Great Lakes Caskapalooza at Toronto's Festival of Beer

JB · Post by JB » Tue Aug 04, 2009 10:38 am

What do you call 20 one-off cask ales over 4 days? Caskapalooza!

We're stoked to launch the most ambitious beer garden/event/craziness that TFOB has ever seen. Over the past few weeks we've been madly brewing a variety of far out beers on our new pilot brewhouse. We've custom built a refrigerated cask bar and booth for our spot in the SW corner of Bandshell Park. You'll find us sporting tie-dye shirts and playing 60's tunes all day long.

Starting Thursday, we'll be rotating through the following casks:

416 Summer Fix
Superior IPA
Pompous Ass Pale Ale
Morning Glory Breakfast Stout
Green Tea Ale
Silly Pucker Raspberry Rhubarb
Uvula Ale
Waupoosalizer Snakebite
Sage and Spruce Wit
Blond Jagerbomb
Black Forest Porter
Sweet Pete’s Peach Wheat
Snaggle Tooth Pumpkin Ale
Kaptain Kolsch
Up In Smoke Rauchbier
Iron Eagle Pilsner
Lil Abbey Ale
Soggy Summer Ale
Neutron Bomb Double IPA
Simon Says Stout

Caskapalooza will offer festival goers the chance to sample some truly unique and limited edition beers available only for the weekend. Don't miss out!

For more info check out http://www.greatlakesbrewery.blogspot.com/

SteelbackGuy · Post by **SteelbackGuy** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 10:45 am

What a fantastic list. Good on you guys for brewing your asses off. Too bad I can't get to T.O for the fest, but that doesn't mean you guys can't ship some stuff down to London for taste testing, heheh.

dutchcanuck · Post by **dutchcanuck** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 11:26 am

I looked at the list and I wish the guys and gals at the Great Lakes Brewery the best.
Have you considered offering some of these one offs at the brewery on a regular basis for customers to come by and try?

Bytowner · Post by **Bytowner** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:11 pm

That's pretty dang cool. Good on you guys.

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:35 pm

This is the most exciting thing to happen at the Fort York - oops, sorry, Exhibition Place

- festival since Perry left Scotch-Irish and took all of his cool one-off casks with him.

I'll be there for a couple of hours on Thursday, and look forward to trying whatever is on tap at the time.

JerCraigs · Post by **JerCraigs** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:50 pm

Damn! Impressive list of experiments. I still think the fest admission is too rich for me this year but that sounds pretty cool.

Cass · Post by **Cass** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:06 pm

Awesome, great job. Looking forward to it.

lister · Post by **lister** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:08 pm

Only free day for us is Thursday so we'll be dropping by after work. Looking forward to trying some interesting stuff!

*EDIT*

Nevermind. Big brain cramp.

The brain failed to comprehend that it's at the Beer Festival and not at Great Lakes brewery. Pass. Hopefully some of these creations find their way out to C'est What, Volo and Victory in the near future.

icemachine · Post by **icemachine** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:21 pm

Good god its almost enough to make me buy a festival ticket. I hope you track which are the favourites and get them out as seasonally appropriate to C'est What and Volo

JB · Post by JB » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:49 pm

We've definitely got some high hopes and will be looking for your thoughts on the beers. I just sampled the Double IPA and it's ridiculously over the top with hops. But we dry hopped it for good measure too. Crazy.

Between CASKapalooza and Project X nights, we're trying to get your feedback (be it a minor tweak or an entirely new beer style) to help guide us in future beers and what we could realistically bottle. It's still early but we think these events have a lot of potential.

We'll try to have some of the bigger beers on tap Thursday, as I'm guessing most craft beer drinkers will be hitting up TFOB then.

See you in a few days...

John

Bobsy · Post by **Bobsy** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:51 pm

Truly awesome stuff, John! I know you mentioned doing a few one-offs for the fest, but this is nuts! Big kudos to you guys for making the festival interesting.

kwjd · Post by **kwjd** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:57 pm

JB wrote:We've definitely got some high hopes and will be looking for your thoughts on the beers. I just sampled the Double IPA and it's ridiculously over the top with hops. But we dry hopped it for good measure too. Crazy.

If it is really as over the top hoppy as you make it sound, I hope this gets to C'est What and/or Volo, plus to bottles at the LCBO! There are a severe lack of hops here!

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:59 pm

JB wrote:We'll try to have ALL OF THE beers on tap Thursday, as I'm guessing most craft beer drinkers will be hitting up TFOB then.

Wishful thinking edit...

Tapsucker · Post by **Tapsucker** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:35 am

You better start copyrighting, I heard at least four of those names will be recycled and start with Keith's soon. A couple more with be prefaced with Rickard's, two will end in lime and any day now and the rest will bung up the LCBO labs for six months.

Seriously, as others have said GOOD ON YOU and MORE POWER TO YOU!. I may even have to drag myself to that dumbass frat party after all! Maybe with so many brews you can host your own festival at the brewery? Or if logistics are a problem, you could come over to my place; all Bartowlers welcome!

velovampire · Post by **velovampire** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:38 am

This certainly merits consideration for the Editor's Circle Award at the GTAs, yes? I really, really hope that some of these awesome sounding beers are brewed again and bottled or casked... I'll be buying some Devil's Pale and Orange Peel tomorrow. John, keep adding to your thus far solid lineup of ales (I'm not a big lager guy), and I'll keep buying... Major kudos to Great Lakes for this positive move forward, and I hope to see some of these again soon...