in honour of the upcoming canada up of beer, my notes from last year’s event (such as they are – arranged alphabetically, not in the order in which i imbibed):
barefoot wines: didn’t try any! but good on them for taking the plunge to attend a beer festival
beverage concepts: i think this is the booth that offered several imports. we had the menabrea from italy and anchor steam from san francisco. liked them both.
cariboo: didn’t hit this booth (i think we thought it was too generic, silly, silly us!).
central city brewing company: fabulous swag for sale! we tried their lager and their pale ale. jackie and julie both loved it. i wasn’t a fan. which is so odd for me to say now that i can’t get enough of their ipa or esb… guess i should have tried those instead of the lager and pale ale.
dead frog brewery: they didn’t show up. rumour has it internal strife kept them from appearing.
dockside brewing: had perhaps the most interesting beers on offer. the jamaica was crazy with hibiscus flavour – not a session beer, but we weren’t at a session now were we? also tried and enjoyed the pelican bay brown ale. not quite as wild about the marina light lager.
efes: best beer shirt!! jackie and i both snagged one – and they actually had my size left (even though the rep had a very hard time handing over men’s tees to a pair of women). tried both the light and the dark, and enjoyed them.
granville island brewing: skipped this booth as GIB is so readily available everywhere.
grolsch: they ran out awfully early and we didn’t manage to get any.
hell’s gate brewing company: talked to the rep for quite a while. got lots of great information, only shards of which i actually remember! tried both the lager and the pale ale. enjoyed them both. “bargain craft-brewed”, locally brewed in richmond, eco-friendly brewery.
hi-bridge global consulting: skipped this booth.
howe sound brewing: major thumbs up!! best looking booth at the festival and our favourite beer of the day was the bail-out bitter. also enjoyed the rail ale.
lighthouse brewing: we love the race rocks amber, so we spentsome time at this booth sampling the other three beers on offer: lager, beacon ipa and riptide pale ale. we enjoyed all three (and got playing cards as swag!).
okanagan spring brewery: skipped this booth as OK is so readily available everywhere.
pacific dry: skipped this booth (not sure why).
peacock & martin: yukon brewing: tried both the red and the gold and enjoyed them both.
peroni: jackie got a fabulous peroni shopping bag and was so darned happy for the rest of the afternoon! and the beer was delicious too.
pilsner urquell: along with the grolsch ran out awfully early and we didn’t get any.
PMA canada (featuring innis & gunn): julie and jackie enjoy the scotch, so they tried the innis & gunn and loved it. i went with the tyskie polish pilsner, and was very happy with my choice!
stile wines: skipped this booth, not sure why as i believe they actually had beer on offer…
red truck beer company: yay for having the beer truck on hand for us to take silly photos on! sampled both the ale and the lager, and liked them both.
rickard’s: sampled the red, which we already knew we liked, and tried the new white, which only julie was a fan of. must be my lack of enjoyment of the wheat…
russell brewing company: great beer tees and other swag being given away. julie scored a girlie tee, jackie and i scored men’s tees. alas mine is too big and i gave it to justin (that lucky boy). tried the cactus lime lager and the rocky mountain pilsner, and liked them both. also on offer were bc lions lager and cream ale, both of which we drank plenty of last year at bc lions games (and warming up for the games at the kingston).
tree brewing: tree sponsored our softball team one year, so we love them! they had almost their whole line on offer, which we greatly appreciated. we sampled the hophead, the pilsner and the pale ale and thoroughly enjoyed all three.
vancouver island brewing: they had spyhopper honey brown, piper and hermanns dark lager on offer. we tried the spyhopper and the hermanns and enjoyed them both.
whistler brewing company: i either didn’t hit this booth, or forgot to take notes…
yelp! – r&b brewing: loved playing the games and winning more beer tokens! great way to include more ridiculousness to my day!
thanks to the first aid tent for helping jackie with “uncle fester” – open wounds apparently scare small children and beer drinkers!
three of us attended in 2009
i estimate that there will be at least 8 of us this year!
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