It wasn't so very long ago that Toronto was a pretty boring town for craft beer drinkers. There were a couple of brewpubs, a few local breweries, and a handful of decent beer bars, but aside from the semi-annual Festival of Small Breweries at C'est What and a small number of worthwhile booths at Toronto's Festival of Beer each August, events focused on better quality beer were few and far between.
Thankfully, though, things have changed. A lot. It's hard to go more than a couple of weeks without a beer-pairing dinner or brand launch party or mini-festival of some sort taking place. April has been an especially busy month, with the Cask Ale Crawl and Cask IPA Challenge a couple of weekends ago, a charity cask ale dinner at the Granite Brewery this coming Saturday, and for the first time I can remember, six separate beer events on six days in a row last week.
Since I take my duty as TasteTO's resident beer geek very seriously, I did my best to make it out to all of them. Here's how it went...
Tuesday, April 14th - Ontario Beer Awards at Esplanade Bier Markt:
Despite the fact that it's co-sponsored by Toronto's Festival of Beer and NOW Magazine, the annual OBAs are generally a low-key event, and attendance this year seemed even less than usual. Although I expect the fact that the date was wrong on the Bier Markt website (I wonder how many people showed up on Wednesday?) and the press release didn't go out until 10am on Tuesday morning might've had something to do with that.
It's a shame that more people don't know about them, as the Awards provide a good opportunity to sample some of the award winning beers and to meet the folks who are responsible for creating the brews. Some of the big winners this year included Mill Street, Black Oak and Great Lakes, and I had the chance to try a couple of beers that were new to me: Steelback Red Maple (surprisingly good, with a sweet but not cloying edge from the maple syrup) and Cool Stonewall Light (a clean and inoffensive pale lager, i.e. pretty much what I expected).
Mikkel's Monster
Wednesday, April 15th - Danish Beer Dinner at beerbistro:
beerbistro's Brian Morin is easily the most skilled chef in Toronto - and perhaps in all of Canada - when it comes to pairing beer and food, and he and his team once again worked their magic with this 8 course dinner paired with fantastic and rare beers from Denmark's Mikkeller and Nørrebro Bryghus breweries.
As usual for these beerbistro dinners, the food menu was rich and meaty, with braised beef, roasted duck with foie gras, rabbit terrine and horse tartare all making appearances. The beers all well-matched and well-presented, with Nørrebro brewmaster Anders Kissmeyer flown in from Copenhagen to introduce his own brews, while local beer expert Stephen Beaumont did the honours for the Mikkeller beers. The styles varied from an elegant Easter bock (cheekily paired with the rabbit) and a classic London-style porter, to an aggressive IPA and a strong stout made using rare civet coffee. And as a surprise nightcap at the end of the meal, we were served the especially rare Nørrebro/Mikkeller collaborative beer Mikkel's Monster, an aptly named 13% barley wine aged in port and bordeaux casks and hopped to a tongue-tingling 160 IBUs.
(For a more detailed review, check out my blog post about the dinner.)
Thursday, April 16th - Palm Ale launch at Esplanade Bier Markt:
Despite having Thursday off work to recover from the previous evening of excess, I wasn't feeling up for much drinking this evening and took a pass on this one. So while I can't say what it tastes like, I do know that Palm is a golden ale from Belgium being represented in Ontario by Brick Brewing. I understand that it's still on tap at Bier Markt, and perhaps some other locations, and may show up in 6-packs at the LCBO at some point.
The crowd awaits at Brewers Plate
Friday, April 17th - Brewers Plate at Hart House:
The inaugural Brewers Plate, an evening of local food and beer to support Green Enterprise Toronto, was one of my favourite food and drink events of last year, so I was really looking forward to this year's instalment. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot less enjoyable that I'd hoped due to the overwhelming crowd and some poor logistical and layout choices on the part of the organisers. I could go into much more detail, but Joshua over at blogTO has already written a full review that covers pretty much everything that was wrong about it, so I'll just direct interested parties there for the full story.
To be fair, though, I should note that the food that I did manage to get a taste of was quite good (as one would expect from chefs like Mark Cutrara, Brad Long and Jamie Kennedy), and the beer from local breweries like Black Oak, Great Lakes and Wellington was well-received. And it must also be mentioned that the cheese plates and desserts being offered in the outer hallway area by Gurth Pretty and LPK's Culinery Groove respectively were especially appreciated by those of us who chose to escape the crowd. But if they do it again in 2010, hopefully there will be some adjustments to bring it back towards the less frenzied and more elegant event it was last year.
Paul Dickey, Ken Woods and Adrian Popowycz show off the gear at their new brewery
Saturday, April 18th - Black Oak Brewery opening party:
It's been a long time coming, but after months of construction and renovation, the folks at Black Oak Brewery were finally ready to throw an official opening party at their new brewing facility in Etobicoke where they moved last year from their original Oakville location. Owner Ken Woods and brewers Adrian Popowycz and Paul Dickey threw a great party for their friends and fans, with live music, hot dogs and chili, and plenty of Black Oak beer. Their Pale Ale, Nut Brown Ale and Double Chocolate Cherry Stout were flowing freely on draught, and casks of the "Hop Bomb" variation of the Pale Ale and whiskey barrel aged versions of the other two were also available. With the attendees eating, drinking and mingling amongst the brewing tanks, I guess it was the proverbial piss-up in a brewery.
Sunday, April 19th - German Beer Tasting at Castro's Lounge:
Previous plans meant that I had no chance of attending this one, but I still wanted to give it a mention as Castro's Lounge is one of the city's lesser known beer bars, perhaps due to its location in the Beaches being a bit remote for those who frequent downtown drinking establishments. As a west end snob, I've only made it out to Castro's once, but I was impressed by the vibe and the great beer selection, and I hope to make it out to one of their monthly tasting events soon. From all accounts, bartender Chris Schryer who heads up the tastings is an informative and entertaining presenter, and his beer picks do a good job illustrating the different theme for each event.
Maybe I'll head out there next month, assuming I don't have another week of non-stop beer nights leading up to it. But as for now, I think I'll be sticking with water - for a couple of days, at least
