... and then there were eight

Alex and Hannah were controlling the Barnstormer
Brewing (Barrie) booth. Hannah actually remembered
me from Rib Eye Jack's Beer Fest back in October.
I'd be flattered but usually, it's for the wrong reasons
like: Aren't you that guy who tripped over his shadow?

A funny thing happened on the way into the Burlington Winter Beer Fest at the Holiday Inn on January 30. I became the eighth person in a party of eight, not one of whom I actually knew. As I wandered to the ticket counter, a woman turned to me and said, "Are you with anyone?" Nope, I told her, I was waiting on friends who were showing up later. (In some cultures - notably mine - that's called The Pre-Drink.) "Okay," she said to the ticket lady, "He's our eighth."

I guess they had gotten some sort of group discount and the eighth soldier was a no-show. Next thing I knew, someone was slapping a yellow wrist-band on me and I was in for free, courtesy of a group of strangers. Gotta be honest, I liked the way the evening was shaping up and it hadn't even begun. I joined my Party of Eight at their table several times through the evening as we swapped stories on Must-Try Beers. I have noticed that Beer Festivals might be the only situation in the world where you will happily take advice from people you don't really know.

So still flying solo at this point, it was time to check the turf and map out my drinking strategy. That was easier said than done as the Beer Fest was spread over two conference rooms to accommodate the 24 craft brewers, five wineries and four cider houses.

A volunteer at the 20 Valley Brewing booth, soon to be
fully-functional in St Catharines. In an earlier chance
 hallway meeting, brewer Ben told us to expect at least
three or four new beers from them coming by this May.

Granted, you can neither accurately scope out a Beer Fest nor map out an effective booth attack plan with an empty glass because, well, it's a Beer Festival and that pretty much has the word "festive" built in. Those who know me well will confirm that while I am somewhat sketchy, it's in a festive way. That meant going for known beers while I plotted out the plan of attack. In my case, that meant starting with Collective Arts' Collective Project Black IPA (more on this dusky gemstone next time) and Barnstormer Brewing's (Barrie) Flight Delay IPA, one of my favourites for quite some time now.

While wandering the hallway between the two conference rooms, I stumbled (not literally - too early for that) upon Ben Meisner, brewer at 20 Valley Brewing, near to setting up shop in St Catharines now, but presently contracting through a Niagara Falls brew-pub. While the brewery only makes their Shipman's Corner Cream Ale now (not my favourite style but this has a nice tang to it), Ben promised more fresh brews on the horizon soon."In the next couple of weeks, we'll be looking at an Irish Red or an English Bitter (ESB). We haven't decided yet between the two.

This would be Phil and Andrew from Brock Street
Brewing out of Whitby. If you could beat either on
their 30-inch ping-pong table on the lower left, you
could win some freebies. Watched about 15 people
try. No one did. I didn't even try. I know when I'm
in over my head. But they make a damn fine red ale.

We'll obviously do the staples like stouts, IPAs but we've got a Hefe Weisse (German wheat) in the works, we've got a Munich Dunkel (dark lager). We want to be creative with everything but it takes time to do that kind of thing. I wanna say by at least by May 1st, we'll have another three or four beers ready." An online map tells me the driving time between my place and the soon-to-be-built brewery on St. Paul Street West in St. Catharines is 47 minutes. Bet I can do it in 35... (OPP officer reading this: "Go for it, punk.")

Okay, at every beer fest, there's always several breweries whose tables are manned by young turks, who seem to be having the time of their lives. The one I remember best was the Brock St. Brewing table. Chatty and friendly, Phil and Andrew brought their own 30-inch mini-pong table so the brewery's happy volunteers could take on all comers. They may have lost a challenge or two but I never saw it. They owned that little table. Being as they're local to Beer Bro Glenn (he's in Oshawa; they're in Whitby), I've been following these guys on social media since they started in 2015 but never had their beer. It would be the beginning of many red/amber ales for me on this night. Said Andrew, director of sales: "Right now, you're drinking our Traditional Irish Red and I like to call it the backyard barbeque beer because reds go well with red meat."

Damion, who opened Orange Snail Brewers with his
buddy Kevin in Milton last year, holds up their (well,
actually, my) Rattle 'n' Nemo (non-traditional) Amber
Ale. Around less than a year, watch out for these guys.

He continued: "So the story of our red is that our brewmaster Eric decided there was a mistranslation or generation gap from red to red (ales over the years.) His father used to drink it, his father's father used to drink it and we really didn't have a big red in our (Durham Region) market. So what we wanted to do was recreate a malt-forward red that's got a bit of that smoky aroma, a bit of that caramel. So it's a big hearty beer on the palate. It's got a medium to full body. Not a beer that I wanna have 50 of but definitely when I'm relaxing, I'll have two or three. I hope you enjoy it."

Indeed, I did. The 5.8% ale had the promised hint of caramel to go with a meaty, malty fruit-tinged backbone. Damn solid outing. Glenn, go buy many of these bad boys! But remember, bro, Andrew says it's best to stop at 49. (What? That's how I interpreted his words.)

Next on deck was Orange Snail Brewers, created by Milton residents Damion and Kevin about a year ago. The pair are old university buddies who had 16 years brewing experience and decided to bring craft beer to Milton, a rapidly-growing community just north of me.

Thomas from The 3 Brewers or Les 3 Brasseurs, as
they're known in Quebec, have 19 brew-pubs spread
out between Ontario and Quebec.  But after I posted
this picture of Thomas on Twitter, the group quickly
contacted me to locate their nearest brewpubs to me.

While their day jobs are cop and engineer, the night-time and off-time is their brew time and the boys came out fast out of the gate as their Rattle 'n' Nemo (Non-Traditional) Amber Ale snagged a silver medal at the 2015 Ontario Brewing Awards, just a few months into their existence. Asked how they're enjoying their tenure as brewers, Damion smiled, "It's great. The people in the (craft beer) industry are really supportive and it's just great meeting all these (brewers) here today." But we were interrupted by fest-goer Craig who happily told me, "This (their 16 Jasper IPA) is the best IPA here!" Being as there were a lot of really great IPAs under the roof that night,  I asked him why he thought that. "Because I've had all the others here and this one is the best!"

High praise, indeed, but I had my eye on that award-winning Rattle 'n' Nemo. Okay, the non-traditional part of this amber became obvious as the graininess was immediately apparent on the nose and tongue. Pouring red with a tan head, there was zero of the usual caramel essence  but instead, an interesting malt and grain combo, especially for a red. Very tasty but this one bears further investigation - the kind that can only come from a brewery visit. I also very much enjoyed their 16 Jasper IPA, which I would call pretty damn good but maybe not "the best IPA here."

Johnny from Outlaw Brew Company, located up in
Southampton, Ontario, holds up a Bronco Amber
Ale. This night would definitely be an amber/red
ale night for me. Again, another really nice one!

At 6% and 70 IBUs (international bitterness units), it carries a nice punch using Cascade, Centennial and Comet hops and I enjoyed it but like I said, there were a lot of great IPAs between the two rooms. And the Rattle 'n' Nemo captured more attention from me on this night.

The next booth, The 3 Brewers or Les 3 Brasseurs as they're known in Quebec are a different kettle of fish altogether. They're not a brewery at all but rather a large string of brew-pubs. As Thomas at their booth explained to me, "We have five in the GTA - one in Oakville, one in Mississauga, one in Richmond Hill and two downtown Toronto. We have two in Ottawa and about a dozen in Quebec between Montreal and Quebec City. They're all brew-pubs, all the beer on tap is made in-house, We have five core brands with one rotating seasonal. Each pub has one beer called the Neighbourhood Beer that's different from the other ones so you'd have to go to all the locations to try all the beers." As a lover of the style, I naturally wanted to know the name of their IPA. Thomas laughed and said, "IPA." That's it - IPA. Guys, you own a bunch of restaurants! Get a graphic designer and a marketer to give your IPA a name - something like Hop Intuit or Hopposites Attract or The Hoptometrist! (Or even just Lame Hop Pun IPA.)

Lee and Matt from Elora Brewing hold up their product
at the Beer Festival. Like everyone else, you've read about 
in here, meeting this brewery was a first for me and they
were pretty cool guys. I think Lee's doing Blue Steel here

But there was some interesting interaction with 3 Brewers after the Beer Fest when I posted Thomas' smiling face on Twitter. Near instantly, they responded, asking which location was closest to me. Either Oakville or Mississauga, I suggested. Again, within minutes, a return Tweet - "You'll find Thomas at Winston Churchill and the QEW (in Oakville)! Or go see Justin at 5860 Mavis Road (in Mississauga)!" Sounds like a field trip to me! But not like a dull one to a museum where, well, you learn stuff to better yourself as a person. I accept my limitations. My personal growth stopped roughly the same time I started paying taxes. So decades ago and I'm pretty sure the two are connected. Damn government.

Next on deck was Johnny from Outlaw Brew Company from tiny Southampton, Ontario. And, of course, Johnny would have yet another amber/red ale for me - turned out that was kind of a theme for my evening - their Bronco Amber Ale. So I says to him, hey Johnny, why dontcha tell me about that Bronco and by gawd, he did.  "Bronco's our flagship, 5.6%, and it's a hearty beer layered in caramel."

Attending his first ever Beer Festival was this beard,
Draught Dodger owner and head bad-ass Matt Di Iorio,
who brought his biggest gun, the Brewzer Red IPA,
which clocks in at 6.5% and 73 IBUs.  He told me he
was contract-brewing out of Stratford Brewing right
now "but we do a few fun seasonals like a gingerbread
ale and a chocolate stout." He's been home-brewing for
over 10 years "which made me popular in university."

Indeed, it was. Nice malt backbone, good weight, another winner. Oddly, the one I thought I had to try was their 2 Moon Junction, a blueberry Belgian wheat. Why? Just to say I did and sometimes, these fruit wheats you think you'll hate actually surprise you. Turns out I wasn't the only one with that idea. It was sold out on Saturday night. Wha...? Johnny smiled, "The blueberry wheat was our biggest pour this weekend - it's subtle wheat with fresh blueberries used in it." And here I was all set to hate it but too many people ahead of me actually really liked it. Well... swear words! There must be a way I can blame the government for that, too.

Tried a couple of pours from Elora Brewing at the suggestion of booth brothers Lee and Matt. First on deck was their Lady Friend IPA, which weighs in at a solid 6% but just 50 IBUs. "We use Columbus hops in the boil and then finished with New Zealand hops - Pacific Jade, Southern Cross and Wakatu," said Lee. Not bad, a session one, I'd say but a bit light for my IPA tastes. But I was stunned by their Three Fields Unfiltered Triple Grain Lager. My only lager of the night, this 5% concoction was as hazy as hell, even grainier and well, really tasty. Colour me impressed. I asked him how business was in Elora and he noted, "Fantastic. We are getting a lot of community support up there. Things are going really well for us." I swear, I will never tire of hearing that.

My favourite beer technician (technically my only beer
technician but still favourite) Kylie hoists a pint with
Shayn Sawchuk, the GTA sales rep for Waterloo's
Innocente Brewing. As it turns out, Shayn is now
taking brewing courses so I'm pretty happy for him.

Eventually, my craft beer loving friends caught up to me - first the lovely Kylie, my favourite beer technician at Rib Eye Jack's Ale House and eventually her GM, the decent enough but considerably-less-lovely Steve. Kylie and I were separated a few times (I tend to wander, both with and without wobbly pops in me) but always kept reconnecting and had some fun, talking to the folks from the breweries.

One of my favourite parts was touching base with Shayn Sawchuk, the GTA sales rep for Waterloo's Innocente Brewing, who told us he was taking brewing courses himself. I met him at Rib Eye Jack's Beer Fest back in October and like this dude enough that I have 17 different names for his first IPA, all of them horrible hop puns. That said, I'd totally drink his Hoptimal Damage Imperial IPA. Don't worry, I have more. (Okay, now worry.)

But since it's the Burlington Beer Festival, the final word has to go to Downtown Wayne Brown, who, with co-organizer Scott Robinson and their merry band of volunteers cranked out the best-attended fest to date. "The turn-out last night was fantastic," he told me on Saturday. "It as a fun crowd, everyone was having a good time, there were no problems whatsoever." And Saturday itself? "It's a repeat. All ages are represented, all dress codes, all colours of hair and that's only the men." So you know, he was looking right at me when he said "dress code." Hey, if a beer festival isn't the hopportune time to wear my Behemoth Brewing "If you don't love hops, the terrorists win" T-shirt (dutifully care-packaged to me from New Zealand by Beer Bro Stevil St Evil), then I don't know when a proper time is. (It's true. I don't.) But again, great job, crew - we all had a blast. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...