For our first recording of 2014 and the penultimate episode of Season 3, George and I sat down for a post-holiday catch up over two beers he’d brought back from his travels and one we’d been meaning to share for a while. Somehow, we also talked about Canada a lot. We offer our traditional recommendations and observations — and also take the chance to make a more-explicit-than-usual call for listener feedback (and suggestions for Year In Review gong-winners), backed-up by a sincere offer of a bribe in beer form…

As always, a direct download is available, there’s a podcast-specific RSS feed, and you should be able to get us on iTunes. George and myself can also both be reached on the Twitterthing, or you can leave comments here or on the Bookface. Cheers!

— Show notes:

• (1.00) Lore Sjöberg’s current site is Bad Gods, and there’s a working archive of his early Brunching Shuttlecocks (from the golden age of When I Learned To Internet).
• (1.30) Alternate titles: End Of Year Clear-out, What Survived Christmas In My Fridge, We Got Canada All Over the Place & Yay The Wombles For Not Being Parochial.
• (2.00) Beer of the Week #1: Dave Wood’s ‘Beetnik IPA’. Which is also one of very-few homebrewed beers ever to appear in my Diary. And a full-size batch is in the works, Baylands-brewed indeed, and set for a Hashigo launch February 18 soon. (Updated Feb 13: In his weekly email for the bar, Dave noted — with understandable regret — that Beetnik’s first public outing has been delayed due to a technical hitch in the brewing. It’s been re-brewed, and so should be out in a month or so.)
• (7.50) Super-slick Coromandel tourism website for foreigners. Or just use the Googler.
• (8.40) Hot Water Brewing. Turns out George and I fittingly had ‘The Artist’ (his West Coast Brewery era barleywine) as part of this season’s opener.
• (13.40) Good George’s localism is funny enough not to bother me. Much.
• (15.10) Beer of the Week #2: Hot Water Brewing ‘Walker’s Porter’. Beer in cans, in general, kicked off s03e04 — and the naffness of the Boundary Road one we had haunts me still.
• (20.20) The LCBO (and The Beer Store) are deeply weird things. I bungled the history a bit, but the sense of confused outrage is about right.
• (23.10) Steam Whistle brewery looks seriously bike-friendly, which I like.
• (24.40) The Wombles are more awesome than you remember. And Orinoco pre-dated the Fourth Doctor by a half-dozen years.
• (27.10) My small-bar infatuation was written up here, but is now giving way to Moral Panic rage — he says, shaking his head at NSW, and NZ.
• (30.10) A perfect grade on his homework for Adrian Pua (one of the Sessionable Podcast team), who followed Jono’s suggestion from last time to the letter — while watching the aforementioned tennis.
• (31.50) Apparently, Neil Finn himself considers Crowded House “a Melbourne band”, so I’ve softened my long-held stance on this point.
• (33.20) Pre-emptive recommendation: Kererū ‘Moonless’ Stout.
• (34.40) Call for submissions: As well as your own nominations for (Glass of) Beer of the Year, per our now-cemented tradition, we thought it high time to explicitly invite just general feedback. You can do so here (in the comments below), on Twitter (I’m @phil_cook, George is @GeorgeLanglands — his more-obscure surname not needing an underscore), on the Facebook page, or via the Contact Form Thing on here.
• (35.40) I’d link to the Sherlock run-down, but it’s so very spoiler-ific indeed.
• (38.00) Beer of the Week #3: Muskoka ‘Twice as Mad Tom’ IPA. The chairs are apparently better-known by their American name — and the beer must be strong, because neither of us correctly pronounced “Angelina Jolie”.
• (41.30) This is another instance of Matt Kirkegaard and I spookily synching up.
• (43.05) xkcd’s ‘What if?’ on the lake of tea. And my trivia fu was strong: in Star Trek there indeed was / will be a prison and a journalism school here. The Queef Of Queen Street seems to’ve been splatted by the copyright police or similar. Sigh.
• (45.00) Beer news / events: Hashigo’s X-ale refuge from the madness of Sevens is this weekend and is genius — though the prospect of getting there and back through the throng is a little stomach-turning. Session beers continue to appear with delightful regularity. And “little bars who do something interesting” are doing well. Huzzah.
• (48.30) Recommendations: The Moonless, again; Gunnamatta, always. And Cassels & Sons Pale Ale. And (further in): Northend Hoppy Wheat. Music recommendations, just because I have to: The Tragically Hip — maybe start with ‘Bobcageon’, and see how you go. And cross-train; The ‘7 Steps’ article is here, though the last tip is obviously way over the top. You can see three of my various diaries, here, too.
• (54.30) Canada all over the place. Anyone else nostalgic for Due South? No, just us? Oh, and I gardened instead of putting down the homebrew. Sorry, Jono.
• (55.40) We’ll buy a beer for: Kieran Haslett-Moore. Friend of the show, and Wizard of Fermentation. He’s on the Tweets, and blogs for (one of) his job(s) (see, for example, his nice little “I make beer for drinking” introduction of his Amber Ale — Capital Times columns are archived at his (other) blog, but the Magazine isn’t properly online. His Stone-&-Wood-Pacific-inspired Hoppy Wheat is just bloody lovely, too.
• (58.30) Cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket.