{"id":7484,"date":"2013-09-04T08:50:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T15:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7484"},"modified":"2013-09-03T12:16:47","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T19:16:47","slug":"victorias-great-canadian-beer-festival-brings-all-kinds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/09\/04\/victorias-great-canadian-beer-festival-brings-all-kinds\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria’s Great Canadian Beer Festival brings all kinds"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time once again for the Great Canadian Beer Festival, reminding Victorians that, yes, we are the Portland of Canada when it comes to craft beer. The local beer landscape continues to change, with new breweries opening every year across the province. Gerry Hieter, chairman and co-founder of the Great Canadian Beer Festival (GCBF), is excited by the quality of what BC breweries have to offer, and the festival is a way for Victorians to share that excitement.<\/p>\n

These days, practically every restaurant in Victoria serves local brews, but this was not always the case. Although citing the reasoning as \u201cpurely selfish,\u201d Hieter remembers wanting to hold a festival to \u201cincrease the awareness for craft beers, thereby having the local bars and restaurants introduce more of these craft beers to their selection, so we could drink them ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beer has clearly made a dramatic comeback from when the only beers on most taps in Canada were Molson Canadian or Labatt\u2019s Blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeer got a pretty rough ride in North America for about 70 or 80 years. From prohibition onwards it turned into a commodity,\u201d says Hieter. \u201cWhat we have now is just only really getting back to where we were at the turn of the last century.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The crowd enjoying themselves at last year\u2019s Great Canadian Beer Fest (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Historically, Victoria is no stranger to a robust beer culture. The modern conception of beer, however, has changed.<\/p>\n

Not only does today\u2019s beer come in all kinds of styles, it comes in flavours: Chai, Pumpkin, Hibiscus, and Vanilla Bean Espresso are a few of the offerings listed from the breweries appearing at GCBF.<\/p>\n

Maybe some beer purists will be offended, but it\u2019s really a reflection of how far beer has come: it is a drink for all palates, unafraid of a little irreverence. Speaking of all palates, gluten-free beer spreads the love even further, showing how even brewers want their beer to be inclusive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeer is just being recognized now by a whole generation of people who have grown up with craft beer as more than just beer: it\u2019s something you can sip reading a book, it\u2019s something you can drink with friends, it\u2019s something you can pair with cheese or chocolate and food. It\u2019s a phenomenon,\u201d says Hieter.<\/p>\n

Craft beer is innovative, but it also looks to the past for ideas. One tradition that is seeing small-scale revival is the method of service: beer drawn from casks, unlike the modern keg system requiring added carbonation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a return to the way beer used to be served when it was alive,\u201d says Hieter. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t filtered, it wasn\u2019t pasteurized; it was full of healthy little yeast cells and plenty of good stuff.\u201d (Cask ales are still not very common, though there will be selections available at the festival.)<\/p>\n

GCBF has a cross-Canada lineup of craft breweries, with some American ones as well. \u201cWe get a lot of grief if we don\u2019t bring in some of the American brands. Some of them are so good that we always try to have some of them here,\u201d says Hieter, adding that \u201cthere might come a day when we pretty much have [only] BC breweries,\u201d due to the increase in their numbers.<\/p>\n

The Great Canadian Beer Festival
\n3-8 pm Friday, September 16 and\u00a012-6 Saturday, September 7
\nRoyal Athletic Park
\ngcbf.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s time once again for the Great Canadian Beer Festival, reminding Victorians that, yes, we are the Portland of Canada when it comes to craft beer. The local beer landscape continues to change, with new breweries opening every year across the province. Gerry Hieter, chairman and co-founder of the Great Canadian Beer Festival (GCBF), is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7485,"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":[7,109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-september-4-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484","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=7484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7509,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484\/revisions\/7509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}