Eat & Drink
Toronto Festival of Beer is Hoppin'
Thursday's happy hour began at 4 p.m. this week to mark the beginning of this year's Toronto Festival of Beer. Running until Sunday at its new location in Exhibition Place, the festival hosts over 200 brands of beer from around Canada.
In no way do I consider myself a connoisseur when it comes to the art of tasting beer, so I did my best by wandering around and trying the brews I'd never heard of. Which, in all honesty, was most of them.
With five drink tokens to my name, I found myself sipping the beer they call Korruptor by Trafalgar Brewing. Trafalgar boasts two of the strongest beers at the festival at 15% and 16%. The beer was a little too strong for my taste, but how could I say no to 15%?
A beer that was much easier for me to down came from Nickel Brook Beers. Their Green Apple Pilsner was (please don't judge me) one of my favourites at the festival. It tasted like a cross between cider and liquid candy, which is a delicious combination.
Other beers that made it into my little plastic cup included Great Lake Brewery's Devil's Pale Ale, which I seem to remember as being a little darker than I expected. I also found myself enjoying the Polish beer Tyskie, and Flying Monkey's Pale Ale. It is also possible to grab a glass of the elusive Bud Light Lime, which tasted more like lime than beer.
Beyond all the draughts, the Toronto Beer Festival is also hosting several bands including Arrested Development and Cuff the Duke later this weekend. Another fun activity is down by the Steamwhistle tents where you can get a box made into a hat depicting anything from a plane to a mohawk, and I even saw a guy wearing a curvy lady.
If you want to take in the sights and drinks for yourself, tickets start at $45. Tokens are $1 each, with one token getting you 4 oz of the beer of your choice. Easily accessed by the TTC and cabs, it's the perfect event to take a break and leave the cars and kids at home. Saturday is sold-out, but if you're bored with what you're drinking and looking for something new, the Toronto Beer Festival may be just the place for you on Friday and Sunday.
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http://greatcanadianpubs.blogspot.com/2009/08/toronto-festival-of-beer.html
Looking forward to the change of scenary.
The prices are right.
1 drink token is $1 which gets you a 4oz half glass sample. 2 tokens for a full glass.
You get 5 tokens when you walk in, drank those up, then I bought another 10 tokens for $10. They are small drinks but I got pretty hammered by then end of 15 tokens, which was only about 1.5L of beer I drank.
10 tokens at 4oz samples = 40oz OR 1 Litre
NO hangover today either.
Hoping the CNE grounds make the atmosphere a bit better.
But the only tickets left are tonight or sunday.
Saturday has been sold out for months.
when i first went in 2004 they were $15 at the beer store. but this thing became such a "must have" ticket the prices and availabilty have sky rocketed. Check out craiglists...they are selling for $100 each.
Went last year and found my new fav - Innes and Gunn, try it if you can!
Top Notch
Cameron's Auburn (tasty!), Trafalgar Korruptor (worth the 2 tokens), Nickel Brook Green Apple (light, refreshing), Black Oak Summer Saison (simple awesome beer), Innis & Gunn Oak (nice aftertaste)
Interesting:
Bud Lime (for times when you can't source limes/decent summer beer), Black Oak Double Chocolate Cherry (only okay going down, but the aftertaste is interesting and lives up to its name)
Not so Much:
Palm Belgian (yuck), Great Lakes Raspberry/Rubarb (bland), McAuslan Belle Geuele (okay, but it doesn't measure up to their other beers), Amsterdam Big Wheel (a big dud by an otherwise stellar brewer), Tecate (at least you can get a fun hat at their booth)
All hail Greg CLow.
I'm going to Volo now to be smug.