{"id":14564,"date":"2017-09-05T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14564"},"modified":"2017-09-11T09:37:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T16:37:12","slug":"great-canadian-beer-festival-celebrates-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/09\/05\/great-canadian-beer-festival-celebrates-25-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Canadian Beer Festival celebrates 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many, September means back to school and an end to fun. However, for beer lovers in Victoria, September is a time to celebrate that wonderful combination of water, malt, hops, and yeast: it\u2019s time for the Great Canadian Beer Festival.<\/p>\n

The festival is Canada\u2019s longest-running event celebrating the independent craft beer industry. When it started, in the early 1990s, festival co-organizer John Rowling just wanted a way to get together with friends and celebrate the burgeoning craft beer industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnically, it was a selfish move,\u201d he says about the fest\u2019s origins, \u201cbecause at the time, you could go into lots of bars up and down Vancouver Island, and you\u2019d say, \u2018What have you got that\u2019s local?\u2019 and they\u2019d say, \u2018Kokanee.\u2019 We wanted to be able to go into any bar and find good beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerry Hieter, the festival\u2019s other co-organizer, says that what Rowling doesn\u2019t mention is that he wanted to open a brewery, and Hieter already had one open at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew my wife would\u2019ve killed me if I even considered such a thing after what we\u2019d been through,\u201d says Hieter. \u201cAnd he has mentioned his wife would\u2019ve killed him as well, so it turns out it was a good thing we did the beer festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Beer drinkers enjoying themselves at a previous year\u2019s beer fest (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since then, the festival has grown; people attend the festival from all around the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d be amazed at who\u2019s buying tickets today,\u201d says Hieter. \u201cWe\u2019ve got ticket buyers from Auckland, Brooklyn, Phoenix, LA, all across the prairies, everywhere else in BC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver Island Brewery has been at the festival since its beginnings; director of marketing Chris Bjerrisgaard says that the craft beer scene here in BC is starting to get some attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people are starting to understand the BC scene,\u201d says Bjerrisgaard. \u201cAs a national player, BC is starting to get the reputation Oregon has. It\u2019s not this obscure thing anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bjerrisgaard says that attending a smaller event in Vancouver and then the Great Canadian Beer Festival in 2008 were life-changing events for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with not just the beer but the scene and the people, the vibrancy of everybody that was there,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was like stumbling upon something in the early days where you\u2019re like, \u2018How does nobody know about this? This is so cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As much fun as beer festivals can be, some of the larger international festivals have been plagued with problems of violence and sexual assault. But Hieter says that the audience for these events has really matured.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a day when people that came to our beer festival came for all the wrong reasons,\u201d he admits. \u201cThe people that come to our festival now are an entire generation who have grown up with craft beer. They love craft beer, they want to sample craft beer\u2026 If somebody gets overly intoxicated at our festival, it\u2019s usually an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year is the 25th anniversary of the festival and will feature 66 breweries and two cideries, as well as brews made specifically for the festival from eight brewers. But it\u2019s a special year for Rowling for another reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m stepping back from operations as much as I can,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m 70 years old, so it\u2019s time for me to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Great Canadian Beer Festival
\n4 pm to 9 pm\u00a0Friday, September 8
\nNoon to 5 pm\u00a0Saturday, September 9
\nRoyal Athletic Park
\ngcbf.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many, September means back to school and an end to fun. However, for beer lovers in Victoria, September is a time to celebrate that wonderful combination of water, malt, hops, and yeast: it\u2019s time for the Great Canadian Beer Festival. The festival is Canada\u2019s longest-running event celebrating the independent craft beer industry. When it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-september-5-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14564"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14620,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14564\/revisions\/14620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}