Toronto Beer Festival!!!

[hexalite]

WOOOHOO!!!

Who is going to the Toronto Beer Festival!?!?!?! Haha!

I am going on Sunday the 13th with a bunch of friends, most of which couldn't make it on the Saturday. I went last year on Saturday and it was awesome. Hopefully Sunday is just as good.

[chazwicke]

Give us report afterwards. What brewers and beers were there and such. Is there a website?

[hexalite]

I'll do my best to remember the breweries represented there. Hopefully they'll have some sort of sheet with them listed. The website is http://www.beerfestival.ca

[hexalite]

Just recovered from the beer festival on Sunday... I had an awesome time. I think this year's event was larger than last year as Carlsberg took a huge new area of the grounds for their human foozball game and beer tents. I wish I had taken more pictures of the individual brewery's setups but when you get to drinking, you sort of forget to take pictures.

Here is a list of exhibitors. http://www.beerfestival.ca/download/Exhibitor_List_2006.pdf

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This is showing only a third of 1 of 4 massive tents with the breweries under them.

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Here I'm standing at one end of the event looking towards the other.

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Another picture of the crowds.

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Inside of Mill St.'s booth.

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Some booths had hops and grains on display. This particular one showed off some non-pelletized hops.

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Here is Heritage Brewing's stand. I think they had the most types of beer on tap at the festival and they certinatly have the most interesting beers. They're famous for having some incredibly hoppy beers.

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Behind their stand, there is 1 regulator for each beer. You can tell they really care about their product.

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My friend with Niagara's Best Blonde Premium Ale model! (see top right corner)

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Here's the gang I came with. I'm on the right.

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Even when we weren't drinking, we were still drinking.

[hexalite]

Can't seem to get the images to show in the post. I think the Administrators have disabled them.

[chazwicke]

Thanks for those picts. Looks like a good time was had by all. Was there a consensus which beer or brewery was the best?

[hexalite]

Amongst my friends, everyone liked something different. What spiked my interest as a possible future homebrew was the hint of banana in one of the wheat beers I tried. I also had a delicious 15% malt liqour. The Corporal Punishment, seen in those pictures, was one of the hoppiest beers I've tried. Infact, they have one beer called Major Miscontuct where they actually filter the beer through hops as it moves from keg to tap, it's quite impressive and might actually make a good sobering drink from the shock it gives you lol. However, I was there on the last day of the festival and they ran out early on the day before. Otherwise, I mostly apprechiated the styles of beer there like the bocks, altbeir, fruit flavors like strawberry, eisenbock, etc. I just really apprechiated the selection. However, I'd say more than 1/2 of the breweries attending, didn't have anything that really stood out. But that's just me, as there were plenty of kids under the Molson tent.

The festival tickets this year where cheaper by about $15-20 but the festival looked about 1/5 larger as they utilized a space that was mostly used for washrooms last festival. So I was impressed and I am happy that the festival is growing. I think the ticket price really helped the numbers turn out. As long as they don't start sqashing out the small breweries, becuase I saw some "cooler" stands there and I hope they did not make a decision to let Smirnoff in over some smaller brewery, then things should be great!

[thekulman]

Those hop leaves looked a bit oxidized lol!

2 questions, cause I didn't make it down.

Heritage, where are they from?

Does the cost of admission include the beer, if not, how much was each beer?

[chazwicke]

Originally posted by hexalite
they have one beer called Major Miscontuct where they actually filter the beer through hops as it moves from keg to tap

Wonder if it was "Randall the Enamal Animal" a device invented and sold by Dog Fish Head brewery.


The wheat beer with a hint of banana was probably a hefeweizen of the Munich style