You are all well aware at this point that I spent much of the spring in Halifax. I tried to post some of the highlights while there, and even did a CBC column live from the Hart and Thistle pub on the harbourfront. It will come as no surprise, then, that I have also turned my time into a column for the weekly papers with whom I have a relationship. The piece is in the current edition of both Vue Weekly and Planet S. It is, I will admit, ostensibly the same column with a couple small changes to reflect regional availability. (If you have a problem with that, I invite you to write six different columns every month while holding down a day job and having a family. The occasional duplicate can be a life saver.)

At any rate, it is a bit of a travel piece – where to go, what to drink, etc. But I try to offer a sense of what Halifax offers that is unique in Canada. And my conclusion is its pub scene. It really does have some great pubs. The Henry House has the best character in Canada; Maxwell’s Plum one of the best tap selections. The Hart and Thistle is truly one of a kind. And you can get a local (or at least New Brunswick or Quebec) craft beer in almost every pub. No prairie town can claim that.

What I didn’t discuss was some of the smaller beer options outside of Halifax. There are some interesting things happening with Sea Level Brewing, Picaroons in Fredericton and others that I have yet to mention. I will try to get to that in the coming weeks.

For now, you can read my Halifax columns and wish you were sitting at the Hart and Thistle pub sipping a hop monster by Greg Nash and being affectionately harassed by Tony the bar matron. And this time you get your choice. You can read the Vue piece here, or the Planet S version here.