Update

The sales numbers for the first ever private order from the Garrison Brewing Company have been a tremendous success for Cass Enright. The founder of Bar Towel (who created his own corporation to import a variety of Garrison beers) has been astonished as the speed at which the beer has ordered. "We made the announcement last Thursday, and by 6pm tonight, we only have 2 cases of the Imperial Pale Ale left, and 2 cases of the Sugar Moon Maple Ale left."

Once the remaining cases are ordered, Enright has the task of emailing each customer an LCBO ordering form which must be signed, dated, and have credit card information listed to cover the deposit on your order. Once the customer completes that form they will have to fax the original document back to Enright who will then submit the total package (all order forms) to the LCBO for the beer to be ordered. "Hopefully it won't take to long to arrive after that," stated Enright.

So for those of you who are sitting on the fence deciding whether or not to participate in this order, now is the time to act. Go to www.bartowelimports.com to submit your order before it's to late.

Also, Enright has posted the first story of his venture on his FreeOurBeer website - the website in which he has dedicated to exploring the beer retail system in Ontario.