"The Matador Version 2.0 El Toro Bravo" Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery

Right off the hop (pun incidental) the talented primates in Barrie who somehow manage to contain their rampant creativities to occasionally cram some beer into some bottles and put labels on them, impressively manage to do so with exceeding success. 

FREE BONUS TIP: If you spot a colorful box that could contain a wine bottle emblazoned with the words "Flying Monkeys", buy it. Don't hesitate. You need the adventure.

This is one of these magical sort of boxed bottles. El Toro Bravo is presented to the consumer housed within a shiny cardboard box flanked by a brilliant reproduction of a "toro" apparently in oil on canvas by artist Bruce Chalmers. As is par for the Monkeys boxed beer offerings there is a goodly amount of reading available should one be so inclined. 

The beer itself is typically atypical. A rye brew sporting a 10.1% endowment of yeasty metabolite aged on a bed of spanish cedar. Who comes up with this madness? 

It's dark. But not black by any means. More mahogany than brown. The flavors are cataclysmic. Wood, leather, Cuban cigars, poetry, cedar, motorcycles in the rain, evergreen needles, solid brass fixtures, adventure, debauchery, tall tales, toffee and fond memories crowd the palate. If Hemingway himself were reincarnated as a craft beer here he is. Best consumed late in the evening with good friends, lest you become inclined to run with bulls or attempt some equally hazardous game meant for a younger man.

Brilliant execution. Madness or genius? 

100/100

Wellington Brewery "Frost Quake"

On a bright and positively frigid Sunday afternoon when the thermometer at my house hadn't crept above -23 degrees Celsius I felt a craving for a living room brewery tour. So bravely pulling on a pair of jeans and some big black winter boots I drove the frosty five minutes to my local liquor purveyor. A digital sign on a sunny hill top along the way displays a hopeful "-18.0C". It's cold out.

The name "Frost Quake" in large letters seems to strike a contradiction in my imagination. Today is the perfect day for a real frost quake, temperatures tonight are predicted to drop closer to -30C, and yet as a beer named for an icy cold weather phenomenon, it seems like something one might seek on a hot summer day. The large, dark, swing top bottle seals the deal. 

Once again safe and warm at home I pop the big brown bottle of "bourbon barrel aged barley wine" and pour a modest 5 ounces into a snifter. 

Phenomenal stuff. Perfect for the weather. Deep chestnut brown. Ever so slightly syrupy, but sweet and molassesy enough. The alcohol content is burly at 9.8% but it's well camouflaged by the galloping malt. The barrel aging has brought the elements of this barley wine together like a symphony of flavor and aroma. 

I'd happily recommend this to a friend. In fact I already have! Enjoy with someone special to turn a icy cold day into a warm celebration of masterful brewing.