One hundred fifty years ago today Waterloo was incorporated as a village. The city celebrated with a parade.

I walked out to Caroline to watch. It was mostly old cars, old politicians (some recreated from a hundred years ago), and marching bands. It was partly cloudy, but still bright. Once in a while a few raindrops hit me, but it was mostly dry and warm, until alter in the afternoon when the rain poured down.

I went to memorial rec complex, there were displays, performances, and loads of people. I had to go to work though, so I got soaked in the rain on my walk to get ready for work.

David wrote about federal party leaders being on fb.

Today, Dion posted a video at YouTube thanking all his Facebook friends and noting that he hit the maximum number of “Facebook Friends�. Facebook subsequently decided to allow Dion’s Facebook account to have an unlimited number of “Friends.�

It’s interesting to know that there’s a maximum number of friends. I wonder how that would be set.

This weekend I bought some PC Blanche from The Beer Store. It is made to be a Belgian style witbier, of which Hoegaarden is the most common and well known. Loblaws’ PC-branded beers are brewed by Brick Brewing Co. Ltd. under the name White Water Brewery.

Interestingly, PC Blanche is not the first wheat beer made by Brick. In 1998 Brick got the rights to brew Celis White from the Celis brewery in Austin, Texas. Pierre Celis founded Hoegaarden in 1966.

By 1985 Hoegaarden was producing 300,000 hectolitres a year — which is about 88 million beers. That year a fire destroyed the brewery. He needed money to rebuild some of which he got from Stella Artois in exchange for a 45 per cent share.

After Stella and Piedboeuf merged to form Interbrew and what he recounts as pressure to make his beer more cheaply, he eventually sold the brewery to Interbrew.

He then started Celis Brewery in Houston and started brewing Celis White by the original Hoegaarden recipe and process. Brick later licensed Celis White for productiona dn distribution in Ontario.

So, Brick used to brew real Hoegaarden with Celis White and now it brews imitation fake Hoegaarden as PC Blanche.

PC wheat beer, Brick, and business size

My friend Thor’s new website is MrThor.com.

Hey!! I’m just setting up this website, so please bear with me. But since I have a few minutes, I’ll let you all know what I’ve been up to lately…

Mike Myers’ take on Canadian identity is interesting, as I read it in a Torst article.

Next stop, centre ice 18 May 2007

[...] although he likes to denigrate and poke fun at his Canadian background. “I play hockey – I’m, like, the most boring person on the planet,” he said.

“I come from a country that struggles with identity and self-esteem. Canada’s a country of ingredients without a cuisine; we’re a country with musicians without an indigenous instrument. Toronto’s a city that doesn’t even have a dish named after it. Even Buffalo across the way, which has a quarter of the population, has wings, so it’s very strange.”

The idea of “ingredients without a cuisine” is a bit of a squinty view though. Part of the issue is how varied the tossed salad of Canadian tradition and way of life, or maybe how much caulking there is between tiles in the mosaic.

But how few or many Canadian culinary traditions are there?

Here are some Canadian foods or traditions:

• Chinese Smorgasbord
• Bloody Caesar
• Nanaimo bars
• Montreal bagels
• Montreal smoked meat

Oh, hey, some Canadian cities do have foods named after them. Maybe the problem isn’t Canada, but that Toronto is boring, maybe.

What kind of food could be named after Toronto though? What for example would a Toronto salad be like?

It was a bright, warm, sunny day — most of the day. In the morning I went to the office and talked with Roka. There was no flooding in the basement from the thunder, lightning and rain early that morning. In the afternoon I went downtown for a committee meeting, then to campus.

In the early evening I returned to my house and started getting ready for my upcoming soccer match. It began to rain.

Nino, Jeff, and Josh picked me up and we were off to the match.

The rain was light while I changed and we warmed up. As kickoff time approached a warm, strong breeze picked up and started blowing dark clouds overhead. Rain started slanting down at us. It grew to sleet and heavier rain, always moving and blowing.

We continued setting up the nets and flags, running and stretching, and passing and dribbling. At times it subsided, but when the referee walked out under a large black umbrella, the rain was falling hard and blowing about. Lightning strikes and flashes got closer and more frequent.

Some headed back to their cars, others went to shelter by the nearby school building, Steve, John and I and a few others held out hope and continued to kick around, knowing that we could get no more wet than we were.

The rain got even harder and we started packing up. Marty’s friend was holding on to an umbrella in the wind. As it gusted more, I said, “Watch your umbrella,” just before it blew inside out. I stepped over and grabbed the handle from her before it blew away. I turned it into the wind and collapsed it to prevent it from being damaged.

We were all soaked.

When we got back on my street the rain had stopped. The storm had lasted only an hour, but at the worst time for our match. If it had started and finished half an hour earlier we would have played.

The wind had blown large branches down onto the street in front of my two-down neighbour’s house. I ran to my house and dropped my stuff off and came out. A guy had parked his car under the tree but it escaped damage because the broken braches extended over the street and fell far from the tree trunk beside which he was parked.

I pulled the branches to the opposite curb to make more room for cars to pass before the debris was cleared.

I cleaned up and went down to Josh’s. Josh, Taylor and I went out to relax, indoors.

It is unusual to see an ad in a store for a product you can’t buy there. In the uptown Valumart, a Loblaws store. There is a bannerstand with a big ad for a new PC beer.

The banner says:

Why pay through the nose for imported Belgian wheat beer?

NEW!

Belgian inspired
PC
Biere de ble
Blanche
Wheat Beer
(small writing)
341 ml • 5% alc/vol
Inspiration Belge
Exclusively available at The Beer Store

The most well-known Belgian wheat beer is, of course, Hoegaarden. So, you’d expect this PC brew to be an imitation of that beer.

The PC, which a brand of Loblaws, beers are listed as being from White Water Brewery. PC markets six, now seven beers, available at The Beer Store: PC Dry, PC Genuine Lager, PC Honey Red, PC Light, PC Low Carb 2.5g, PC Pilsener, and now PC Blanche Wheat Beer. The Blanche label was only added to the store’s website listing this week.

The White Water handle is just another layer of a name since the PC beers are brewed by Brick Brewing Co. Ltd. in Waterloo.

Brick announced on yesterday that they were “reviewing strategic alternatives for enhancing shareholder value.” Which mean they are looking at ways to make more money. Options include selling out, merging, or growing.

I read in the paper that Brick quadrupled its volume in the past five years and last year lost some kind of small brewer tax rebate, which is based on volume. Though Brick thitherto was making money, last year they broke even.

They are at a point that they need to grow. It was worth it for them to be small and it would be worth it for them to be big, but it’s not worth being in the middle.

It’s like I heard Jim E from EMJ say about when he grew his computer firm to a certain size and looked around there were no companies his size, they were all much smaller or much bigger. For a number of reasons, he couldn’t make money there.

Sleeman and Lakeport were both bought in the past year as well. After Brick what is the biggest independent brewery in Ontario, then?

This new beer is at the higher of PC’s two price points. It and the 2.5g one are $29.95 for 24 and the others are at the $26.40 for 24.

It is described as:

Brewed in the likeness of Belgium wheat beers, this exceptional PC wheat beer is hand-crafted using only the finest ingredients, including natural spring water, wheat and malted barley. Naturally cloudy. No preservatives added.

Oh yeah and you know how the Hoegaarden label says “since 1445,” that refers to the founding of the municipality of the same name. The brewery started in 1966. Yeah, that’s right, just like Stella said “1366,” but was founded in 1926.

Beer, like many things, is mostly marketing.