RIP

I just learned the sad news that Gabe Magnotta passed away in December, at the much-too-young age of 60. It seems he was an avid outdoorsman and got bitten by a tick and infected with Lyme disease, which claimed him in a few short years. Gabe was an icon in the Ontario brewing scene. Born in Italy he came to Canada at the age of 10 or 11, and would grow up to carry on the Italian tradition of wine making. His 10 year battle with the LCBO to obtain shelf-space for his products was legendary, but by the time he'd won the case he'd already had his business firmly entrenched in alternate routes to end customers. On the one side he'd opened his own stores (something Ontario brewers are STILL not allowed to do), and on the other side he brought high quality wine kits to home winemakers. More recently he started a microbrewer which bears his name, which also produced high quality home brewing beer kits which I have to say are the only beer kit in Canada that makes beer as good as mine!