Yesterday we attended the fifth annual Session beer festival, for our fourth straight year. This year it was in a significantly more convenient location for us: Yonge Dundas Square. More on that later.

First, the important stuff. Here’s what we tried:

1. Brickworks Batch:1904 cider
2. Oast House Bound To Your Own Weisses — collaboration with Cuff The Duke (both)
3. Broadhead Long Shot White (him); Underdog Pale (her)
4. Nickel Brook Berliner Weisse German sour (him); So Say We All session IPA (her)
5. Lake Of Bays Lake Monster red wheat (him); Sarsaparilla Belgian wheat (her)
6. Bell City session IPA (him); Lenoir Belgian ale (her)
7. Sawdust City Always Take The Weatherman’s Ad-Weiss rhubarb dunkel weiss (him); Golden Beach pale (her)
8. Central City Red Racer IPA (him); Steam Whistle Dark Sea Salt IPL — collaboration with The Darcys (her)
9. Beau’s Maddaddamites Noobroo summer gruit — collaboration with Margaret Atwood (him); Flying Monkeys Citrus Mistress (her)
10. Junction Columbus pale ale / Flying Monkeys Genius Of Suburbia session pale (him…dumped the Columbus after the first couple of sips and hurriedly replaced it with the Genius); Brakeman’s session ale (her)
11. Spearhead Jamaican Fire coffee stout (him); India White ale (her)
12. Wellington chocolate milk stout (him); Hillside Island Hopper pale ale — collaboration with the Hillside Festival (her)

For the second year in a row my favourite was a milk stout. Last year it was the Beau’s/Tom Green collaboration, and this year it was my final beer: the Wellington chocolate milk stout. Speaking of Tom Green, he made an appearance, still promoting (and drinking) said milk stout.

There were 18 other breweries that we didn’t hit, mostly because we’d either already tried everything they offered or the one-off produced for Session didn’t grab us. Or because we just didn’t want more cider. We did consume our annual Sassy Lamb cupcake though.

Overall, I enjoyed this year’s festival far more than last year…actually, it’s probably my favourite Session that we’ve been to overall. Last year’s location was further away, much more cramped, and it didn’t help that the weather was scorching. This year the weather was beautiful but temperate, and the bathroom situation was entirely civilized. The crowds were also much more reasonable..I think splitting it across two days allowed everyone to have some elbow room…you didn’t have to fight through a crowd to get another beer, and there were plenty of places to stand and drink. Well done, Session organizers.

We walked home after that last one, or rather, we walked straight to dinner at Triple A. A huge plate of nachos was exactly what we needed before heading home and splitting a bottle of — naturally — the Session Saison.

.:.

Cover photo from sessiontoronto.com