There appears to be somewhat of a craft-brewing renaissance developing in Guelph and that has caught the attention of a family of beer-loving writers.
“We are seeing a lot of breweries popping up that weren’t here five years ago,” said Greg Mercer. “That is kind of what got us interested in this because it’s not just Guelph. It’s Rockwood, Elora and neighbouring towns that are getting their own breweries. It is sort of going back to the way it was 100 years ago.”
Mercer and his wife Kate Mercer along with Kate’s father Owen Roberts and his wife Angi Roberts have created the Guelph Beer Blog guelphbeerblog.com where they review what’s on tap in Guelph and share the stories of local craft brewers.
“There are so many new varieties of beers made only in Ontario that you could drink a different beer every week for the rest of your life and you would never get to the end of them,” said Mercer. “Our focus is on beers that are available in Guelph. Often locally made but not necessarily. We probably wouldn’t review a beer that you have to drive to Ottawa just to get.”
They launched the blog this past Halloween but the concept has been brewing for a while.
“Drinking beer with family is a cultural thing for us,” said Owen Roberts. “That is how it came about. We were sitting around last summer having a beer.”
Roberts and Mercer are both working print journalists but all four bloggers are skilled writers with a love for good stories and good suds.
“We are all writers and we all have opinions,” said Roberts. “We aren’t positioning ourselves as beer experts. We are positioning ourselves as being like everyone else in Guelph that has an interest in beer.”
The reviews are as distinct as their authors and reflective of each of their own individual tastes and perspectives.
“I think it is cool for our blog to have different age ranges and also different genders writing about beer,” said Kate Mercer. “We do have different palates and I think allowing us to describe a beer from a woman’s perspective is unique too.”
It is also reflective of changing cultural attitudes towards beer.
“I was told as a young girl that women don’t drink beer,” said Angi Roberts. “They drink white-wine spritzers. I think that is why I prefer to drink it out of the can or the bottle because it is kind of my snub to all that.”
The beers are rated from one to six – the lowest being one mug and six being a ringing endorsement to go out and buy a six-pack.
“We’re not writing a blog just for beer connoisseurs,” said Mercer. “That world can be a little pretentious. There is this coded language around how they describe beer. We are trying to be the opposite of that.”
The goal is to simply share their opinions over a couple cold ones and celebrate the brewing community in Guelph.
“I think one of the strengths of this blog is that we aren’t experts,” said Roberts. “We are doing this for fun because we are a family and we think it is a fun thing to do.”
