The Bar Towel

Any of you planning to attend this year, please drop by our Beers of the World booth and introduce yourselves....we plan to be pouring Cooper's Sparkling Ale, Duvel, Chimay Premiere, Ayinger Ur-Weisse, Victory Whirlwind and St. Peter's English Ale (organic).

Peter Lopaty
ESPRIT AGENCIES

Thanks Peter, I would love to drop by and say hi. Your stable of fine beers is to be envied.
As for all you fellow bartowellers, please drop by booth #38 ( next to the Biermarkt food booth and McAuslan) and say hi. I'll have all the usual suspects on tap.
Cheers!
Perry

Hi, Peter & Perry...

My wfie and I dropped by both of your booths yesterday, and your offerings were definately the highlight of our visit.

From Scotch Irish, we were both really taken by the Black Irish Porter - it was the only brew that we got a second sample of because neither of us wanted to share the first one! I also really enjoyed your IPA, although my wife didn't care for it, but she's not really a fan of the style.

As for the Esprit booth - Peter, we spoke to you for a few minutes about the St. Peter's English Ale (and their new bottles), which we didn't like quite as much as their Lemon/Ginger and Wheat Ales, but still found pretty tasty. I also came around later for a sample of Cooper's which wasn't too bad - I'll need to grab a couple of bottles to enjoy on the patio before the warm weather runs out.

Other than that, nothing really knocked our socks off this year. We were hoping that some of our favourites like Unibroue and McAuslan would bring along something new, but it was all stuff we'd tried before. At least I was able to have another taste of the McAuslan Cream Ale that I liked so much last year - does anyone know if it's available anywhere in Toronto?

Sheryl tried a few things that were new to her since she was out of town during last year's fest. She really liked the Church Key offerings, especially the Rosemary Ginger Beer. And we enjoyed the Amsterdam Irish Stout which neither of us had tried before, although it was overshadowed by the Black Irish Porter.

One of the biggest (but not really unexpected) disappointments of the day was the Sleeman/Upper Canada booth. Yeah, I know, they've been pretty crap for years now, but as someone who remembers when they were seperate breweries that both made some half-decent beers, it pained me to see that their main offerings were Sleeman Cream Ale and UC Wheat Ale being served out of cans. Even their side table of their associated brands was horribly predictable - I was hoping to try stuff from some of the smaller breweries that they've bought up in recent years, like Maritime Brewing and Okanagan Spring, but they were nowhere to be seen.

And surely we're not the only ones wondering why the hell there were FOUR Mike's Hard Lemonade booths throughout the fair? I guess sponsorship has it's privleges...

All in all, then, it was pretty much the same as the past couple of years - a couple of new beers (or at least new to us) that we really enjoyed, and enough old stand-bys to ensure that the visit wasn't a complete waste of time.


Greg

Thanks to all of you who attended the annual zoo known as the Toronto Festival of Beer. I especially wish to thank all who stopped by our Scotch Irish booth and supported us. It was an excellent show for us. It was nice to meet new bartowellers (Beer Snob) as well as familiar names (Cass, Dan-D-Man, Kid Presentable). Once again, thanks to you all for your support.