Why is this a great day? It is the day that one small barrier to the international flow of beer was broken down in Canada. And I may have played a wee role by making a comment on Facebook.

What happened was Josh Rubin, beer columnist for the Toronto Star, posted a link on Facebook to a column of his back in March:

Josh Rubin check out my westmalle piece today: http://www.thestar.com/article/607607.

I loved his homage to the "check out my blog" ethic and said so - after another person commented it was a bit of a joke including a "where to buy" reference given the monolith that is the LCBO... the "C standing for "control." You can see to the upper right what that bit of the column looked like on that day. I wrote:

Alan McLeod... Good point about "Where to buy." Josh, I buy at the SAQ as well as in upstate NY. Any chance you can add information describing availability and prices there?

I should have added "check out my blog" but I think that was understood. We are, you know, sympatico. Now, we flip to today and I start reading Josh's latest column "Denmark runneth over with craft beer". First, I notice that there is no "Where to buy" area in the header for the column. Then, lo and behold, I see a sidebar (see right) with an extended and detailed bit of information about where to buy these beers including one shop in Buffalo New York - Premier Gourmet - a store outside of Canada! Imagine the moment of delicious treachery around the life style editorial committee boardroom table when they realized that an Ontario newspaper need not limit itself to shops in Ontario when they can describe the places where Ontarians might shop. Smacks of freedom, no? Even if it had zippo to do with me and even if I missed a hundred other columns which reference south of the border shops, I say "freedom" - now if they can just add the Syracuse and Rochester shops where I end up more often, too.

If you say to yourself "what is the big deal?" you may not, err, be in Canada. Check the map.