The Beer Baron Presents - Craft Beer Road Trip: The Big Dipper

On the advice of a friend from the fabulous Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium, the Clockwatching Tart and I decided to check out Arabella Park Beer Bar in nearby Kitchener, Ontario. Rather than just blasting down the 401 and making a quick trip of it, we fired up our faithful Subaru and took to the country roads in search of food, drink and adventure.

Being the crafty Google Maps user, researcher and spreadsheet planner she is, the Clockwatching Tart planned a route taking us to breweries and bars both new and familiar and in the process created a route I’ve christened “The Big Dipper”. Basically a smaller version of the Waterloo Region Craft Ale Trail with some local sights thrown in for good measure, The Big Dipper started off with the Bitte Schön Brauhaus, a lovely little microbrewery in the comically lovely little hamlet of New Hamburg.

Bitte Schön was small but inviting with a nice set up and friendly staff. Having never tried their beer, we settled on a flight of four tasters and were impressed with their Alder Creek Altbier (which was dark and smooth and had kind of a lightly spiced caramel apple thing going on) and their Huron Street Hefeweizen (which was light and floral with wonderful citrus notes). We picked up some to share with friends and continued on our merry way.

Our next stop was one of those pleasant surprises that happens when you are out exploring. We noticed a park as we were crossing the bridge into New Hamburg so we went to check it out. Not only did we discover a stone pathway across the Nith River in Scott Park, we also stumbled upon the New Hamburg Heritage Waterwheel. Billed as the largest working waterwheel in North America and built in 1990, the waterwheel was awesome to see and made the day all the more special.

Next up was Arabella Park Beer Bar for lunch. With 18 taps primarily focused on regional craft beers and ciders, an impressive bottle list and locally sourced food rooted in Canadian cuisine, Arabella Park was perfect for us.

The Clockwatching Tart and I both found something unique to try from their tap list, with Revel Violent Delights (a spontaneously fermented cider with cherries and vanilla from the always wonderful Revel Cider Co.) and Left Field Brewery’s Lolly Mango Lassi IPA (a cloudy, creamy IPA brewed with mango, lactose sugar, cardamom and bright, citrus-forward hops). 

I had a hot dog and some fantastic fresh-cut fries...

And the Clockwatching Tart had fish and chips with a funky Vermont cider. The service, drinks and food were all fantastic, so I suppose the moral of the story is that when someone from Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium recommends a place, do yourself a favour and go.

Next up was Abe Erb Brewing Company, a more traditional looking dark wood and brass brewpub that was a nice place to get out of the summer heat. I had a Canada Day IPA with a nice balance of Red X malt and Citra and Centennial hops.

Our next stop was Descendants Beer & Beverage Co., where we made another fun, unplanned discovery. This time, it wasn’t a waterwheel but something equally unexpected:

A great folk band! Specifically, Onion Honey, who were having a CD-release party and were absolutely fantastic, talented and fun; so much so that we bought their CD to listen to on the drive home, making for a wonderful end to a wonderful day.

P.S. There is also a shuffleboard table at Grand River Brewing, in case you like things that are awesome.

This post comes from Matt, the Beer Baron. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @geekcanuck 

The Beer Baron’s Day Out

Thanks to the grand opening of London Brewing Co-op’s new space on Saturday, February 25th and a special Winter Pop Up Bar presented by Forest City Beer Fest over the weekend, it was a special weekend for craft beer fans in London.

To celebrate, we decided to make a day of it and the unofficial Forest City Craft Beer Day was born. We started the day in the newly trendy Old East Village and enjoyed a flight from London Brewing Co-op (including their robust Tolpuddle Porter, which I’ve always enjoyed) while marvelling at their expansive new space and equipment. They’ve come a long way since their pop-up shops!  

Our next stop was literally right around the corner at Anderson Craft Ales. I’d tried their beers at various craft beer festivals but am embarrassed to say I hadn’t visited their brewery before. Both the space itself and the beer were better than I was expecting, so I’m glad to have taken that visit off my to-do list.

As luck would have it, Anderson had been releasing one Belgian-style beer each weekend in February, saving the strongest - a 10.6% ABV Dark Strong that was similar to a Belgian quadrupel - for last. It was an unexpected and special treat, boozy but balanced and enticing. Sadly, I couldn’t bring any of the limited-quantities Dark Strong home but happily brought home some IPA in a fancy new growler approved by the Clockwatching Tart.   

After hitting up both London Brewing Co-op and Anderson, it felt right to pop over to Forked River Brewing to complete the trifecta. We were rewarded with the availability of two of my favourite Forked River brews: Reforest Kelly, a sour, barrel-aged imperial stout brewed with black cherries, and Hansel and Brett’el, a farmhouse blonde aged in chardonnay barrels. They are both tart and complex and will ensure that my unofficial Forest City Craft Beer Day is still appreciated in a few weeks when I crack them open.

We stopped in to Museum London to check out their amazing Brian Jones exhibit and lo and behold, the beer-related fun with “Canadian Eh? A History of the Nation’s Signs and Symbols”.

Even though it was unofficially Forest City Craft Beer Day, we are still just human, and besides, a friend from the best craft beer bar in the city, Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium, recommended Ritual Cafe, so who were we to argue? Both the dark roast coffee and Mexican mocha were excellent, so we repaid the favour by heading to have dinner and drinks at the aforementioned Milos’.

Presented by the Forest City Beer Fest, the Winter Pop Up Bar was held in a nice spot around the corner from Milos’ at the Hassan Law Gallery and featured a selection of carefully selected bottles and cans to sample from and a larger selection of 20 draft taps. As soon as we walked in, we were faced with bottles of Bellwoods Brewery’s 3 Minutes to Midnight, an imperial stout brewed with cherries, and Bounty Hunter, an imperial coconut porter, which is a wonderful way to start an evening.

On the draft side, we started off with a selection of Paradise Lost sour ales from Blood Brothers Brewing, sampled a new imperial stout from Cowbell Brewing, worked out way through a barrel-aged cherry sour and a sour brett porter from Indie Ale House, then finished the night with a sticky sweet, intense and unique “chewy imperial stout” brewed by Sweden’s Omnipollo while visiting Toronto’s Brunswick Bierworks. Any beer that is described as “deep-fried graham cracker chocolate chunk caramel bar” seems like a fitting end to a day of craft beer adventures. Cheers!

This post is my Matt, the Beer Baron. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @geekcanuck

The Beer Baron - Trick or Treat with Big Rig Brewing

The Beer Baron is back! This post comes from Matt and you can find him on Twitter & Instagram @geekcanuck

I’m normally not crazy about pumpkin beers that come out at this time of year, as they tend to just be ales overwhelmed by pumpkin pie spices. However, when I saw that Big Rig Brewing’s Tales from the Patch was billed as a “spiced pumpkin porter”, I couldn’t resist. After all, my love of darker beers -- particularly stouts and porters -- is well documented.

I decided to have it with my Thanksgiving dinner alongside the Clockwatching Tart’s amazing spatchcocked turkey and was immediately intrigued and impressed. The maltier, more robust backbone of the porter stood up to the pumpkin spices well and the mouthfeel was silky smooth and beguiling. It was even better than advertised and a quick check back to the can revealed that it wasn’t just a spiced porter, but a spiced MILK porter, which uses lactose (aka milk sugar) to impart a lovely, milky smoothness.

Clearly, I needed to talk to the brewmaster responsible.

“It’s become a tradition that started when I was still working at a brewery out west. Every year, I’d make a different pumpkin beer for my wife, so I’ve tried quite a few variations. I’m happy to say she likes this one,” says Big Rig Brewery brewmaster and co-owner Lon Ladell, who was kind enough to answer my geeky questions about his beer.

According to Lon, the idea behind Tales from the Patch was to create a beer that emulated the flavors of pumpkin pie with whipped cream, hence the lactose.

“Porter is a style of beer that already lends itself to some of the flavours that we wanted. We used crystal malt to give it a bit of a sweet, caramel kind of note and then added some chocolate and biscuit malt to give it that kind of graham cracker crust layer,” says Lon.

As for the spices and the pumpkin itself, Lon and the Big Rig team didn’t treat it much differently than anyone else making homemade pumpkin pie.

“We used a couple of local farms. We go and actually pick some of the pumpkins ourselves and then buy the rest. It was a lot of fun. Once we got them, we broke them apart and scooped out all the innards, cut them into four or five pieces, then we put cinnamon, cloves, allspice and brown sugar on them and then roast them in our ovens at one of our restaurants. It’s exactly how you make pumpkin pie,” says Lon.

Between the roasted maltiness of the porter, the spices used on the pumpkin and the finishing touch of the lactose, Tales from the Patch is nicely balanced, unique, and -- most of all -- delicious. It definitely goes down as an absolute Halloween treat and something I hope to find again next year (even if Lon has to brew a different pumpkin beer for his wife).

P.S. If you happen to get a little caramel square this Halloween, you could do worse things than pairing it with Tales from the Patch, assuming you can track some down at the LCBO.

Beer Baron: Christmas in June | The London Beer & BBQ Show 2016

The Beer Baron is back! This post comes from Matt and you can find him on Twitter & Instagram @geekcanuck 

The London Beer & BBQ Show has steadily been getting bigger and hoppier with each passing year. At last year’s show, I discovered Elora Brewing Co.’s Lady Friend IPA and Maclean’s Ales’ Luck & Charm Oatmeal Stout, two fantastic beers that I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy many times since. What wonderful Ontario craft beer discoveries are in store for this year? Read on to find out!

The Ontario craft beer scene certainly seems healthy and ever growing. It’s pretty amazing what has happened in the last decade. This year, my most pleasant discovery of the show was Four Fathers Brewing Co., from just north of Guelph, which is a pretty wonderful part of the province for craft beer.

There is no such thing as a bad time for Russian Imperial Stout, so despite the almost-summer heat, I couldn’t resist trying their Pyotr Chetyre Russian Imperial Stout with Cinnamon and Vanilla and I’m glad I did. Hiding it’s 8.5% abv well, it was a welcome addition to the Ontario stout scene and was nicely balanced and not at all overwhelming, despite the style and spices.

On the other end of the abv and flavour spectrum - but no less a wonderful craft beer discovery - was Highlander Brew Co.’s Beerded Lady, a delicate but lively light ale that they somehow managed not to call a session ale, despite the rising popularity of the name. Beerded Lady had a subtle sweetness and a light hop finish that would make it a perfect summer ale.
    

                                         

Speaking of summer, Neustadt Springs Brewery brought their Sour Kraut raspberry lager to town, which is always a nice, tart treat. While you can sometimes find it Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium in London, the brewery in quaint and adorable Neustadt, Ontario is worth a visit if you happen to be heading up to Wiarton or Tobermory and need a nice place to stop for a break. The people and the historic brewery are both top-notch, as is the beer, though it seems in need of a marketing refresh to compete in the bold new age of Ontario craft beer.

Speaking of marketing and none-too-subtle segues, we have Cameron’s Brewing from Oakville, Ontario, who just this February rebranded and launched their bold and wonderfully simplistic new labels. Cameron’s beer has always been solid but I expect their rebranding will serve them well, just as Wellington Brewing did with their own bold rebranding and subsequent growth years before.

On the newer sider of the Ontario craft beer scene, we have Whitewater Brewing Co., from the Ottawa Valley. Interestingly enough, I first tried their Midnight Stout oatmeal milk stout at the tiny but wonderful Bayfield Wine & Food Festival in May. There is nothing tiny about Midnight Stout, it is creamy, bold and inviting and - god and LCBO bureaucratic processes willing - I’ll be thrilled to see it on the LCBO shelves this fall.

While it is the London Beer & BBQ Show (and a shout out to Shmokey’s for always having the best BBQ in town), there were a couple other surprises to be had, namely in the form of booze! The Clockwatching Tart and I both love gin and the Tobermory / Georgian Bay area, so it is no wonder we were drawn to the trying a gin & tonic from Georgian Bay Spirit Co., which featured juniper sourced from the Georgian Bay area and was really quite wonderful.

Just as the Georgian Bay Spirit Co. adds local flavour to make its product special, so too do the people behind Chic Choc spiced rum, who import their rum and then add a blend of nordic spices from the Chic Choc mountain region of Quebec. Smooth and happily not sweet, Chic Choc was another nice discovery and makes an excellent dark and stormy mixed with ginger beer or dark ginger ale.

That wraps up another London Beer & BBQ Show for us. Like Christmas, it was full of wonderful surprises, amazing scents and tastes, and fantastic people - and is also followed best by a nice afternoon nap. Cheers!

The Beer Baron - One Beer, Six Years of Ontario Craft Beer Memories

This post comes from Matt, The Beer Baron. Find him on Twitter & Instagram @geekcanuck

The London Wine & Food Show might need to consider a name change, as there are just as many -- or more -- spirits and craft beers to sample as there are wines, which is no bad thing.

While exploring the craft beer section of the show, I ran across the friendly folks at the Side Launch Brewing Company booth.

After a nice chat with Marissa Begin, Side Launch Marketing and Event Coordinator, and her colleague and a sample of Side Launch Wheat, I thought about just how much the craft beer scene in Ontario has changed since I first tried that beer. Better still, I was reminded of how awesome that beer is and how friendly and welcoming the craft beer scene is. 

In 2010, I organized a beer pairing dinner called Hops for the Hospital in support of medical imaging technology at London Health Sciences Centre. With the help of Milos Kral -- now of the wonderful Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium -- my goal was to pick four of the better craft beers available in Ontario at the time. 

One of the easier choices to make was Denison’s Brewing Company’s Denison’s Weissbier, an award-winning Bavarian-style wheat beer, which has since then been rebranded as (you guessed it) Side Launch Wheat. 

In preparing for the event, I came in contact with Denison’s and now Side Launch brewmaster Michael Hancock, who couldn’t have been kinder and more supportive. Despite the fact that Denison’s Weissbier was an award-winning beer and consistently among the most highly rated beers in the province on Ratebeer, Denison’s was just a small operation and Hancock couldn’t afford to come to London for the event. He graciously sent along some glassware and his apologies, despite the fact that I had e-mailed him out of the blue and he had no idea who I was. 

So, when I heard that Denison’s merged with Side Launch in 2013 and then rebranded Weissbier as Side Launch Wheat and debuted their spiffy new cans in 2014, I couldn’t have been happier for Hancock and happier to know even more craft beer lovers in Ontario would get to try his beer.

Side Launch Wheat looks like a good weather forecast: sunshine with just a bit of cloudiness. From there, things get even better when you smell it and get notes of wheat, banana and spices. It is pleasantly carbonated and smooth and all the scents are backed up in the taste, the cloves you might expect and even a hint of bubblegum that Hancock says is a classic trait of the style. It speaks to how far the Ontario craft beer scene has come (and to my own affinity for darker beers and trying new styles) that a beer this fantastic hadn’t had a regular spot in my fridge -- a problem I've now rectified. 

The other three beers we served at Hops for the Hospital, (Black Oak Summer Saison, Mill Street Tankhouse Ale and Wellington Russian Imperial Stout) also tell their own stories of the changing and growing craft beer market in Ontario.

At the time, Black Oak’s 10 Bitter Years was one of the first superstar beers in Ontario. It wasn’t brewed year-round and was hard to find. If you found out someone had it on tap, your plans for the evening were set. It was also one of the first Imperial IPAs on the scene and now there are dozens to choose from each summer. While we would have loved to have it at Hops for the Hospital, we settled (albeit happily) for their Summer Saison. These days, Black Oak brews 10 Bitter Years year-round and it is pretty easy to find at the LCBO -- who knew how spoiled we’d be?


Mill Street’s Tankhouse Ale spawned countless knock-offs and even an inevitable backlash in one memorable blog post by Ben Johnson you should definitely check out. Mill Street was recently acquired by Labatt, which is representative of the times in itself.

As for Wellington Brewery, its Russian Imperial Stout is still wonderful but also downright ubiquitous. It has been easy to find those little red cans of awesomeness at most LCBOs for a few years now -- further proof of how spoiled we’ve become in just six years. In fact, most craft beer geeks probably move right past Wellington’s standard stout and seek out their many variations of stout in their Welly One-Off or Welly Re-Booted series. Wine-barrel aged, bourbon-barrel aged, milk chocolate, latte spiced… the list goes on and on.

So, thank you to Side Launch Wheat and the Side Launch team for reminding me not only of how awesome Side Launch Wheat is, but also of how far the craft beer scene in Ontario has come. Here’s hoping that in another six years, I’ll be looking back at how far we’ve come yet again.

The Beer Baron - Hunting Local Treasures

The Beer Baron is back! This post comes from Matt and you can find him on Twitter & Instagram @geekcanuck

When you think of great craft beer cities, you probably don’t think of my hometown of London, Ontario. While it may not be San Diego, Bruges, Grand Rapids or even nearby Guelph, Ontario, London does boast one of the province’s best craft beer bars (Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium) and a great little craft brewery (Forked River Brewing Company). It is also smack dab in the middle of some pretty wonderful agricultural land, so there is no shortage of locally sourced food to enjoy with our beer here.

So, when my Dad visited recently from Calgary and we had an afternoon to kill, I knew exactly where I wanted to take him. Even though both the Clockwatching Tart and I have loved their cheeses since first trying them at the London Wine & Food Show a few years ago, we’d never made it to visit Gunn’s Hill Artisan Cheese.

If you click the above Food & Wine Show link, you’ll see we had pretty wonderful things things to say about Gunn’s Hill upon discovering their cheese – “I think the tastiest thing I tried at the whole show was the Five Brothers cheese from Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese in Woodstock” – and those feelings still stand.

The Beer Baron - New Kids on the Block

This post comes from The Beer Baron. You can find him on Twitter at @geekcanuck

With an upcoming trip to Montreal to explore the Craft beer and cider scene in Quebec, I wasn’t quite sure whether or not to visit the London Beer & BBQ Show this year. Despite enjoying the event in the past, even beer barons have a limit to their disposable income. In the end, the Clockwatching Tart and I decided to go because I was excited to try two breweries I’d never tried before, Elora Brewing Co. and Midian Brewing – and I’m certainly glad we went, because there was more to discover than just those wonderful breweries.

The very first booth we stopped at was Strathroy Brewing Company’s. Craft beer folk tend to be wonderfully pleasant, so the fact that the Strathroy team was engaging, friendly and rightfully proud of their brews came as no surprise. The surprise to me came in the form of their full line of beers:

The Beer Baron - The Hybrid We Deserve

This post comes from Matt, the Beer Baron.  He can be found on Twitter @geekcanuck

It used to be that when I thought of the word hybrid, I'd think of orchids or drought-resistant corn or even a liger. Then I spent the last decade of my life stuck behind the soul-crushing commuter appliance that is the Toyota Prius and the word “hybrid” made me think less of awe-inspiring felines and more of the legalities of slapping someone at a stop light. Thankfully, the good folks at my city's newest and smallest craft brewery are working hard to make me think of “hybrid” as a good thing again.

Although London Brewing Co-Op doesn't yet have their brew pub or retail store, their beers are regularly available at The Root Cellar organic cafe and on occasion at Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium. While I missed their first pop-up store – which was the first chance to be able to buy bottles to take home – I didn't miss the second one and got to bring home two lovely craft beers I believe are good examples of hybrids.

Just as a liger is a hybrid of a lion and a tiger (and a Prius is a hybrid of a car and self-loathing), a hybrid craft beer is a mix of two traditional styles of beer.

The Beer Baron: One Stout to Rule Them All

This post comes from Matt, the Beer Baron. You can find him on Twitter @geekcanuck

For St. Patrick’s Day, Ontario Craft Brewers are encouraging beer lovers to support craft brewers by drinking local stouts and seasonals. It is a noble and worthwhile goal but if you really want to raise a special pint, you owe it to yourself to track down not just a stout but one of Ontario’s amazing imperial stouts. Imperial stouts and Russian Imperial Stouts take all the lovely, malted notes of stout and dial it up to 11 with even more depth of flavor, complexity and awesomeness.

Half the fun of craft beer is sharing and the sense of community, so rather than just my own, personal preference for imperial stouts, I rounded up a group of eight stout lovers from my local beer appreciation group and decided that together, as a fellowship, we would find one stout to rule them all.

In the hopes that you have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day full of delicious, Ontario-brewed imperial stouts this year and beyond, we present our top-12* Ontario imperial stouts:  

12. Grand River Brewing’s Russian Gun Imperial Stout 8.0% ABV

There are no losers in this competition and Russian Gun’s No. 12 proves it. While it does mask its 8.0% ABV wonderfully well, it just came across as more stout than imperial stout, especially against the heavy hitters we gathered.

The Beer Baron - Roll Out the Barrel

Did you know that to be real bourbon, the barrels can only be used once? It’s true! The Clockwatching Tart and I recently took a little road trip to Kentucky and took a tour of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, where we learned that fun fact. 

So, what to do with all those used but still perfectly good – perhaps even better – barrels? Make Ontario craft beer, of course. Honestly, it does make perfect sense when you think about it. If you can put clear, relatively tasteless alcohol into a barrel and have it come out as something as wonderful as bourbon, what happens when you put something already wonderful like beer into a barrel for aging? Magic, that’s what.

The Beer Baron - 2014: A Craft Beer Year in Review

March: Any time you start you beer year with Bell’s Expedition Stout – or really, any good Russian Imperial Stout – you win. It was also my first post as the Beer Baron and I managed to equate Expedition Stout to Batman, so it was a win-win.

April: Ah, spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to road trips, Arcade Fire concerts and craft beer. On our way down to Nashville, we stumbled upon Country Boy Brewing in Lexington, Kentucky. The beers – especially their Sexual Dracula cherry-bourbon stout – and hospitality were so good, we are headed back for another visit. 

April: Apart from learning just how awesome Nashville is, another highlight of our spring road trip was discovering Asheville, North Carolina, which is an artsy, modern, beer-friendly little city nestled in the hills amidst winding road dotted with farms. Along with all the amazing coffee shops and hipster-friendly tacos shops, we also found by Wicked Weed Brewing, which, as luck would have it, had recently released a barrel-aged sour cherry ale that I was more than happy to bring home to cellar.

June: To celebrate Ontario Craft Beer Week in June, I took a little trip to Guelph, which is home to one of my favourite Ontario craft breweries, Wellington Brewery, as well as one of my favourite beers in the province, F&M Brewery’s Stone Hammer Oatmeal Coffee Stout. You can celebrate Ontario Craft Beer Week anywhere, but if you had to pick a city, you could certainly do worse than Guelph.

July: As the temperature (and amount of yard work) started to rise, so too did my consumption of session ales, especially Muskoka’s Detour, which was my go-to choice when I was hot and needed to keep my wits about me.

August: The Clockwatching Tart and I love Detroit. We don’t need any specific reason to visit but going to see Jack White play might qualify as one of the best reasons ever. During our little trip, we discovered Atwater at the Park in Grosse Pointe, which we will be sure to visit again.

August: August also brought the Forest City Beer Fest, which turned out to be an amazing day despite a little bit of rain. The craft beer scene in London is getting better and better every year and it is thanks to the people like festival organizer Aaron Brown. I am proud to say I visited every single booth and took photos of all the friendly faces.

October: The weather was beautiful over Thanksgiving and on the way home from a beautiful wedding in Trenton, we took a little detour off the highway to stop for lunch at the Woolwich Arrow, which boasts consistently great food and craft beer.

October: Now in its 10th year, Cask Days is a dizzying experience – 6500+ guests, 336 firkins, 120 breweries / ciders, and 150 volunteers all fill the Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto over 3 days – both literally and figuratively. This year, Ballast Point’s Victory at Sea imperial porter brewed with cacao and chili peppers, was the standout to me but there was a lot to bring smiles to everyone’s face.

December: December sees the release of quite a few wonderful seasonal beers and Milos’ Craft Beer Emporium is one of the best places in town to enjoy them along with some great, locally sourced food. Milos is another big part of the growing craft beer movement in London and we are lucky to have him and his bar in town. Pictured above is something I likely wouldn’t have been able to find anywhere else in town: Colossus, a Dunkleweizen Dopplebock from Side Launch Brewing that was absolutely fantastic.

December: Finally, my year of craft beer ended with a bang thanks to our local brewery, Forked River Brewing Company, releasing Weendigo, a barrel-aged imperial stout. Hand-dipped in wax and perfect for cellaring, Weendigo was available both at the brewery and at the LCBO and made for a perfect Christmas gift – though I made sure to keep a few tucked away for myself to help ensure 2015 is just as delicious as 2014 was.

This post is by The Beer Baron, Matt Brown.  Find him on Twitter @geekcanuck