Spring Festival Of Craft Brewers
 It's spring, when everyones fancy turns to... beer. We are happy to reciprocate these feelings with another installment of our semi-annual homage to fermented barley on Friday May 25 from 5 to 10 p.m.
Over the past year we have served eighty-nine different fine Canadian brews on our thirty-five taps so why not find a few more and reach a "century"?
Twenty-two different brewers will be represented at the festival. Some of the notable newcomers to our taps include: Church-Key Rye, Mill Street Wheat and Stout, Magnotta Wonder Weiss, Muskoka Hefe Weiss, Nickelbrook Maple Porter and Green Apple Pilsner, Durham Hop Head (cask), Neustadt Scottish Ale (cask), Barley Days Dark Lager, Niagara Honey Brown, Heritage Maple Lager and Organic Best Bitter, and Hockley Valley Stout. As well, on tap for the event are recent additions: King Pilsbock, Griffon Rousse, Walkerville Lager, Amsterdam Spring Bock, Granite Summer Ale, Blanche de Chambly, and Great Lakes Orange Peel Ale. As is this isn't enough, fourteen of our regular favourites such as C'est What Coffee Porter, St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, and Denison's Weiss Beer will be available for sampling.
Three ounce samples will be availble for a loonie each, admision is free.
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Culture Cash Grab
 Instead of paying for the social services that were downloaded to the City over the last decade, the Province has passed the buck, literally, by giving Toronto additional revenue tools - otherwise known as taxation powers. Among others under consideration by our local uber-burghers are a tax on the sale of alcohol (as high as 10%) as well as entertainment tickets.
These proposed taxes threaten the viabilty of our cultural institutions at a time where tourism is at all time lows and the hospitality industry has suffered through successive years of SARS crisis, pro hockey lock-out, and no-smoking legislation. Those who would argue that people will still go out, shouldering the burden of an extra five or ten percent on top of the PST and GST are woefully ignorant of economic reality.
According to the City's own consultants each percent of tax will reduce demand by one half percent. A five percent tax on alcohol would cost an a pub restaurant like C'est What about $17,000. This may not sound like a lot, but the margins of your favourite restaurant or pub are razor thin, or less. According to the Canadian Restaurant Association the average pub in Ontario is actually losing money - fifty cents for every one hundred dollars of sales. Can independent operators afford to lose any more without wholesale bankruptcies and large scale consolidation by corporate chains?
C'est What and other establishments like us should not be considered just a tax source, but a valued member of the community. We are in our twentieth year of operation featuring all locally produced beer and wine, multi-cultural comfort food, and are internationally renowned as a live music venue. The potential loss of businesses like C'est What are not just borne but their owners but by the culture of the City.
In measurable terms we contribute:
- Each year we pay more than $300,000 in Federal and Provincial sales taxes, just two of the nine taxes we pay directly.
- Property taxes of $46,000 per year.
- Employment for 35 people and salaries of over $680,000 per year, which is subject to five different taxes that we remit.
- Purchases from local suppliers of more than $1 million per year. Alcohol purchases alone produce significant Federal excise taxes and Provincial mark-ups.
- Corporate taxes, if profitable, of 20%
An additional tax could not come at a worse time. The minimum wage is set to increase significantly which will add at least $56,000 a year to our payroll costs.
Some may accuse us of "Chicken Little" thinking, but we heard these kinds of apologists before our smoking room was closed by Provincial law last year. Since that time our sales of beer, wine, and spirits have decreased over $100,000 (year-over-year change). We would like to hear them say just one more time that it will just be "a slight adjustment period" in the face of this hard reality.
Seeking extra revenue for the City in this way is inequitable and shortsighted. If you consider all of the consequences of imposing an alcohol tax on restaurants it is clearly not in the best interests of small businesses like C'est What or of Toronto as a whole.
Picture Of The Month
With thirty-nine taps pouring thirty-five different brews, our two keg rooms get a little crowded at times. But we can assure you that you won't be tripping over full kegs on your way to the washroom because all of the beer we serve is refrigerated at all times.
We take care to serve our draught in peak condition. Our "real" ales are stored at a cool cellar temperature of six to eight degrees from cask to tap including the piston of each "beer engine". We have an aspirating valve on our casks (also known as a "cask breather") so that the space at the top of each cask that is evacuated when beer is dispensed is filled with a mixture of 75% nitrogen and 25% carbon dioxide (the same mixture that pushes "nitro" tap beers like Coffee Porter and St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout). This prevents the beer from coming into contact with air and oxidizing. The 75/25 gas mix has a low enough carbon dioxide level to prevent it from carbonating the beer. By comparison, the mixture that is used for our more conventionally dispensed brews is 40% nitrogen and 60% carbon dioxide. These products need more carbon dioxide to maintain their higher level of "fizz".
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Get Real, Get It Live
whatsnext.ca Streaming Radio and Music Site
"..I kind of realized that alcohol really does solve all your problems. Whoever said drinking doesn't help lied." - Jewel
Those with day jobs may be reluctant to check out a show during the week. Not to fear, here at C'est What shows start within fifteen minutes of their advertised time, and most weekday shows wrap up by 11:30. Enjoy!
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The Flints (Mondays in May 7, 14, 21, 28)
 The Flints began as a collaboration between long-time friends and former band-mates Stan Flint and Al Huizenga. Under the banner of Ottawa bubblegum pop act Dandy, Stan and Al have previously shared the stage with some great Canadian talent (the Local Rabbits, Mike O’Neill of the Inbreds, Starling). With Flint on guitars and Huizenga on keyboards and drums, they began to develop a sound that fused sunny pop roots with a broader vision and a richer emotional palette. This foundation became the springboard for The Flints.
The Flints independently released There Used to Be a Time, a five-song EP recorded at Hallamusic in Toronto in the Fall of 2005. The EP leverages such talent as guitarist Tim Bovaconti (Ron Sexsmith), pianist James Grey (Blue Rodeo), and cellist Kevin Fox (Sarah Slean). There Used to Be a Time showcases the Flints’ original songs in a warm, full production that features vintage organ, cello, fiddle, trombone, and Mellotron, woven amongst piano, guitar and harmonized vocals. Produced by Terence Gowan and engineered by Hallamusic’s Peter Hudson, There Used To Be a Time is available in select Toronto stores and online at LiveDownloads.com and CDBaby.
With no label affiliation and only word of mouth behind it, The Flints’ debut has generated exciting response on Canadian campus and community radio charts, notably rising to #1 at London’s CHRW-FM for two weeks in 2006. Buzz has also been growing in the the blogosphere (”Bursting at the seams with catchy tunes and witty lyrics…”, “Each song has its own unique flavour, but somehow it all works together as being a whole…”)
Mondays May 7, 14, 21, 28. Show time 9:30pm, Admission is free.
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 Tiger Lil has been making music in one capacity or another since she was a young girl. As said young girl, she could often be found wandering off the path that ran through the valley by her house and into the trees, ambling about in a daze of wonder, marvelling at this lily of the valley, or that orange trumpeted bloom, a ring of poison ivy around each ankle. Each day was filled with lazy hazy daydreams and amusing spots of trouble. Pulled from the valley forest later in her teenage years, Tiger Lil was maladapted, and yearned for those days of awe-filled wanderings. It was here on her journey that she turned to song. The piano was her new forest of wonder, and each song a blossom, a muddied stone on the river's bank, a poison oak leaf. Now a well-adjusted adult--- well, as well as can be reasonably expected of any displaced person--- Tiger Lil is most loyal to those early days, and fills her songs only with things as wild and true as the valley forest from which she came. Tiger Lil also plays guitar now...
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