The Bar Towel

shuttle worked very well

so, for those of you that were at cask days '06, what did you think of hopocalypse in relation to your memory of it? what did everyone else think?

bit of a social experiment there - back then there wasn't much for hops in ontario, and this hoppy but balanced american IPA was the hit of the fest. Ontario's landscape has changed a TON since then, as have the palates of our beer drinkers. We debated updating the recipe for 2012 vs keeping it the same. In the end we decided to brew the exact recipe we made 6 years ago and see how it went.

Hits of the fest for me were definitely the ontario stouts. stalin's choice, hellwoods+cherries, tempest+coffee, swag out, etc...

Once again, huge thanks to Ralph, Tom, and Julian for organizing, the parade of volunteers who helped out with setup and pouring every one of those tasty brews, the brewers for busting out all sorts of cool shit, and the brickworks for hosting. Definitely a huge success.

grub wrote:so, for those of you that were at cask days '06, what did you think of hopocalypse in relation to your memory of it? what did everyone else think?

I was a bit disappointed on first sip, as I remember it being more assertively hoppy and a TON more bitter but I don't know if that is an accurate memory. I have notes from 06 somewhere that I will have to try and find. Once I got into it though it was pretty darn nice, lots of fruity hops and very drinkable.. Yumm!

My reaction was very similar to Jer's, above. Mind you, it was about the 12th beer I tried, so "palate fatigue" may have set in, to say the least.

Had such an amazing time; Best beer festival of the year.

My top three were GL Stalin's Choice, BDT Bleres Et Plairirs & HA Big Hoppa.
Surprisingly our Wurst Idea Ever wasn't the worst beer I had, but it was close! HA!

kudos to the Moranas. it was only a few years ago that Cask Days was squeezed inside Volo. I happened upon it accidentally and the crowd wasn't that huge.
Now? around 3000 people to a Toronto beer event. man...that's great to see.
the beer was great compared to previous years. and the a-hole content wasn't that big on Saturday (one person decided to smash their glass on the ground in celebration of the end of the first session. nice job, piehole.)

and the volunteers need a big round of applause - especially DuffmanGirl and her friend who worked the Saturday morning session in the courtyard. man oh man....

Went Sunday, was bummed all the out of province beers advertised were basically gone. Pretty much all the beer I wanted to try were sold out, and I arrived pretty early on Sunday.

Still a great event but they should definitely plan better by reserving a set amount of beer for each session.

A person paying $35 for session #3 definitely didn't get as vast a selection as session #1 or #2. Alas life is unfair, and I had to work on Saturday.

Volo's DIPA stood out as the best brew of the day for me.

Grand Electric's taco was ridic good, expensive but tasty.

Not sure if you saw, but they did offer 10$ back or 10$ more in tokens for any people who went Sunday.

andrewrg wrote:Not sure if you saw, but they did offer 10$ back or 10$ more in tokens for any people who went Sunday.

Considering how many beers I was looking forward to to trying that were missing, I'd have much rather had the chance to try them than get 4 extra tokens.

It was a nice gesture by the organizers to be sure, and I had a Saturday ticket which I gave up to do something else so I don't feel like I was cheated or anything, just really wanted a chance on those beers. Hopefully brewers will set aside reserves for the Sunday crowd next year.

icemachine wrote:

andrewrg wrote:Not sure if you saw, but they did offer 10$ back or 10$ more in tokens for any people who went Sunday.

Considering how many beers I was looking forward to to trying that were missing, I'd have much rather had the chance to try them than get 4 extra tokens.

It was a nice gesture by the organizers to be sure, and I had a Saturday ticket which I gave up to do something else so I don't feel like I was cheated or anything, just really wanted a chance on those beers. Hopefully brewers will set aside reserves for the Sunday crowd next year.

not sure if that will happen. how do you plan on that without taking a financial hit as a brewer or organizer?

i guess you can find one of the few Toronto bars/pubs to take unused casks after, but once that cask is tapped, you have a few days to drain it before its ruined.

also, how do you guess which ones would be most popular? i didn't expect Hellwoods to sell out before La Buteuse (which, i think, it did)

What do other successful cask festivals do? i have sent a message to alex Hall who has organized several in the UK and the US
perhaps he can chime in

atomeyes wrote:

icemachine wrote:

andrewrg wrote:Not sure if you saw, but they did offer 10$ back or 10$ more in tokens for any people who went Sunday.

Considering how many beers I was looking forward to to trying that were missing, I'd have much rather had the chance to try them than get 4 extra tokens.

It was a nice gesture by the organizers to be sure, and I had a Saturday ticket which I gave up to do something else so I don't feel like I was cheated or anything, just really wanted a chance on those beers. Hopefully brewers will set aside reserves for the Sunday crowd next year.

not sure if that will happen. how do you plan on that without taking a financial hit as a brewer or organizer?

i guess you can find one of the few Toronto bars/pubs to take unused casks after, but once that cask is tapped, you have a few days to drain it before its ruined.

also, how do you guess which ones would be most popular? i didn't expect Hellwoods to sell out before La Buteuse (which, i think, it did)

Well I think it should be possible to do something like a Cask for Saturday and a Pin for Sunday, and if the Pin doesn't need to get tapped, then it could be sent to a bar. Hopefully with a years experience with the venue and the crowd sizes, estimates can be made of how many samples/person are needed. I know they will need to lowball it in order to avoid losing money, for sure, but I do think they need to look at ways to be fair to the Sunday audience as well.

The issue for the Sunday crowd was that there was none of the Brewery Feature available, The only BC beer that I saw was Big Ridge ESB, and the only QC beers were the Brewers Backyard selections of Magouille and Moisson (Note: I did arrive at 12:30 and some others may have been available and kicked before I got a chance to find them)

As a Post Script I'm very happy that Ralph and his sons and the rest of the Volo crew have undertaken organizing and growing such a massive festival, and that I look forward to attending this and other Volo-organized events in the future.

I think it's reasonable to understand that things are limited quantity, especially at a cask beer festival. It's not like session 1 tickets sold out immediately and nobody got a chance to buy them.

Session 3, to me, carries an inherent risk of not getting to try everything that was there at session 1.