{"id":7636,"date":"2013-09-18T08:50:36","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T15:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7636"},"modified":"2013-09-17T11:15:28","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T18:15:28","slug":"review-victorias-great-canadian-beer-festival-delivers-a-hoppy-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/09\/18\/review-victorias-great-canadian-beer-festival-delivers-a-hoppy-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Victoria’s Great Canadian Beer Festival delivers a hoppy year"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started off a bit gloomy with clouds, but the sun came out to whet beer-drinkers\u2019 appetites at the 21st<\/sup> Great Canadian Beer Festival on September 6\u20137. Though the soggy turf at the festival site of Royal Athletic Park didn\u2019t dry out, it was a small price to pay for the pleasure of drinking beer outside for two days.<\/p>\n

This was my first beer fest and I was surprised by the crowds, which were lined up around the block for an hour before the gates opened. Not just the number of people, but the sheer variety of attendees: young, old, males, females\u2026 there was a pretty wide mix (and let\u2019s not forget the accordion-playing mermaid).<\/p>\n

According to John Rowling, one of the festival\u2019s founders, the demographics have changed substantially since the festival started. The kinds of people attending represent the changing market for craft beers, a market that\u2019s becoming larger and more diverse.<\/p>\n

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Surprisingly not so hoppy (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being a west coast festival, the beer selection was weighted heavily towards hoppy IPAs: we just can\u2019t get enough Cascade hops! So, a nice surprise was the Canadian Brewing Awards Beer of the Year winner out of Vancouver: Old Jalopy Pale Ale from Powell Street Craft Brewery. It goes for balance and good flavour, not just sheer bitterness, avoiding the in-your-face-hops attitude. The beer is, unfortunately, not available in Victoria yet, as the brewery is still very small, but they plan to scale up production in the future.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t tried cask-conditioned ale before, so it was a treat that so many breweries had brought along casks. The cask beers tended to be richer in flavour, and thicker on the tongue than the draft beers, although often higher in alcohol.<\/p>\n

This works perfectly for the stronger stuff, like Moon Under Water\u2019s Anniversary Ale (actually a wheat wine), which had a malty, sweet caramel body with licorice and herbal flavours. It\u2019s not to be guzzled, and probably not a good choice to start with (pacing is key when there are so many beers to try); I totally started with it anyway. Cask beers tend to run out first!<\/p>\n

After about six samples, my taste buds started getting hop burnout. I thought I\u2019d try a lighter beer and was suckered in by the name of Russell\u2019s pilsner: Eastern Promises. Not sure what was promised, but it wasn\u2019t delivered.<\/p>\n

A summery hefeweizen from the Noble Pig Brewery was next up, which was spicy and fruity (citrus, banana), not particularly complex, but still refreshing.<\/p>\n

The best part about a festival like this is how passionate and excited the brewers are about what they do. Many craft brewers start by home-brewing, so it\u2019s a culture that\u2019s not dominated by profit and endless expansion (talking about you, InBev), but is really just about sharing tasty, tasty beer with everybody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started off a bit gloomy with clouds, but the sun came out to whet beer-drinkers\u2019 appetites at the 21st Great Canadian Beer Festival on September 6\u20137. Though the soggy turf at the festival site of Royal Athletic Park didn\u2019t dry out, it was a small price to pay for the pleasure of drinking beer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7637,"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":[4,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-september-18-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7636","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=7636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7638,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7636\/revisions\/7638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}