The Bar Towel

Made it today for the first time this week. Lots of beer to be had, very relaxed atmosphere and no crowds at all. As always a good time with lots of familiar folks to chat and drink with.

northyorksammy wrote:empire strikes black, but most people know what you mean. Was really nice today outside with only a few dozen people about.

Ironically, Sammy pulls you up on the beer name yet enters it on BA as 'Startford Empire Strikes Black'. I guess we know what he means!

Anyway, to echo what a few others have said, it was an excellent session today, and there's still so many good beers left. I believe as of 3pm only three beers were completely done, so there will be good pickings on pint night and beyond. If you missed out on the fest or still have a few you want to try I'd definitely recommend getting down there.

i had a great time for the hour or two i was there on sunday. its was nice to run into a few bartowelers as well. the beer was great, i didnt have anything that wasnt in perfect form. early the crowd was minimal and the weather was perfect. i loved not havnt to buy a ticket for sunday, just dropping in on a place with 40+ casks is something truely special. great work again this year volo, ill be back every year this great event takes place.

Thanks for the name clarifications, gents.

Empire Strikes Black had a dark colour, good malty taste with a firm, long, non-aromatic bitterness. In style I would place it as a strong porter.

Gary

thanks gary for pointing out the fuller IPA and making my day

thank for a BA letting me know on this site that I can make a change on another site

As always, i thoroughly enjoyed my Cask Days for 2009. Only made one of the pre-cask week nights on Tuesday, and had a couple of very nice beers with my dinner.

Then on to the weekend, lots of fun with friends new and old Friday and Saturday at the festival. It was good to see so many new faces amongst the regulars at these events, i think that bodes well for the future.

Got my pictures from Saturday up on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55976115@N ... 590729355/

As always, to Ralph, Aina, Tom, Julian and the whole Volo crew for all their hard work arranging and organizing everything, thanks, i hope you all found a few minutes during the weekend to put your feet up and enjoy the event as well.

See you all soon!!

We had a great time yesterday, the Muskoka Harvest, Empire Strikes Black and Mill Street Barleywine Blend were highlights for me.

Looking forward to trying a few more tonight.

Another great cask days. Cheers to Ralph and the family, and all the other volunteers for making this Cask Days perhaps the best yet.

Cheers to Ralph and family for a wonderful event! I realize there is alot of logistics in setting up such an event! His labours are much appreciated. I was there on Monday for the English Ales, Thursday for a few IPA's, and the late session on Saturday. All three were great! It was nice to sample the Fullers ESB in cask form on Monday. On Saturday, all the beers were interesting and tasty...the standout beers for me were the Dieu De Ciel Black IPA, Beaus Tommy Gun, Beaus Night Marzen, Saint Andre Hop Juice, Mill Street Barley Wine, and Durham Black Eye. It was great to be able to choose 1/4 or 1/2 pints which enabled sampling lots of different beers.

I wrote a little piece for Troy's blog on volunteering at Cask Days:
http://greatcanadianpubs.blogspot.com

The big thing I got out of my experience is that the whole staff do even more prep and work than I imagined, and that there's a hell of a lot of thought that goes into this event, so kudos to them on a successful weekend.

I'd also highly recommend volunteering at Cask Days - it was a fun time and felt like a good way to thank all these guys for making good beer available to me.

it pretty much goes without saying at this point: another amazing event put on by the top notch crew of staff + volunteers at volo. kudos to ralph and everyone else involved.

I agree with everyone else, it was an awesome event. It was my time attending Cask Days and I hope to make an annual thing for me from now on. I just feel sorry for myself that I didn't know about it before this year and missed out all the other times.

Have the results of the "favourite" voting been made public yet?

TwoPint wrote:Have the results of the "favourite" voting been made public yet?

Volo should be announcing the results very soon. Apparently there's only a hair's breadth between the 1st and 2nd place beers, and they wanted to make sure they've done the math right.

Hey hey,

Well, I went last Monday and Tuesday on the run up to the main event and had a smashing time, then I went to session 1 & 2 and tried 22 of the brews, what a blast. Ralph and co - you did a cracking job, the mood, crowd size, glass, food and most importantly - beer was just right. So much to choose from. The staff as always were superb and it was just a cracking event...

I enjoyed it so much that I went back on Monday, I was going to go on Tuesday but thought I better spend SOME time with the missus!

Anyhow, my pics aren't as good as Steves, but here are mine

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garthicus/ ... 546816893/