About

Hi. I’m Crystal Luxmore, a beer, travel and culture writer, and editor in Toronto.  My work has appeared in the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, and the Birmingham Post & Mail newspapers, enRoute, Chatelaine, Beer Advocate, The Walrus, Reader’s Digest, ELLE and Toronto Life magazines, and on the New York Times, CBC.ca and msn.ca websites. I’m the beer columnistfor Toronto’s weekly magazine, The Grid and I write the Lazy Mixologist, a cocktail recipe column, for Tidings magazine.

In 2012, I became a Certified Beer Sommelier through the Canadian Prud’homme program, so now I lead tastings and workshops around the city. I am one of the co-founders of Brauhaus, a private club dedicated to sharing the best home brews in Ontario with the public, Barleys Angels Toronto, and two Toronto beer clubs.

I regularly homebrew with two of brother-in-laws, Known to ourselves as Original Gravity Brewing, our beers flow “From the mouth of the Don, to yours.”

The only thing I like more than writing about beer is drinking it.

As co-owner of Walk T.O., I develop informative, off-beat walking tours in Toronto. For almost two years, I was a co-host and producer on CIUT 89.5 FM’s morning show, Take 5.

Before embarking on a journalism career, I spent three years on the other side of the phone line, running public relations and communications for an EU-funded research project, proudly titled, The Bioenergy Network of Excellence, based in Birmingham, England.

MY BLOG, THEN & NOW

This blog is dedicated to my Memere – a courageous, loving, single mother who raised three wonderful daughters on a dishwasher’s wage. While the blog was once dedicated to thrift, it’s since morphed to encompass my latest obsession — beer.

Photo credit: the very talented Joan Latchford