Jan-you-need-to-help-me-not-spend-money-ary

After receiving my Visa bill for this month (even though it looked like they took every Visa bill I’ve ever had, combined it, then doubled it and gave it to me), I have decided that I’m going to try REALLY HARD to not spend any money in January, and maybe February too.

Now, this is obviously going to be impossible, so I have to list some things that I most definitely will be buying that officially do not count (so don’t hassle me about them):

1. Food. I need food to live, and I’ve been looking everywhere for that bread dipper that I bought two bottles of last night, okay?!
2. Normal stuff I can’t get away from, ie: TTC pass, rent, phone bill, and so on and so on
3. Trips. Now, this might seem totally counteractive, but I just got married and I’m really tired and I 100% deserve a honeymoon. Plus, I planned on doing this in 2012, so it’s really just about committing.

Things I will not be allowed to spend money on:

1. Alcohol. We have about 39,000 bottles of white wine leftover from the wedding, as well as some vodka and tequila. And I work for a beer company, so really, there’s no excuse for me to buy alcohol
2. Clothes. There’s no getting around this one – this is where I spend my money, and yo, it is just not a good idea for me to go in any store right now (including online ones) because I have a bunch of stuff that I never even wear
3. Books. See above – too many books that I haven’t read yet sit at home. Therefore I shall not buy!

Now, this is in no way going to be easy, but considering I really do want to go on a vacation, and I just had a wedding that cost about a bajillion dollars, no spending shall be allowed!

(Gifts, however, are totally okay. Just FYI.)

Coooooool!

How cool is this?! A cooler on its own stand with a built-in cap taker-offer from Homesense. I want one.

That’s A Big Bottle

Thursday on College

Freetimes Cafe. Not free beer though.

Go To: Beer Tastings on Sundays!

Hello blog-reader friends. What are you all up to on this beautiful Sunday afternoon?

If you’re in the city and stumped for ideas on how to get outside and enjoy this bout of sunshine (before it storms this evening, of course), we’ve got some great suggestions for you:

1) Wychwood Barns

The Wychwood Barns has been on our list of things to do for awhile now. They’ve got all kinds of things to do there, from farmer’s markets to country art, to beer tastings. Wait – beer tastings? What up! I forget how we first heard about this, but you can go to the Brewery Market‘s home page and check out what’s going on today.

This event is actually going on for the next 11 Sunday’s over at the Barns. The site says it best:

“Each Brewery Market event will feature a single brewery.  At the event you will be able to try out some of their beers and meet the brewers in a casual and conversational setting.  There will be no admission fee – just stop by from 1pm – 5pm and grab a beer (buy drink tickets for what you’d like).  And while you’re here you can also purchase a fresh slice of wood-baked pizza made onsite by The Stop Community Food Centre.  Partial proceeds from the events will go towards The Stop’s innovative, hunger-fighting programs.”

Today they’re previewing Flying Monkeys beer – not my favorite, not by far, but I think it will be fun. It’s brewed in Barrie, and I like the local beer attitude, so we’ll check it out. You can check out the schedule of breweries here, so don’t miss your favorite brewery! This is a great initiative and way to get people down to the bars – props to whoever thought of it.

2) Free Whiskey @ Steam Whistle Brewery

You’d think we do the PR for Steam Whistle, the way we talk about it. But it’s not our fault they’re very involved in their community and often doing cool stuff. They just do.

Our friends and amazing bluegrass band Free Whiskey will be playing down at the brewery today at 3:00 p.m. Don’t believe their site – it says 11 p.m., but trust us, it’s 3, and you don’t want to show up late and miss them. We’ve raved about these guys before, and we’re likely to rave again.  They are honestly one of my favorite bands to listen to – they have such a fantastic, fun sound, and they’re super cute to watch. Listen to their music on their website for free, and trust me, you’ll be ordering a CD before long. They’re just starting their summer tour I think, and playing lots of shows out East too – so if you’ve got friends out there (I’m looking at alllll of His friends), go check them out. You won’t be sorry.

Alcoholic Air Miles – Great Lakes Devil’s Pale Ale

Alcoholic Air Miles is a recurring segment on His, Hers and Theirs. It delves into the secret world of picking up bonus Air Miles from regular, everyday purchases from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (“LCBO”) stores. Every month, the LCBO changes which items receive bonus Air Miles and He tries to keep you on top of those changes. These are His stories…

Now this is what a craft beer should be.  Super unique taste and some branding that really sets it apart from its competitors.  Devil’s Pale ale has a big 666 on the can, is 6% alcohol by volume and plays on the 666 Devil’s number theme a number of times around the can.  It’s a pretty fun can to have around.  It definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Having said that, I don’t really like the beer.  Sure, it has a unique taste, but it’s just far too bitter in the wrong places for me.  I don’t know.  It wasn’t refreshing like a good lager is and it wasn’t full with flavour like a British ale.  And like too many things that try to be a stay neutral between two competing sides, it just doesn’t cut it.  I dunno, maybe Satan likes his brew tasting like puke.  My advice: Don’t bother with it.

Anyways, if you buy two cans of this stuff, you get 1 bonus air mile.  Not a great deal, but enough to make me give it a shot.  But word to the wise, the two need to be purchased together.  I was actually at the shop and brought two up to the cashier and paid when I noticed that he only charged me for 1 can.  I, being the good Samaritan, informed the employee of his mistake and ended up paying for the second can in a separate purchase.  So, I had to pay for the second can when I could have walked out with it for free and I didn’t even get the bonus air mile.  Sucks.

Oh, and I will send a yet-to-be-determined prize to the first person who can tell me what book the can is standing on in the picture at the top of this post.

Cost	$2.60
Bonus Air miles	0.5
ML	473
Alcohol %	6%
Airmiles/$	0.19
ML/$	181.92

Contest! Steamy Steam Whistle Free Tour Passes!

Oh HI friends! Today we have something super sweet and spicy for you – a giveaway!

Now, when we say “win this shiz,” we mean win some of this shiz. He kept the shirt – suckas! BUT, here is what you could win:

• Two free passes for a tour of Steam Whistle Brewery, where there is FREE BEER!
• A Steam Whistle bottle opener
• An iPod Steam Whistle cover
• Maybe some chocolate, if we have some left over from Easter

Here’s what you have to do:

1) Write us a haiku about beer, lovely beer, on Twitter*, to either @shann_mitchell or @mulliganl or both

2) Make it a good haiku now, don’t be shabby

3) Link to this page – bit.ly can make it shorter for you (but if you haven’t figured out shortened links by now, what are you still doing on the internet?)

That’s it! Extra entries if you also comment on this post, for a limit of one extra entry each. We also might accept bribes.

 

*If you don’t have Twitter, get one, then enter this contest. Or, you know, just enter your haiku in the comments below.

Alcoholic Air Miles – Grolsch Premium Lager

Alcoholic Air Miles is a recurring segment on His, Hers and Theirs. It delves into the secret world of picking up bonus Air Miles from regular, everyday purchases from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (“LCBO”) stores. Every month, the LCBO changes which items receive bonus Air Miles and He tries to keep you on top of those changes. These are His stories…

So Grolsch tallboys come with one bonus air mile until the end of the month.  That’s pretty cool.  Grolsch is basically a more mainstream version of Bavaria.  They’re both not great beers, but their imports so you can look sophisticated while drinking them at not a huge cost.

They also come in these amazing resealable bottles. Those are great.

I haven’t seen them sold at the LCBO, but some bars around have them.  You must be able to get them from the LCBO, because I can remember someone blogging about getting one of the big bottles so that he could take it to a party, drink some, then take it home without feeling bad.  I mean, the “leave what you didn’t drink” rule can’t apply if you’ve put your lips on the source of the stuff, right?  I guess that’s logical.

Anyways.  Grolsch.  1 air mile.  Not bad.

Cost	$2.25
Bonus Air miles	1
ML	500
Alcohol %	5%
Airmiles/$	0.44
ML/$	222.22

Music at Work: Freedom or Death

Music at Work is a periodically published segment on HisHersandTheirs.  He writes about music that you can listen to online while at work.  The criteria is that: (1) a full album must be available to listen to; and (2) it can’t suck.  Here is the latest edition of Music at Work:

Him and her went to the Steam Whistle unsigned show last Friday. The two bands who we saw were both good, in my opinion, and the venue is pretty historic.  The brewery is housed in the old steam engine train repair building in downtown Toronto.  While it certainly is a neat place to visit (super old with a new hip sheen to it), the acoustics weren’t very good.  I guess it’s just too much brick as the sound seemed to just be bouncing everywhere.  Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.

First up was a local Toronto band called Freedom or Death.  Their genre is listed as electronic-folk.  Really, that’s about as accurate as it’s going to get.  These guys aren’t rock or electro, but kind of a fuzzy middle which you might as well call electronic-folk.

The band’s sound is helped greatly by their lead singer.  The guy has got great pipes and some good stage presence to boot.  He was having a ball playing with the crowd as well as getting his fellow band members to groove a little bit.  He started off without a guitar, but then pulled one out for a few songs.  To my untrained guitar eye, it didn’t look like he was doing anything other than simple chords.  But his singing was quite something, really strong.

The rest of the band provided the electro backup and I thought the show was good.  They’ve kind of got a Kenna sound to them.  That’s probably the best/only comparison that I can think of.

I really like their music on bandcamp, too.  They’ve got two albums up that you can listen to.  The first is a 5 song EP that they made last year.  Pretty good, one song in particular that got stuck in my head at work today (see the “Don’t miss” section).  The second is an LP that came out last month, Ego.  It has a lot of great tracks on it.  Definitely something to keep on my bookmarks to listen to in the future.

Also, if you’re into checking them out live, they’ve got a show coming up on June 9th at the Drake in Toronto.  I probably won’t be there, but you never know…

Don’t miss: Soldier (FoD EP); This Crowded Room, Elefant, Human, Virgina Woolf (Ego)

A Steamy Steam Whistle Adventure

Congratulations to me! Yesterday I found out that I won a contest on The Indie Machine and totally won a Steam Whistle prize pack. It was awesome. I signed up for the contest in early April, so I had totally forgotten about it when they emailed me.

That’s how He and I found ourselves heading down to the brewery last night for our special tour. I also won this sweet prize pack below:

The tour itself was great. Both He and I had already had the tour twice, but it’s still interesting because the different tour guides tell you different facts about the beer, the brewery, and the owners. If you haven’t been on the tour and are in the Toronto area, it’s definitely worth checking out. Plus, you get a beer – oh yeahhhhh. Spoiler Alert – keep your eyes peeeeeeled, ‘cus this week we’re having a contest where you can win your very own Steam Whistle tour prize pack! Whoop whoop! 

One of my favorite parts of Steam Whistle that I haven’t experienced on the other tours I’ve been on, is their photobooth. You take a beer in, the camera snaps, and you chug like an animal. However, cans don’t work too well:

As part of the prize pack, we also got to hang around for the Unsigned Series show. On Friday night’s, they will sometimes have bands down to the brewery to play. You pay $5 and get to see three (usually) awesome bands, and drink some beer – it’s not a bad deal. Two of our friends who work at the brewery were also around that night, so it was nice to see them as well.

The bands playing tonight were Freedom or Death, The Darcy’s, and Wildlife. Having not really heard of any of these bands before (at least me), I was excited to check them out. I spent the afternoon at work listening to Wildlife on headphones, and I was really into their sound. I listened to The Darcys while getting ready, and they were… okay.

Freedom or Death opened the show, and He was into them. I was not. Nothing against the band, just not my preference of music. The crowd seemed to really be digging them though – I was surprised at how many people came out, it was a really decent sized crowd. The Darcys were next, and they were pretty good. We didn’t end up staying for Wildlife, but they were the band we were both most eager to see. Oh well, we’ll always have their Myspace.

If we hadn’t won the prize pack though, we would have been at the Free Whiskey show at the Silver Dollar, which is hopefully where you were if you weren’t at Steamy Steamwhistle. I cannot stress how awesome this band is, and not just because they’re friends of ours. Keep an eye on their tour page and go see them when they come to Toronto again – in fact, we’ll go with you and make a date out of it. They’re playing TO May 28th and June 5th – so go! go! go!

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