So yesterday was the Toronto Festival of Beer for a bunch of us. Getting all the names might be hard for me, but it was Mark and I meeting up with Mike and a series of his friends, as well as Rachel and about seven of her friends. For those not familiar it’s at Historic Fort York, costs $20, and you get an 8oz cup and five sample tokens upon entry. Each sample is 4oz and costs, usually, one token; fancier brands can run between two and three tokens. Save for the lack of cup-washing stations the event was well run, although the food is quite expensive there, Mark and I having paid $8 for a pulled pork on a bun. It was ok, they had a real smoker there and were doing proper BBQ, so we were fine with it.
I’m now up to 79 ranks on www.ratebeer.com thanks to this event, which allowed me to add the following:
Black Oak Nut Brown Ale
Black Oak Summer Saison
Black Oak Hop Bomb Pale Ale Cask Conditioned
Cameron’s Auburn Ale
Church-Key Purple Loosestrife Mead
JR Brickman Pilsner
McAuslan Cream Ale
Mort Subite Framboise
Nickel Brook Green Apple Pilsner
Scotch Irish Black Irish Porter
Scotch Irish Sgt Major’s IPA
Scotch Irish Tsarina Katarina Imperial Stout
St Ambroise Oatmeal Stout
Trafalgar Critical Mass 15% Strong Beer
Wellington Imperial Russian Stout
We also tried the Golden Horseshoe Premium Lager Ice Cream, which tasted nothing at all like lager, and a Mike’s Hard mike-arita so I could get the hat from the picture below. Add in two beef patties and that was the day. Good stuff, and if anyone is bored Sunday, I highly recommend you attend.
I now plan to take the weekend off – enjoy yourselves!