Bringing over 30 craft breweries, including every brewery and brewpub on Vancouver Island, together for a week-long series of events wasn’t nearly as tricky as it sounds. Victoria Beer Week is a new event that celebrates BC’s growing craft beer scene and, according to board member Jeff Kendrew, the amount of interest from brewers and beer-drinkers alike proves that it’s long overdue.
“People are starting to really pay attention to their local breweries, and it’s not just your rare beer geek, it’s your everyday person that’s looking for a good quality, flavourful beverage,” says Kendrew, also territory manager for Vancouver Island Brewery and one of only 25 certified beer tasters in Canada. “And there’s also a lot of value in supporting your local company.”
Victoria Beer Week features brew-related events such as meet and greets with brewmasters, a beer label art show, a women-and-beer panel discussion, beer-related film screenings, and two craft beer pub crawls. The event finishes up with a brewmasters’ brunch on its final day.
Over 30 craft breweries from BC, including all nine craft breweries and brewpubs in Victoria, are included in the week-long series.
“For an event like this, everyone wants to be involved,” says Kendrew, stressing the importance of community within the craft beer industry. “It’s an easy event to get breweries in to. Even from within our group of seven board members, there are four different beer reps from four different breweries and we understand that we’re all in this together.”
Participating breweries seem to agree that Victoria’s beer scene is all about striving for a common cause, with some healthy competition along the way. Victoria Beer Week shows that the craft beer scene here and throughout BC is stronger than ever.
“To me, it’s the more the merrier,” says Moon Under Water brewmaster Clay Potter. “There is still a small percentage of people drinking craft beer, so the more breweries the better. As long as everyone’s making good beer, it’s good for everybody.”
Started from an idea sparked by Garrick’s Head Pub manager Jeff Nowak, Victoria Beer Week brings together local beer venues and BC’s breweries with the city’s beer lovers. More importantly, the event will expose even more Victorians to the growing popularity of craft beer.
“It’s another outlet to introduce new beer drinkers to craft beer, so that’s why everyone is working together,” says Potter. “Rather than just promoting our own breweries, we can promote craft beer in general, and there’s enough good breweries in Victoria making really good beer that we’re able to do it now.”
Victoria Beer Week
March 1-9
various venues
victoriabeerweek.com