Fest o' Beer

Well another Festival of Beer at Fort York in Toronto has come and gone and as usual it was pretty fun.

As I many of you are aware, we had a wee bit of drama getting tickets this year. Coglero was originally coming down from Ottawa for the festivities. Because of this, we all decided we would head down on Saturday as opposed to our usual Sunday appearance.

I bought tickets in advance for myself and Coglero and advised everyone else to purchase them in advance as well as Saturdays usually sell out. Unfortunately, no one headed my warning and by Thursday, only two of us had tickets. Coglero had to bow out due to health issues and I sold his ticket to Jayman. Seven and his friend were still struggling to get tickets through other means up until 24 hours in advance of the festivities. Rickie B. was also hoping to go but was having no luck either. Seven ended up getting one ticket in advance and he made the choice to come down and see if they could pick up a single from someone else. They did but ended up paying a $15 markup. Rickie B chose to avoid the whole thing. So in the end, there was just the four of us.

The weather was good but the crowds were enourmous. We got there 15 minutes before opening and the lineup was already out the door, spilling on to Bathurst and heading south on Bathurst almost to Queens Quay.

Once inside, it was just a matter of sampling all the wears. Over the years, the bigger breweries have begun to take over. One area was actually referred to as "Molson Lane" as they had all their different beers over about 4 different booths situated beside each other. We decided to avoid that area.

I always look at this event as an opportunity to sample as many small breweries as possible. Though, after a while, they all begin to taste the same. Also, the first rule of beer fest, the better looking the women at the booths, the worst tasting the beer.

This was definately the rule at the Tuborg tent which featured, for reasons that really make no sense, go-go dancers (see picture below). The funny thing is, they probably had the biggest lineup out of all them. A nice surprise was Robert Simpson breweries which I had enjoyed only once before at a golf course in Penatang but found it even better on this day. And Coglero, this is where I realized that you and I should have made that bet we discussed earlier. Oh well, c'est la vie.


As usual, the worst aspect of this event is the state of the bathrooms. For the first time ever, they had no bathrooms near any of the tents. You could only find them near the two gates. So, after a couple of hours, between the four of us. We were essentially walking from one end to the other and back over and over, picking up our little glasses of beer along the way each time. And by 3 pm, going to the bathroom meant at least a 5-10 minute wait. Ah, the price of beer fest. Oh well a good time was had by all. The plan for next year is to go on the Friday. It opens at 2 so we all can either work a half day or simply take the day off in order to enjoy the festivities.

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Countdown to SoaP (the cool acronym for Snakes on A Plane) is 4 days. The promotional machine is in full fource as Samuel L. Jackson will be on Letterman tonight. I have a feeling that despite Letterman's best attempts, Jackson will be discussing nothing but the greatness of the movie. He will probably even be wearing a Snakes kangoo. Hopefully, the movie will not be making this list

Top 5 Worst Samuel L. Jackson movies

1. Star Wars Episode II - Attack Of The Clones

2. Sphere

3. Deep Blue Sea

4. Basic

5. Amos & Andrew