How It All Began -The Friendship, and the Passion for Beer

Well, I can only speak for myself, and I can't quite pinpoint how, or when it all began, but I do have a general idea.

Back in 2005, my beer of choice was Alexander Keith's, so much so, that I convinced my family to go to Halifax for a summer vacation. The trip was great, and I got to go to the Alexander Keith's brewery. Yay! While this was going on, I was switching departments at work, and a new batch of seasonals were hired. That is when John and I first met.

We didn't become friends right away but lets fast forward a few months later. We were both invited to a coworkers wedding, after the wedding reception and in a drunken state, we decided to go grab a bite to eat with some friends. Our DD was giving us a ride home, but while driving down a dark, winding, dirt road, with the music blasting, we lost control of the car on a turn and hit a fence and some bushes. Thankfully none of us were injured, except the car. It was between 3-4am at the time and we were 5-10 minutes away from John's, with me having no way home at that time of night, John offered to let me crash at his place. Thus began the friendship.

As for the beer, like I said I can only speak for myself, but after my 2nd year of college ended in Spring 2006, I used to work 6am-2pm every Friday. Most Fridays after work I would go to the LCBO, and get a pick 8, and try 8 different beers, usually finished that night or by the end of the weekend at the latest. Not being too familiar with "good" beer at the time, there were a lot of hits, and a lot of misses.

For my birthday that year, we had a party at a friends house (Keizo) as it was his birthday a few days prior. I met Keizo's roommate (Greg) that day and he spoke of beers I never heard of. Before leaving Keizo's the next morning, Greg gave me what was my first Trappist, and truly Belgian beer (You don't count Stella!) Westmalle Tripel. That beer opened my eyes, and made me realize that I had been drinking lousy beers. That Christmas, Keizo, got me some more beer, Deuchars IPA, and Fullers 2007 Vintage Ale. The Fuller's has become a yearly staple and is purchased every year and cellared.

I didn't ever give OCB beers much of a chance, that is until I visited the Castle On King in the Spring of 2008. Sadly, I didn't get to frequent the Castle as much as I would have liked to, and it was forced to close down in Winter of that year. The Castle served a large selection of OCB and European Imports, and heightened my passion for beer. Since then, John and I have had many beer sessions, and jump at the opportunity to attend beer dinners/tastings.

A lot more could have been written, and I know I am probably missing a lot, but these are, in my opinion, some of the bigger highlights. I stayed away from writing about anything that is too recent and shared stories from the past. I'm sure John can add his side of the story, and fill in what I missed.