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Cask Days 2015

Post details, reviews and recaps of interesting beer events in Ontario and elsewhere here.

Moderators: Craig, Cass

frozentee
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:28 pm

Post by frozentee »

I still have a session 3 early access ticket available.

ChrisK
Posts: 156
Joined: Mon May 14, 2012 4:07 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by ChrisK »

MatttthewGeorge wrote:In the past I remember more "recommend" type posts. Vaguely remember one even from Volo. Has anyone seen anything like this?

I've got 4 hours and maybe 20 samples in me, want to make sure I get the good ones, lol
These are going to be my targets, though I doubt I'll get to all of them. Can't say what your tastes might be but you can probably get a feel for mine :P. I wouldn't necessarily call these recommendations since anything can happen where cask ale is involved, but these are what look good/interesting to me based on experience and word of mouth.

36 Beachwood BBQ & Brewing Co. Melrose IPA West Coast IPA w/ Amarillo
46 Monkish Hard Drive Problems Barrel Fermented Saison w. Strawberries, Blueberries & Cherries
47 Noble Aleworks Galaxy Showers Single Hopped Double IPA
115 Four Winds Brewing Company Lucie Belgian Pale With Kumquats
116 Four Winds Brewing Company Nectarous Dry Hopped Sour
120 Howe Sound Brewing Father John's Winter Ale Winter Warmer With Molasses, Honey, Ginger and Nutmeg. Conditioned With Cold Extracted Coffee and Cognac
161 Dunham Saison du Pinacle Farmhouse Ale (Infused with Fireweed Flowers)
181 Le Trou Du Diable Ze Blend (Dry-Hopped) Barrel Aged Sour
182 Le Trou Du Diable Ze Blend (Whiskey Oak Chips) Barrel Aged Sour
183 Le Trou Du Diable Madera 5 Year Old Barrel Aged Maderized Beer
186 Les Trois Mousquetaires Surette A La Camerise Berliner Weisse With Honeyberry
187 Amsterdam Brewery El Jaguar Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout w. Chocolate & Chilies
188 Amsterdam Brewery Homegrown Mixed Fermentation Farmhouse Ale (Dry-Hopped w. Galaxy)
191 Amsterdam Brewery Superstition #2 Farmhouse Ale aged in Pinot with Brett
198 Bellwoods Brewery Raspberry 3 Minutes to Midnight Barrel Aged Imperial Stout w/ Cocoa Nibs and Raspberries
199 Bellwoods Brewery Barn Owl Blend No.3 Mixed Fermentation Farmouse Ale w/ Ontario Peaches
200 Bellwoods Brewery Cherry Farmageddon Barrel Aged Brett Saison Aged on Niagara Montmorency Cherries
241 Great Lakes Brewery X Bar Hop Hanlan's Point Bourbon Barrel Coconut and Coffee Porter
274 Niagara Oast House Brewers Verjus Sour Ale Fruit Sour Ale
279 Nickel Brook Brewing Co. Raspberry Uber Berliner Weisse
302 Ironwood Hard Cider Scorchin’ Perry in Cask Perry Fermented With White Pepper
304 Les Verge De La Colline Honey Crisp Sour Crabapple Cider With Brett
311 Spirit Tree Cider Blue Velvet Pear Cider w. Lavender
314 Spirit Tree Cider Wildy Delicious Wild Fermented Apple Cider
318 West Avenue Cider Spontaneity Farmhouse Cider
323 West Avenue Cider Sour Cherry Scrumpy Farmhouse Cider
324 West Avenue Cider Bohemian Raspberry Barrel Aged Cider

atomeyes
Beer Superstar
Posts: 2153
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:39 pm

Post by atomeyes »

my list - but note, that i'll make some comments about the homebrewer section. it really is worth trying, IMO.

36 Beachwood BBQ & Brewing Co. Melrose IPA West Coast IPA w/ Amarillo
46 Monkish Hard Drive Problems Barrel Fermented Saison w. Strawberries, Blueberries & Cherries
51 Three Weavers Amburana Porter Barrel Aged Imp. Porter w. Roasted Cacao Nibs.
41 Ladyface Ale Companie Ballista Imp. Grisette Aged In Viognier Barrels
115 Four Winds Brewing Company Lucie Belgian Pale With Kumquats
116 Four Winds Brewing Company Nectarous Dry Hopped Sour
151 Dieu Du Ciel! Tamarindo Gose German Gose w. Tamarin
181 Le Trou Du Diable Ze Blend (Dry-Hopped) Barrel Aged Sour
182 Le Trou Du Diable Ze Blend (Whiskey Oak Chips) Barrel Aged Sour
183 Le Trou Du Diable Madera 5 Year Old Barrel Aged Maderized Beer
186 Les Trois Mousquetaires Surette A La Camerise Berliner Weisse With Honeyberry
187 Amsterdam Brewery El Jaguar Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout w. Chocolate & Chilies
191 Amsterdam Brewery Superstition #2 Farmhouse Ale aged in Pinot with Brett
198 Bellwoods Brewery Raspberry 3 Minutes to Midnight Barrel Aged Imperial Stout w/ Cocoa Nibs and Raspberries
211 BurdockBrett Farmhouse Ale Farmhouse Saison heard this is great
236 Forked River Sweet Sassy Mollasy Root Beer Porter
257 Liberty Village X Toronto Brewing Revenge of Brett on the Beach Brett IPA was apparently very good last year
266 Muddy York X Strawdog Inkwell Imp. Stout i'm biased. i brewed this and i like it quite a bit. the booze is hidden well considering how young it is. it's too young, but it's pretty bold and brash
302 Ironwood Hard Cider Scorchin’ Perry in Cask Perry Fermented With White Pepper
304 Les Verge De La Colline Honey Crisp Sour Crabapple Cider With Brett
321 West Avenue Cider Honey Monster Cyser Cider (Apple, Honey & Riesling)
322 West Avenue Cider Sake Cider Spiced Cider
323 West Avenue Cider Sour Cherry Scrumpy Farmhouse Cider
324 West Avenue Cider Bohemian Raspberry Barrel Aged Cider

Homebrew section - some background on deez guyz.

Geoff Trail X Toronto Brewing Peaches and Cream
Oatmeal Brown Ale - Geof wins a shitload of homebrewing awards. may be worth trying
361
Richard Sigesmund X Toronto Brewing Ready Steady Go think this is an all sacch trois IPA
American Pale Ale
362
Richard Sigesmund X Toronto Brewing Gimme Some Truth and this is the same recipe as above, but all bret vrai IPA. heard 2 people say they liked it. so, early feedback!
American Pale Ale
363
Eric Emery X Toronto Brewing Paradise Casked the man behind the Liberty Village recipes. and Gummy Beer
Fruit Session IPA w. Pineapple, Grapefruit & Mango
364
JP Tibensky X Toronto Brewing Idle Threat
Hop Extract Pale Ale
365
GTA Brews Home Brew Club X Toronto Brewing Vanilla Venti
Mild Ale With Coffee & Vanilla Beans eric's a good brewer. don't know much else about this. sorry!
366
Cass Enright X Toronto Brewing Cass Ale
Ontario Mild With Ontario Hops let's all pray Cass washed his hands. :)
367
Brew TO X Kevin Freer X Escarpment Labs Poundability Kevin's also a very skilled brewer who works for one of the bigger guys. Escarpment Labs is doing excellent stuff with yeast
Batch #1 English Pale Ale w. Escarpment Lab Yeast
368
Brew TO X Kevin Freer X Toronto Brewing Poundability
Batch #2 English Pale Ale w. White Labs WLP001
369
Brew TO X Kevin Freer X Toronto Brewing Poundability
Batch #3 English Pale Ale w. Brett

hope this helps!

User avatar
Sanchex
Posts: 63
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 6:39 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by Sanchex »

I've got one early access for session three. Pm me if interested.

MeltedOzark
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 4:21 pm

Post by MeltedOzark »

I've got two regular access tickets for session 4 if anyone wants them. $25 a piece ($10 below face). Have quite the hangover today from last night. PM me if interested.

User avatar
Kish84
Bar Fly
Posts: 602
Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2010 7:41 pm
Location: Kitchener

Post by Kish84 »

At Cask days... Can someone tell me when 10/5oz turned into 250/125 ml? Is that not 8/4?
"There's always money in the banana stand."

BakaGaijin
Posts: 472
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:41 pm
Location: Burlington

Post by BakaGaijin »

Why do people volunteer to work at Cask Days?!? The Morana's make massive profits on your free labour.

liamt07
Bar Fly
Posts: 597
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2011 1:36 pm
Location: Downsview/Toronto

Post by liamt07 »

BakaGaijin wrote:Why do people volunteer to work at Cask Days?!? The Morana's make massive profits on your free labour.
Because you get a free ticket to the event if you do.

atomeyes
Beer Superstar
Posts: 2153
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:39 pm

Post by atomeyes »

BakaGaijin wrote:Why do people volunteer to work at Cask Days?!? The Morana's make massive profits on your free labour.
oh boy.....

the simple answer? it's none of your business why people volunteer.
not saying that rudely. but really, if someone wants to volunteer, let them. everyone has their reasons.
why do people volunteer for a political campaign? why don't people who work for charities volunteer their time instead of getting paid?

pretty sure the volunteering at a beer festival thing is not just limited to Cask Days. and if they didn't get enough volunteers, then sure, they should pay people. and then our ticket prices will go up accordingly.

atomeyes
Beer Superstar
Posts: 2153
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:39 pm

Post by atomeyes »

yesterday's event was great. love Cask Days. the location's great, the walk to and from the brickworks is part of my tradition and i love it.
food was amazing (dat fried chicken). most of the beer was great. it's a well run event, especially considering the scope.

Monkish Hard Drive problems, the TdD maderized beer were my 2 faves. lots of other good ones. the homebrew section was surprisingly popular and surprisingly good.
El Jaguar wasn't as epic as in previous years.
had a sip of 3 Min Midnite and it tasted great. Nectarious was tapped out at the start. booo.
the line for the ciders was huge. amazing comment on how our cider scene's growing. the 101 Cider was repugnant, tho. uggg. just awful. a sweet, horrible mess.

kind of like i said before the event started, the Ontario stuff was dialed in. Bellwoods and Amsterdam tried and a few GLB offerings looked good. but the rest of the list was pretty uninspiring.

User avatar
lister
Beer Superstar
Posts: 2071
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:33 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by lister »

My first year going to two sessions, Friday afternoon (my first time doing so) and early admission Saturday afternoon.

First a couple of nitpicks:

1) On Friday pre-admission didn't start on time and buying tokens ahead of time didn't happen and no announcement given
2) Music volume. Too loud! Friday afternoon was fine since it was a nice day but Saturday afternoon was too much. While I don't want dead quiet, I'd prefer not to have to yell at the person next to me.

Friday afternoon was lovely. Far less people (of course) and everyone spread out due to the sunny day. I think I'll be doing Friday again and dropping Saturday. I had 40 beers/ciders selected (with backups) split evenly between both days. According to my list I drank 32. There were only three I couldn't get. One wasn't pouring well and two ran out. One of which was from Bellwoods, no surprise, I pushed my luck leaving that to Saturday. The other inexplicably tapped out early, the dark cream ale. Huh?!

The homebrews were excellent. How did that come about for them? I hadn't heard anything about homebrewer participation. Wouldn't mind a possible chance next year. Some of my goofy stuff seems to be tailor made for an event like this.

I had pretzels which were tasty and fried chicken which was also tasty but decidedly room temperature which was a shame. Obviously food consumption is hard to gauge at events like this but Brando's was clearly making too much ahead of time.
lister

zane9
Posts: 429
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 1:05 pm
Location: Hamilton

Post by zane9 »

Anyone know which brewery won the IPA Challenge?

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jeremyg
Posts: 316
Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 4:57 pm

Post by jeremyg »

did fri aft and sat night

friday afternoon was glorious. absolutely glorious. it was a beautiful day, it wasn't packed and i got to try a ton of beers. outside of ontario/quebec i thought NY had the strongest showing. some of that community beer works stuff was delicious.

saturday night was a gong show. when we finally got in 2/3 of the beers were gone, it was insanely packed and the floor was starting to flood (flood is probably a strong word to use) because of all the rain. the hand washing station wasn't working. the lineups to get drinks was... ugh. especially the ciders. the sat eve session has become way too much of a scene.

in short, friday afternoon is definitely more of my jam. maybe i'm showing my age but i couldn't handle how rammed it was saturday night.

oh and the food was ALL excellent. definitely the best year for food.

beerstodiscover
Bar Fly
Posts: 624
Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2013 12:16 pm
Contact:

Post by beerstodiscover »

This was my second Cask Days and overall it was a great time. Great beer and food and very well organized considering the scale.

I was there on Saturday night and, as expected, many of the most exciting casks were finished. To make things run a little smoother I would suggest putting a sign in each section, perhaps a screen, showing attendees and servers which casks are still available. I saw many people strike out two or three times in a row, sending the poor server running back and forth with an empty glass.

Also the three separate Ontario areas was a bit confusing. It would have been helpful to have signs with numbers (e.g. Ontario 2 #100-150) to help orient people.

And I'd also vote for going back to reserving even just a few special casks for each session. Pretty much all the whales I was hoping to try were finished by session 4. Last year it was great to have Skeleton Key on the Saturday night. If they're worried about wasting beer, they could just highlight the special casks and I am sure people would do their part finish them.

But as I said, on whole it was another great event!
Last edited by beerstodiscover on Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ChrisK
Posts: 156
Joined: Mon May 14, 2012 4:07 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by ChrisK »

I went to Session 3 as general admission on Saturday afternoon. I think they did very well with improvements to procedure and facilities this year.

I opted for the California beers on my list first since I thought they would be likely to run out and I wanted to get my hop fix out of the way. That may have been a mistake as the Bellwoods beers were next on my list and all were completely gone by the time I went after them. All of the ciders were completely tapped out within a couple of hours of session 3 starting. Lots of beers I wanted to try were running out left and right such as Four Winds Nectarious, Burdock berliner weisse, Monkish Hard Drive Problems was gone when general admission was let in etc. I'm not sure if this is a product of the new don't-hold-anything-back-for-other-sessions model or if Toronto beer lovers have just become wise to interesting sours and saisons.

I just read Jeremyg's post in more detail, however, and he says the ciders were pouring on saturday night, so perhaps they were still holding things back if they were going too quickly. Can anyone else comment on whether or not the ciders, bellwoods, or monkish hard drive problems were pouring at the start of session 4?

I was very pleased with the new procedure they implemented for getting people into the building. Tickets were scanned, IDs were checked, wristbands were distributed, and tokens were available for purchase all while standing in line which effectively eliminated the painful process of waiting in line for tokens after getting inside. I was also pleased with the new abundance of porta-potties which kept the line for the bathroom very brief. Kudos to the Moranas for that improvement.

What I had of the food was fantastic and only really happened because interesting beers kept running out. Wvrst killed it with the sausage covered in raclette cheese and the snackbar booth had a great butter chicken roti (more like a tortilla).

Once again I enjoyed myself thoroughly, though next year I believe I will take the day off on Friday and do session 1 to make sure I can try everything I have my eye on. I was very sad to miss out on everything Bellwoods brought.

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