Mike

You tried all those over the weekend?? Indeed I did. It was a slow weekend.

Dug into the Phillips Snowcase this weekend ... Tried the Apteryx IPA, the Elsinore Lager, the Wit Beer, the Anxiety Ale, the Black Jackal Imperial Coffee Stout, the Slipstream Ale, the Anxiety Ale, the One & Only Saison and the Twisted Oak Scotch Ale. Really liked the Apteryx ... the Elsinore is a good take on a regular old beer and other than that ... meh. Not thrilled with the selection in the snowcase thus far. Also got my hands on a Sriracha Stout from Rogue. Awful.

Wouldn't really care to see Laing here. From what I see though, that's one long list of key free agents.

If #97 Hamilton is Ted Laurent, we did have him at one time. No we didn't...

Well spoken. But a lot of issues reek of the issues he was discussing two years ago and they're still not fixed. I can't believe his defense of Brohm though. I hope it's just lip service, that guy is atrocious. Says every spot was tough except for one, yet also says the one spot that he had the right opportunity, he pissed it away. Come on. I'll keep watching though.

My house came with a wet bar downstairs. Pretty thrilled about that. Picked up what was advertised as the last Coast to Coast ESB that Phillips and a few other brewers collabed on tonight. Pretty curious to try that.

To me, Brady is the choice. What's not to like about him as a candidate? - He's a former CFL QB - He's familiar with Mike O'Shea - He's probably one of the only coaches in the CFL with his level of experience who has yet to be fired - He's got a track record as a successful coordinator and he runs exactly the type of offense we're all hoping to see. All aboard the Brady bandwagon.

Do you guys ever find yourself going back for the same craft over and over? Ever since I started buying the individuals, I can't bring myself to buy the same one twice no matter how much I enjoy it. I just love trying different stuff, every time out. Although that Fracture Imperial IPA ... If they had that here, my fridge would be full of it.

I learned I didn't like much about imperial stouts after trying a Long, Dark Voyage to Uranus.

The sad thing is we're really not. As good as those places are and as many new ones are coming we're still so far behind provinced like BC, Ontario and Quebec that it's not even funny. Phillips is probably my favorite brewery and they're based out in BC ... Really wish I had access to more of their stuff. Really like Parallel 49 too, based out there. Phillips Blue Buck is pretty good for sure and I know they had an ISA or something that I quite enjoyed. Granville Island was bought by a big brewer but they have some good stuff as well that is pretty widely available (English Bay Pale Ale being my favourite) It's nuts though, been to BC a few times over the summer and there are so many more options available that just don't have the distribution out of province. Vancouver is littered with breweries that I'd never heard of before. Luckily the Alberta government is making it easier for Alberta Breweries to grow without penalizing them heavily so hopefully that will let some of the brands that aren't Bigrock spread across the prairies. I love me some Bigrock don't get me wrong but most of their selection is based around the Traditional and it seems that the English style brown ales don't get enough love from the craft beer world. I'd love to see WildRose get some more exposure and maybe start bottling the damned SOB or Wred Wheat again rather than making me drive all the way to their brewery to get it. Blue Buck isn't sold here but I had one last week in Toronto and I really enjoyed it. I really liked their Super Cooper Anniversary Ale, Electric Unicorn White IPA, Octofox IPA and Green Reaper IPA as well. Good choices for what I like in an IPA although I haven't tried their Imperial yet and I have yet to pick up their Hopbox. Their Snowcase advent calendar comes out tomorrow and I'm picking one up (24 new beers for Christmas!) - really would like to try that WCPA they have too. Haven't really liked much coming out of the Granville Island offerings. Have you tried anything from Muskoka? They're very hit and miss for me. If you like Phillips, try out the Hoperation Triple Cross. It's an IPA, but tastes more like a witbier. The only thing I've tried from Muskoka is their Detour IPA. It was okay. Too much of a citrus taste. Probably would be better the second time around. Been looking for the Hoperation, seems like there's only a few left in the city. I didn't like Detour either. Mad Tom and Twice as Mad Tom were both good red IPAs, though.

One things for certain, we're living in the golden age of Canadian beer, there has never been so much choice. Hard to believe 25 years ago Canadians were basically restricted to the products of 2-3 breweries. Harder to believe now, every time I get in line to pay for beer invariably the guys in front and behind me have cases of Bud. On a scale of good beer, Bud has always fallen into the piss-poor strata. Goes to show the power of marketing overwhelms the power to think with one's brain. I would agree marketing overwhelms and I don't think that's just in regards to brands like Bud, etc. Even in the craft beer market, marketing plays a major part. The main reason I found out I liked breweries like Phillips, Parallel 49 or even Barkerville is that their labeling caught my eye. Even breweries like Rogue that have select offerings in Manitoba are majorly popular just because of their unique branding. Took me a lot longer to catch onto other breweries such as Lake of Bays, simply because when you're not sure what you're looking for, you're not going to go for the product that looks boring.

The sad thing is we're really not. As good as those places are and as many new ones are coming we're still so far behind provinced like BC, Ontario and Quebec that it's not even funny. Phillips is probably my favorite brewery and they're based out in BC ... Really wish I had access to more of their stuff. Really like Parallel 49 too, based out there. Phillips Blue Buck is pretty good for sure and I know they had an ISA or something that I quite enjoyed. Granville Island was bought by a big brewer but they have some good stuff as well that is pretty widely available (English Bay Pale Ale being my favourite) It's nuts though, been to BC a few times over the summer and there are so many more options available that just don't have the distribution out of province. Vancouver is littered with breweries that I'd never heard of before. Luckily the Alberta government is making it easier for Alberta Breweries to grow without penalizing them heavily so hopefully that will let some of the brands that aren't Bigrock spread across the prairies. I love me some Bigrock don't get me wrong but most of their selection is based around the Traditional and it seems that the English style brown ales don't get enough love from the craft beer world. I'd love to see WildRose get some more exposure and maybe start bottling the damned SOB or Wred Wheat again rather than making me drive all the way to their brewery to get it. Blue Buck isn't sold here but I had one last week in Toronto and I really enjoyed it. I really liked their Super Cooper Anniversary Ale, Electric Unicorn White IPA, Octofox IPA and Green Reaper IPA as well. Good choices for what I like in an IPA although I haven't tried their Imperial yet and I have yet to pick up their Hopbox. Their Snowcase advent calendar comes out tomorrow and I'm picking one up (24 new beers for Christmas!) - really would like to try that WCPA they have too. Haven't really liked much coming out of the Granville Island offerings. Have you tried anything from Muskoka? They're very hit and miss for me.

The sad thing is we're really not. As good as those places are and as many new ones are coming we're still so far behind provinced like BC, Ontario and Quebec that it's not even funny. Phillips is probably my favorite brewery and they're based out in BC ... Really wish I had access to more of their stuff. Really like Parallel 49 too, based out there.

If you've seen Ray on Untapped, I'm sure you've seen me.

Giving this a fun bump because the first time I looked at it 2 years ago, I remember thinking ... how much is there to talk about beyond Bud Light? Now, after about a year of trying everything I can get my hands on, I'm majorly into craft beers. Not big into the stouts, but really enjoying a lot of the various IPAs and IRAs I've been trying and there are some good ambers out there as well. Favorite thing I've tried to date was the Fracture Imperial IPA that Amsterdam makes, but I only saw it while I was in Toronto. Their unfiltered IPA that they stock on shelves here in Manitoba isn't as good, in my opinion. My buddies and I just also tried every beer in that Craft Crossing advent calendar last week - some real winners and some REAL losers. I read one of the comments about the Red Racer stock being old way back and I have to agree - when I tried it the first time I thought it was terrible. It came up in the advent calendar (fresh, specific for the box) and it was amazing. Good stuff.

The players love him. And people who know better than I told me I was dumb.

What is elite in a 9 team league? Top 3? Top 5? He is neither of those...He so obviously is Ray, Burris, Mitchell, Reilly, Collaros. Yeah, it's hard to call Willy top 5. I think he can get there. But not until his resume improves. He's got the skill though.

Any franchise without an offensive minded President is doomed to failure.

Not sure why anyone would want Khari Jones. Would rathe have Lapo than Khari AINEC. Khari Jones, other than being a name brand in Winnipeg, is not a reasonable candidate. I mean ... how bad is it going to look if we can Bellefeuille and replace him with a guy he showed the ropes to? Khari was first hired into the CFL coaching ranks by Bellefeuille. His offense is run like Bellefeuilles. Pass.

Why do you say that? What title would we have to give him to get him out of Toronto? I think his contract is up. Not that Toronto wouldn't want him back, but we may be able to tempt him

You could argue the defense bent and broke at times we would've liked them to have not. Obviously. But let's also factor in how long they were on the field in certain situations. How many times they made a stop only to have the O put them right back on the field. We need a few players (a DT, a DE and maybe a guy to replace Demond) but other than that our D is VERY solid. They just need to get a little more time on the sidelines courtesy of our offense. The offense is atrocious and even with Drew Willy, we were hindered. Bellefeuille was a terrible OC during his time here and I'm glad to see him gone.

My money would be on Marcus Brady.

Good.

Would disagree strongly with that.

I'm not sure what world you're operating in where firing MB isn't an automatic. Quite honestly, I would take spinning a wheel with 12 plays on it to decide what we call over having him run our offense. If nothing else, it'd be less predictable.