Tag: cask days

Cask Days 2015

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last year our first Cask Days beer festival was a revelation. So many amazing beer, at such a well-run event, made us incredulous that we’d never been to one. For the past 11.5 months we’d looked forward to the 2015 installment.

We just got home from #caskdays2015, and the fact that I can type probably tells you that it was a little less epic than last year’s. Granted, there was no post-festival Wvrst bottle tour like last year’s, but still. It wasn’t quite as epic as last year’s maiden voyage.

I mean, sure, there was great beer and excellent food, and it was almost shockingly well-run. But here was my major disappointment: they were holding back so much beer that I couldn’t try half of what I really wanted. This is what I tried, and what I tried to try:

  1. Burdock Peach & Apricot Berliner Weisse
  2. Niagara Oast Dr. Lychee Gose Nuts Gose
  3. Niagara Oast Verjus Fruit Sour Ale
  4. Dunham Saison du Pinacle Farmhouse Ale w. Fireweed Flowers
  5. Indie Alehouse Maple Cinnamon Belgian Wit
  6. Stone City Ales Devil and the Deep American Sour
  7. Parallel 49 Bodhisattva Dry Hopped Sour Ale
  8. Community Beer Works Frank APA
  9. Dunham APA w. Habanero Pepper
  10. Macleod Ale Jackie Tar Brown Stout
  11. Dieu Du Ciel Tamarindo German Gose
  12. Left Field Bricks & Mortar Porter w. Pilot Roaster Coffee
  13. Great Lakes x Bar Hop Sweet Zombie Jesus Milk Stout w. Peanut Butter
  14. Sawdust City Damn!!!!!!! Spicy Peanut Butter Imperial Stout
  15. Wellington Buggin’ Out Cab Franc Barrel Aged Sour Ale
  16. Ladyface Companie Ballista Imperial Grisette Aged in Viognier Barrels
  17. Amsterdam El Jaguar Barrel Aged Imperial Stout w. Chocolate & Chilies
  18. Howe Sound “Smoked” Pumpkineater Imperial Pumpkin Ale w. Rum, Cacao & Vanilla
  19. House Ales Mezza Notte Espresso Milk Stout

So, yeah. Literally the first two beers I wanted were sold out. Or, rather, they were being “held back” for later sessions. I get that they’re trying to keep enough around for everyone, but I tried to get those two within seconds of entering the building, and I checked back a few times, so they were NEVER available for our session. That’s brutal.

Just before 5pm I went hunting for my 11th and final beer, and my last four choices were all off-limits. I gave up and ate some fried chicken instead.

So I ended up drinking a lot of sour beer on the day, which was fine, and one or two of them were tremendous (the Parallel 49 and Stone City especially), but GOD I wanted a heavy stout toward the end.

Frankly, the shot of espresso (from Boxcar Social) and fried chicken (from Brando’s fried chicken) were two of the best things I had all day, and the food program in general looked killer, so kudos to the festival for that. Also: military precision on the porta-potty line.

What I took from this, though, is that a) the Friday night session is the only good one, and everything else is a poor cousin; and b) you have to buy your way into one of the premium packages to get decent beer. I guess I’ll keep that in mind for next year, and see whether the price is justified.

Cover photo by Loaded Dog, used under Creative Commons

What a week-ish

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It’s been a busy 8 days, considering I haven’t been traveling or anything. The mother in law visited for about a week. We had a huge dinner at Jacobs & Co. I spent Saturday, including a Fieramosca dinner, involved in a work conference. Good Jays games and bad Jays games. Absolutely insane amounts of work.

I spent tonight eating dinner at Hawthorne with Nellie, planning my attack on Cask Days tomorrow, and watching the Jays’ season end in game 6 against the Royals, in a game they probably could (should) have won. But hey, at least the Habs are 8-0 to start the season. So there’s that.

.:.

Cover photo by Loaded Dog, used under Creative Commons

Cask Days 2014

Dan Dickinson2 Comments

Really, it’s hard to believe we’d never been to a Cask Days event before. On this, the tenth year, we felt that needed to be rectified. We bought tickets, and yesterday met up with Nellie’s friends Adam and Alicia and joined the 1:00 masses at the Brickworks. Here’s what I drank:

  1. Bottle Logic “Calf-Life” milk stout w/ rum soaked oak
  2. Magnolia “Cole Porter” robust porter (when the Noble Aleworks “Cinnamon Roast Crunch” milk stout was out)
  3. Ballast Point “Victory At Sea” imperial porter w/ cacao nibs & bhut jolakia ghost peppers
  4. Bad Apple “Operation Green Ring” cucumber mint pale ale
  5. Siren Craft / Magic Rock brown ale w/ coconuts
  6. Sawdust City “Blood Of Cthulhu” imperial stout w/ cranberry, raspberry, and cherry
  7. Great Lakes / Bar Hop “Hanlan’s Point” porter w/ coconut and coffee (when the Great Lakes / Bar Hop “Sweet Zombie Jesus” peanut butter milk stout and Innocente “Chocolate Rain” chocolate & peanut butter oatmeal stout were out)
  8. Dunham “Saison Du Pinacle Reserve” wine barrel-aged hoppy saison w/ brett
  9. Le Castor “Citra Weisse” hopfenweisse
  10. Innocente “Until Proven Guilty” Russian imperial stout
  11. Broadhead “Mommy Kissing Santa Clause” mint stout

My eighth beer was actually a mistake. I had ordered #139, the Brasseurs Du Monde English Porter w/ cascade hops & coffee, but clearly what the server handed me wasn’t a porter. I figured she’d just heard me incorrectly, and a few sips of the saison told me it was actually quite good, so I didn’t say anything. But then Adam ordered #139 later and got the very same incorrect drink. We guessed that they swapped in a new one, or mixed up a couple of kegs. A comment on Untappd would seem to confirm that.

While it wasn’t exactly easy to drink, the Ballast Point was the definite winner on the day. Every sip produced a serious ghost pepper burn in the back of my throat, but the overall flavour was excellent, and it was amazingly smooth for a 10% porter.

Cool space, cool atmosphere, great luck with the weather (apart from a few showers while we stood in line), ribs from Uncle Smoke, espresso from Propeller, and no untoward bathroom situations. Probably the best beer event I’ve ever been to. Pretty much a lock for next year too.

We moved on a little after 5 and cabbed over to Wvrst for some more beers and food. After a nice light Weihenstephaner to go with my sausage Adam and I shared a couple of bottles of Le Trou Du Diable: the Volo 25th Anniversary Ale and La Grivoise Du Noël (Merry Christmas!) to finish off the day.

Excellent, excellent beer fest. See you next year, cask days.

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