A former journalist and business analyst that now works in the world of travel marketing. Based in Toronto, Red Hunt has travelled to more than 50 countries over the past 15 years. You can follow Red on Instagram or Twitter.
Monkeys are often mischievous creatures when they’re transplanted into or near to human settlements. You can’t really blame them, we tend to leave food and belongings lying around, and they tend to be curious in nature, so it can result in some human-monkey clashes.
In Puerto Misahualli, Ecuador there is such a troop of monkeys. They are critically endangered Ecuadorian white-faced capuchin monkeys to be precise, although guides and travellers who don’t know better often call them squirrel monkeys. Puerto Misahualli is near Tena, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. If you venture further into the Amazon you’ll likely encounter other monkeys, including squirrel monkeys.
Anyhow, these 20 or so Ecuadorian capuchin monkeys in Puerto Misahualli mostly hang out in some trees that line a central park and nearby restaurants. Occasionally they’ll run along power lines or roofs of buildings. If you’re not paying attention they may grab some food or small objects form you too, including being bold enough to run into some restaurants to grab food, so keep a watchful eye!
I think this guy was keeping a watchful eye on me too. I suppose these monkeys are now semi-wild. They’re more than free to leave the town, and there are bigger, better trees outside of town to live in – but I guess life is good when tourists stop by and become easy targets for free food. It all started many years ago, decades ago actually, when some wild ones began to come into town to raid houses and shops for food. Eventually the entire troop of monkeys caught on and have been here ever since.
A White-fronted Ecuadorian Capuchin Monkey in Misahualli, Ecuador
This coming Saturday is Brew Camp at Sawdust City Brewery and I’ll be there!
I’m sure our small group of beer campers will be a bunch of passionate beer lovers, so I am quite looking forward to brewing my first beer with them. As someone who has never done any home brewing, this is the perfect opportunity for me to get a bit more hands-on by seeing, and helping with, an actual brewing process. I realize home brewing and brewing on a large commercial scale are different beasts, but I’m kind of more interested in seeing how beer is brewed by one of my favourite Ontario breweries anyways!
A flight of beers at the Sawdust City Saloon
It has been 3+ years since the current Sawdust City Brewery facility opened, and I fondly remember my first visit shortly after they opened. The first beer I tried in their Saloon was Gourd Downie Pumpkin Ale. I tend to hate pumpkin beers (my least favourite style), but I did enjoy that one. I visited a number of times on trips up north and liked that they always had a couple of odd, “fun-off” type of experimental brews on tap in the Brewery Saloon like Pink Pajamas and The Salty Brine. They may not always have experimental beers on tap now, as they are more likely to have a guest tap or two, plus they’ve created too many solid beers the past few years that are often on tap!
Nowadays I have a few Sawdust City beers that are in my regular rotation. Lone Pine IPA still stands up to any other Ontario IPAs out there, which I can enjoy any time of year (and Juicin’ appeals to the soft, fluffy IPA drinkers now). The Blood of Cthulhu is a treat on any cold, winter day, and one of my go-to simple summer softball beers is Little Norway, which I always bring with me when playing a game at Little Norway park in Toronto. The beer name itself is tied to some pretty cool Canadian history too, which is something Sawdust City does with some of their beer names.
It is going to be a fun day on Saturday. I’m not sure what type of beer we’ll be making, nor am I sure how hard they’ll work us! I’m sure I’ll gain a new level of respect for all the brewery workers who spend their days working hard to create delicious drink treats for us beer consumers! I’m looking at this day as an amped up Brewery Tour, with some nice perks that I’ll have to work for!
Looking forward to some tasty Sawdust City beers at Brew Camp!
We’ll be learning all day long, and enjoying some food and brews along the way. Aside from lunch and a beer, we’ll get our very own Brew Camp shirts. Plus, of course we get to bottle and take home the beer we brew when it is ready in a few weeks! Will our beer turn out to be a winner? Will anyone fall into some tanks? Will I be the only one with zero brewing knowledge? I’ll find out in a few days – wish me luck!
As for Brew Camp, this isn’t the first time Sawdust City has put together the concept, and I’m sure it won’t be the last either. Check their website events list and social media channels for news on any future Brew Camps if it sounds like something you’d like to do!
One of my longest-standing beer traditions is picking up a Fuller’s Vintage Ale from the LCBO every December. I’ve done this for probably the past 15 years or so.
12 years ago I upped my game and began purchasing more than one bottle each year. I usually would buy three bottles: one to drink right away, one to enjoy after a couple of years, and one to store away until…now.
A 12 Year Tasting of Fuller’s Vintage Ales
I thought after I had 10 vintages I’d crack them open, but I had a nice box I was storing them in, which had two empty slots still, so I continued on until this year, where I now have 12 years of beers to enjoy for the holidays.
Starting with Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2017 and ending with Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2006, myself and some other beer people will see how things stack up year over year. What vintage do you think will come out on top? Will the 2006 still be holding up? Should I have waited even longer to do this beer vertical?
As the strength of this beer stays the same every year at 8.5%, but the mix of hops used in the recipe change, it will be interesting to see just how much variance there is from year to year. Strangely, the bottles from 2006-2012 each have a best before date of three years after they were produced. Bottles from 2013-2017 have a best before date of 10 years after they were produced. Not sure what brought about that change!
I know from my personal preferences that drinking the Fuller’s Vintage Ales when they first come out is sometimes a bit too early. They are good, but get better with a few years on them. But is 10+ years too long? We shall find out soon! I’ll be taking notes at this tasting and reporting back here soon.
Click on the Title of any vintage blow to see the Untappd check-in.
Notes: Whoa, massive gusher! 1.5ft high. Lost 4/5ths of the beer. Apple! Spice! So nice! Best yet. Cinnamon & more, beauty beer, but likely not what it was meant to be like.
Notes: Don’t mean to be biased because this is the oldest of the vertical, but this is fantastically blended. Super smooth, caramel, fruits, wood.
Final verdict is that Fuller’s Vintage Ales hold up for many years. Definitely beyond the “3 years” posted on bottles up to 2012. After having some time to let everything settle and go over my notes, there really wasn’t a ton of variance in these beers. The 2017 was the only one with nutty flavours, and the 2009 anomaly must have turned to become something different. The risk of ageing too long seems to be a potentially “flat” flavour profile that happened in the 2007, but the 2006 escaped this flaw.
One of the most impressive landscapes found North of Lake Superior is the Ouimet Canyon.
If you want to truly appreciate the size and unique nature of this canyon, then you need to visit Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park. It is by no means a large park, but it is conveniently close to Thunder Bay and Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.
Ouimet Canyon in Northern Ontario
What makes the day use park so attractive is the towering cliffs of the canyon that can reach as high as 100m. As interesting as that is, it is the fact that at the base of this canyon you’ll find arctic plants growing, which are typically found more than 1000km further north on the shores of Hudson Bay! How crazy is that?
Walking Bridge at Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park
Be sure to bring a pair of binoculars to get some cool views from the lookouts on the 1km loop trail here, which takes you right up to the edge of the canyon for some fantastic lookout views. There is also a nice boardwalk and bridge along part of the trail. This is a super sensitive area, so as tempting as it may be to think about heading down into the canyon here for a closer look at those arctic plants – it is strictly prohibited. Gotta keep nature pristine for the next visitor, you know!
Boardwalk at Ouimet Canyon
There is a cool rock formation called The Giant here too, keep your eyes out for it if you visit!
The Giant at Ouimet Canyon
A lot of people may never get to visit the Arctic, so this is the next-best thing – an ecosystem that varies from Boreal forest to sub-arctic tundra.
So I was enjoying a quiet morning while looking out over picturesque Rice Lake in Ontario recently, when I noticed a mostly-white caterpillar inching its way towards my hand. It was pretty darn cute and my first thought was to pick it up and show it around to some friends. But then I noticed some longer spikey black hairs.
For some reason I had second thoughts about petting the little thing, as I know some caterpillars are poisonous, and a white poisonous caterpillar had recently become more common in Ontario.
So, I did what anyone does these days – I took a little video of it and posted it on Instagram. Apparently some people think caterpillars are damn scary. Others think they’re quite cute. And new Instagram buddy the_caterpillar_whisperer confirmed he also thought it was a tussock moth caterpillar, which is mostly harmless but may be a bit stingy.
It was nice to meet you my furry little friend. Caterpillars really are pretty cool creatures. I only ever posted one other caterpillar on Instagram, which was a kinda rough and blurry woolly caterpillar picture. But I think I’ll try to get more photos of them in the future. What do you think, are caterpillars cool or creepy?
