Eat & Drink
Only Cafe to host mini-beer fest
Known by beer drinkers as one of the best spots in the city to get your craft brew fix, the Only Cafe will be hosting a mini beer fest this weekend that will feature live music, guided tastings, and, naturally, beer from a handful of some of Toronto's (and the GTA's) best micro-breweries.
The event will feature tasting booths manned by a beer rep or brewer who will offer samples of their wares in exchange for a ticket that costs you just one dollar. Given that the crowd at the Only is typically well versed in all things beer, the brewers will be sampling stuff that's a little out of the ordinary like seasonals or one-off brews wherever possible as opposed to their well-known flagship beers.
The impressive list of beers being represented this weekend includes: Steamwhistle, Flying Monkeys, Sawdust City, Black Oak, Creemore, Railway City, Cameron's, Wellington, Beaus All-Natural, Brasserie McAulson, King, Duggan's, Kensington, Amsterdam, Muskoka Cottage, F&M, Lake of Bays, Mill Street, County Cider, and Great Lakes.
On hand Friday night will also be Colin Banting, a Quality Assurance Technician at Steamwhistle who will lead a guided tasting on the art of the pilsner, and Peter Chiodo, the founder of Flying Monkeys Brewery, who will also offer a topic-specific chat guided by an as-yet unnamed one-off he's made for the occasion.
Troy Burtch, co-founder of Toronto Beer Week and employee of TAPS Beer Magazine will also be there with others from TAPS handing out issues and chatting with anybody who wants to talk beer.
There's no cover to get in, but sampling tickets will cost you a dollar each and get you a 5oz sample of anything being offered in the booths on the patio.
If a cornucopia of delicious local beer isn't enough for you, the Only will also be offering a limited version of their night menu and palette-cleansing munchies will be spread around. As is the Only's usual policy, food from the outside world is also welcome.
The beer fest starts at 5 p.m. and will run both Friday February 3 and Saturday February 4.
Photo by Sally Hunter in the blogTO Flickr pool
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Cheers!
That all these brands will be represented in one place that's offering low-priced samples is also impressive.
Your link, listing the bottles available at a Portland, Oregon beer store, is also impressive, but not really an apt comparison for the list in my post.
Ben I think this fits your criteria for an apt comparison. I used Portland because they've got such an impressive beer culture.
Thank you Ben Johnson for this informative blog..Since very long time i am looking for this..But today I got this..Bagel Cafe