Toronto Festival Of Beer 2003
Thanks to everybody who came out. This is the sixth consecutive year for myself and some others.
Highlights - Scotch Irish had a keg of their Black Irish porter that had been aged three years. It was quite tasty. The cheeseburgers at Utopia were fantastic, as were the ribs at Bad Wolf. (Having had a few samples may have helped make them even tastier. Rochefort 10 at Beers Of The World. Wellington's Imperial Stout was a surprise (I usually don't like stouts as much as I liked this. The Black Oak booth was great (mmm Pale Ale), thanks Ken for loaning me the camera to play with! Unibroue brought some of the products we don't already see in Ontario like Terrible, Ephemere and Fringante. Geoff racked up a few more frequent drinker points here buying even more Unibroue paraphernalia. Steve Thibault at Unibroue almost had him buying a branded pitcher as well! My girlfriend Sarah came with us on Sunday, a pleasure unto itself. I know she enjoyed the Mort Subite Framboise, as did I. Other favourites of hers included the Hacker Pschorr, which she followed with a Blanche de Chambly to compare the two styles. (I was impressed by her choices... as always :) ) I was impressed with the number of girls there this year, both in regards to the three in our group and generally. More to the point the number of girls trying good beer. The Mike's Hard Lemonade and other cooler booths did not seem to be doing as much business as in previous years which is nice to see - It is after all a BEER festival!
Disappointments - Bavaria, Carib, Castle Lager. Thoroughly disliked these. Aside from the above mentioned highlights, there weren't a ton of new beers to taste there. Part of that I guess reflects the fact that I regularly try a lot of different beers, and some of those that used to be new are now old favourites.
Water. A number of people commented on the cost of water there. The St. Lawrence Market beer show gave out free bottles of water, which is good sense when people are drinking lots of beer. I brought my own, but I heard it was expensive. Why not get a bottled water sponsor?
I decided not to post my ratings this year, but you can go see them at ratebeer.com if you really want to.
Here's to next year! 
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