You might think that the number of years I have as a #beerologist would make me impervious to the poor pour...the dreaded double P. This is not the case as a beer is a delicious yet fickle mistress.
I became a beer blogger years ago because of the blockchain, I came to write either about that which I am learning, or know very well. The years I spent brewing for myself, the breweries I work with now on their technology and marketing, and the decades spent imbibing combine for the self-proclaimed title of the #Blockchain #Beerologist.
This week, I lay myself bare with shame. I am a damn good glass filler and pride myself on consistently good pours regardless of can or draft or glass style. Even the Blockchain Beerologists has his off pours.
Every couple weeks, I celebrate the reopening of bars after the lockdown with a pint at a pub. This week, we received the announcement that we are locking down again for a month starting this morning at midnight. Luckily, I managed to sneak out for a business meeting with a pint.
The Pint of the week comes to this week by York St Kitchen https://www.yorkstreetkitchen.com/ which has been half rebranded to YSK Bistro as it temporarily finds its home at The Prune https://www.theprune.com/ I had an appointment for long and joined the guys late, as you might guess from the state of these Black Swan EPA https://black-swan-brewing.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/english-pale-ale-epa served in Upper Thames Brewery https://upperthamesbrewing.ca/ glassware.
It is not an IPA. It is not really even served in a standard pint glass. It, it, however, local squared, delicious, and a great way to spend a lunch with the 
This is what I would consider something close to the perfect pour this week. This is a Headstock IPA https://nickelbrook.com/products/headstock-ipa which has held a spot on my coveted Top 5 list for many years. It is poured aggressively enough to mix some air into the beer and activate the flavour. Any more and you would have the head popping out of the top, even overflowing. If you are too easy or slow on it, you get not enough aeration and a beer that looks too small for the glass.
Remember the perfect pour: The balance between aeration and glass fullness.
Would you look at that space at the top of the glass? It didn't come near the rim, and apparently the head faded away before I could snap a shot. I do enjoy Portage IPA from Upper Thames Brewery https://upperthamesbrewing.ca/our-beer/ but have failed miserably in the proper delivery to the glass. Shame.
This is Trash Panda IPA from Parallel 49 Brewing company http://parallel49brewing.com/ It is not a bad beer despite their marketing/web people being okay with not having an SSL certificate so that any new website visitors are warned that the site is not secure. Besides that fail, this is way too much dam head on a pour and hosers often call this an American Beer. Truth be told, the glass looks short but can fit a full pint. I remember snapping this pic because it took me 3 tries at pouring and having to hoover the foam so that it would not spill over. If I remember correctly, there was still 25% of this beer still in the can so it may well have been over-carbonated.
Circumstances aside, this is an embarrassing pour for someone proclaiming to be a Beerologist.
This catastrophe started out as Spearhead New England IPA https://spearheadbeer.com/product/neipa/and ended up in a hot mess.
You can see the glass is a very tall one that I rarely pull form the back of the cupboard. I was enjoying this for a third time in celebration for it finally arriving at our local beer store from my original home town. I pulled out the fancy glass and figured it was a little large so I could pour a little more liberally. I misjudged the narrow bottom, started a beernado, and couldn't recover as the brew headed to the top of the glass.
If you consider the perfect pour by beer commercial standards, you blast it in and one single drip escapes to languidly meander down the glass. As you can see here, there were far more than one drips, and the whole head crested the rim and mad it all the way down to the counter.
You know I slurped the beer off the counter but still feel shame.
It is not often that I don't affix my stamp of approval to a beer. Though I cannot approve these pouring failures, I can admit that I learned lessons during these missteps. Truth is each of these beers was good and if failure tastes this nice, I am okay with that.
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We are rounding in nicely on 200 but are only at week 197 of the #beersaturday gathering @detlev/beersaturday-week-197 !BEER tokens have been a hot commodity and are starting to get snapped up in pumps on the https://hive-engine.com/ platform. Truth be told, I like the Leo Dex interface https://leodex.io/ as it shows the total value of your staked and unstaked tokens.
I invite a friend to the party every week and this week I invite one of my most blockchain active Canadian artist friends 
