The Bar Towel

A Gorgeous Sunday, and I can only echo the kudos to Ralph and his dedicated staff.

First and foremost: a HUGE gratitude of thanks to EVERYONE who put in the tremendous work that is needed to make this festival come together. I was fortunate enough to be at all three sessions and felt this year even better than the last. I think I can speak for everyone there when I say we truly enjoyed it.

I'm not sure if people realize exactly how much work this festival is. Again, I feel we all need to extend a huge gratitude of thanks to Ralph, Ida, Thomas, Julien, Karl - the entire family... servers, bartenders and the entire staff who were amazing as always... all of the volunteers who did a wonderful job... the brewers who participated and put out some great efforts... the concessioners (wow, the food was incredible!)... and of course all the people. I had a wonderful time meeting, talking, and drinking with so many of you!

Also, thanks to all those posting your pics. I'd love it for people to keep sharing pictures of the event.

I can't wait until next year. This festival is such a wonderful oppurtunity for so many of us - be it in selling cheese or being able to share homebrew. I really do think this event succeeds every year in EDUCATING and better orientating people in this community.

This event is truly special to so many of us in this city - on more levels than just one.

Had a great time at my first Cask Days. It was pretty awesome both days. It was cool to see various people there. A big thanks to everyone who helped make it happen. Huzzah!

This event gets better every year and Ralph will soon have trouble trying to better the previous year. What was nice to see this year was the amount of brews below 5% and less extreme beers on offer. Are the Ontario brewers finally recognising that a low ABV can actually have loads of flavour and that we aren't all sheep in following the USA trend of extreme beers? That the drinkers here actually want a good session beer that can be drunk all day and not have us flat on our backs after a few mouthfuls and taste buds continually bombarded with hops.

Kudos to all the brewers who helped Ralph stage this great event. Out of all the beers on offer I only threw one away in all 3 sessions I attended. I don't like Marmite!!!! I would love to see some of the one offs brewed on a more frequent basis as they would sell well.

Ralph, Family, Volunteers, Brewers. Brava. Brava!!!!!!

I rather enjoyed the Plowman's Ale (from Granite?)
and the Traditional English Dark Ale (even though I don't usually drink Hockley's beer).

Ah, such fine beer. I sampled eight different taps. A fabulous Saturday evening, I must say.

I can't believe it was business as usual Friday night (Volo serving 'til 2 am). I think Ralph said he got 2 hours sleep... but he wasn't complaining, he was appologizing for breakfast starting 10 minutes late! What a great guy.

Kudo's to the whole staff, and the brewers too!

The Magnotta was really interesting. I thought it was the best one on the menu.

I had a great time, once again. Another thanks to Ralph and Co. for putting on a great show, as well as all the brewers.

Nice seeing everyone again, and meeting a few new people!

Amazing stuff. I was really impressed by the homebrewing options as well. Did anyone else catch the rumour that they'll be getting a brewpub operation going...?

Had a great time on Sunday, and if my heart was broken by seeing a few kegs get pulled before I could sample them, all was made up for by the Péché Mortel -- if only my morning coffee tasted so good!

Thanks ever so much to Ralph & everyone for making this happen year after year.

wow, what a blast this weekend was. my feet and knees hate me right now, but i think i managed to catch up on my sleep last night...

huge thanks to ralph and the whole volo crew for another great fest. i've seen some of the work that goes on behind the scenes to organize an event like this and have to commend them for keeping it rolling along smoothly, even when those inevitable hiccups (79F/26C on oct 21st?!?!) come along.

i definitely appreciated the slightly smaller size this year. seemed a little more cozy and less sardine-ish. so much beer to choose from that i didn't get to all of it even after attending all three sessions (though i'll admit i was moving pretty slowly by sunday).

kudos to the brewers - it was great to see ontario brewers branching out. multiple milds, multiple pumpkins, multiple stouts and porters, someone other than perry doing a dipa, barrels and other twists. even if you didn't like them all, you have to give the brewers thanks for trying.

the food was great this year too, and seemed to be more plentiful than last year. last year i remember those trays of food coming out and disappearing instantly. this year there seemed to be more than enough to go around, and it was all delicious too.

it was fun putting faces to some of the names on here - though i talked to so many people i'm not sure i have all the associations right

i'm going to try and get my photos online tonight. will update when i do.

Yup, this event gets better every year!
Thanks to all those involved

I wasn't able to attend this year, Saturday afternoon and evening I had Whisky Live and dinner after, Sunday I couldn't score a ticket.

Does anyone know if the remaining beers will be available tonight?

Gary

old faithful wrote:Does anyone know if the remaining beers will be available tonight?

i know the usually are, but not sure what is left. ralph extended things for an extra couple hours yesterday evening to help finish them off. i suspect the heat yesterday and today might not have them in great shape by tonight. they were icing them down yesterday, but at least a couple seemed past their prime by the time i left.

Thanks, by the way any comments on the English brews? London Pride was a first i think (except for that pin a while back), and ESB tastes different every time I have in the U.K., any views on how those rated to the Canadians in those styles?

Gary

old faithful wrote:Thanks, by the way any comments on the English brews? London Pride was a first i think (except for that pin a while back), and ESB tastes different every time I have in the U.K., any views on how those rated to the Canadians in those styles?

he had the london pride on cask the day of the ticket sale for cask days. i had it then and enjoyed it. i remember enjoying the esb on saturday night, but didn't review it. they've been a success at volo, so i'm sure we'll see them back. as much as i love american stuff, i can still appreciate a finely crafted english ale.

i heard that if cask days was a week later we'd have also seen the london porter on cask. i'm looking forward to whenever that makes an appearance too

there were so many beers, i didn't get a chance to discuss most of them with others. the main things i was asked about were "must-try" type beers and "best of the fest". the magnotta and the pumpkin brews (perry's especially) were quite popular, though not to my taste. the bourbon barrel nutcracker was one of the big favourites. i know that with so many options many people went right for the "one-off" and special releases and only found their way back to the "standard" casks if they had time/room later.