Archive for August, 2011

It wasn’t too long ago when a friend of mine from Montreal asked me is there was a Beer Festival in Toronto. I honestly had no idea but I assumed that, this being Toronto and all, there had to be so I said “yes.” I almost regretted saying that right away because if there was no Festival of Beer I would be a liar, so I started searching Google fervently for redemption before I had to redeem myself. Thank heavens there turned out to be one and in fact a REALLY big one. Although I could never imagine how much of a huge shindig it was until the day we set foot in CNE bandshell park the other on the Sunday August 7th portion of the 4 day long Toronto Festival of Beer.

A big thanks to Big Thinker for sending us into the fray and for making it so much fun that before we knew it, we have stayed the entire day from 1-7pm! We didn’t originally plan to stay that long but we learned, as many others surely learned, that there is SO MUCH to do and experience at the TO Beer Fest. Our mission was to try all beers that we have no tried before. The first beer of the day cam highly recommended by Jon and was called “Beau’s.” If I had to rank all the beers we tried (and we tried a lot!) I would still say that Beau’s Lug Tread Lagered Ale stayed firm in the top 3 without a doubt.

This year there were a whole lot of unusual beers being served up by a number of fringe breweries and one big one, Great Lakes. There were so many new flavours to try as well that were outside of the traditional hops and barley flavour of most beers. Flying Monkeys beer seemed to be one of the most adventurous brands at the festival with mango, berry, and lemonade beers which were all well crafted and flavourful as well as “sidewalk paint” and “bubble scream” flavours which, though strange, were just as well crafted. The other flavour major adventurers were Great Lakes Brewery and their Caskapalooza tasting. Basically the story was that Great Lakes had made casks of beers with bizarre flavours such as curry, pepper peach, banana, maple and a whole bunch more and got their own huge portion of the fairgrounds to let people try it in limited quantities. The rub was that you had to pay two tokens for a half glass and, to be honest, their beers not only tasted somehow watered down and weak, but also NOTHING like the purported flavours. Very disappointing but we were soon cheered right up by the Napoleon Grilling Tent near Caskapalooza.

Mark Cutrara, Chef and Owner of Cowbell restaurant in Parkdale treated us to a demonstration of carving up a 120 lb side of premium aged beef as we drank Hoegarden (pronounced ‘hoo-garden’ – apparently) in awe of his knowledge and ability to make skirt and flank steaks emerge from that massive animal. Mark is quite the site to behold in his bright orange alligator skin cowboy boots, leather hat and diablo goatee and it wasn’t before too long that we were munching on medium delicious rare strips of steak that he cooked himself. You can bet that I’ll be paying Cowbell a visit soon.

The theme of beer and food was not lost on anyone there and another real highlight in the way of food was “Hey Meatball!” which is a soon-to-be opening restaurant somewhere in town later this month – at least that’s what the word on the street was. For four well worth it tokens you got a fresh, spicy, basil topped meatball on a bun covered in delicious sauce. Sounds so simple but good God, those were some good meatballs. The sign outside their booth said “you’ll love the taste of our balls!” and judging by the huge line to get one a whole lotta people got a mouthful of balls that day.

The rest of the festival was just a blast with the “social tent” for the Toronto twitterati and lots of fun little games to play all over. I was particularly good at throwing Wellies into a basket (first shot win!) and laughed my tipsy head off at games of cornhole, hairy smoking clowns, and custom beer carton hats made by the awesome, hard working people at Steamwhistle. I’m still a Stella Artois man but there’s no denying the dedication of those Steamwhistle craftsmen and women who worked their fingers to the bone to make those beer hats for free! No tips!

With the Holy Trinity of Happiness in mind the Toronto Festival of Beer actually completes the trifecta if you think about it. You got your love from all the friends you likely made there and the ones you brought along, you got your sustenance – whether in the form of meatballs or beer – and you got your expression – the music. There were bands playing literally all day culminating in the last two exciting acts, The Sheepdogs and every beer drinkers favourite rock band, The Trews. The Trews and the Sheepdogs have something sort of in common and that’s the fact that they owe a good portion of their fame to winning a contest. If you recall, the Trews got their big break when they won the CHTZ-FM ‘s “Rock Search” contest in 2002 and now fast forward to only a week or so ago and you find the Sheepdogs becoming the first ever unsigned band to grace to cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Both bands are from Canada and both sounded great on the stage at Beerfest. I was partial to the Sheepdogs and hung out with them for a bit at the social tent before they took the stage and rocked the house in the rain! The audience didn’t care one bit and it was Woodstock all over again, complete with mudslides. Yep. Contest or no contest, the bands really brought their A-game.

Sounds to me like good old-fashioned rock n’ roll is making a comeback and it’s not a moment too soon as there’s only so many pairs of prescriptionless, thick rimmed glasses and Chuck Taylors I can handle before I have an aneurysm. Bring back the rock is all I gotta say.

Speaking about beer, music, and awesomeness stay tuned for the big announcement for the winners of the tickets to the Stella Artois Legere Ultimate Block Party! The party takes place on August 13th and I will draw the names this Wednesday so you have one more day to tweet the magic phrase to get your chance at one of two pairs of tickets to the next big summer party so get in on it. Click here to read the post and enter the contest!