Queer Beer Festival, Toronto, ON

A couple weeks ago I received an invitation to attend the 18th annual Toronto's Festival of Beer, which is happening this weekend.

Gord and I have attended many craft beer festivals over the years but we have never attended this festival.  We are going out of town on vacation on Saturday so went tonight to the Queer Beer Festival, which is part of the festival.

With beer festivals, you pay an admittance fee which includes a glass or mug.  Then you buy sample tokens.  Tokens at this festival were $1 each ... a 4 ounce sample was one token or you could double up for two tokens.

We had access to the media lounge which included swag and a free beer.

We took a walk around. The festival is HUGE!  It's a lot bigger than the craft festivals we've been to.  The larger brand name breweries are on the perimetre ... I bet you could find any of the more well-known beers you wanted.

My first drink was Alexander Keith's cider ... Keith's is my beer of choice.  Their cider is new and I'd heard it was good ... and it was!

We were hungry so walked around trying to decide what to eat.  Though it looked nasty, I bet the suckling pork sandwiches were delicious.

 Gord grabbed a slice of pizza ... I got some wings at the St. Louis truck (I love their wings!).

Remember the Heritage Toronto walk we did last month around the Ex?  We had spend a lot of time by these cannons ... they sure looked a lot different tonight!

The World of Beer Pavillion this year is focused on Quebec.

Local Ontario craft beer is housed in tents in the middle of the grounds.  My favourite beer was Flying Monkey's Strawberry Pi ... yum!

There was entertainment in some of the beer tents.  The bands playing in the bandshell were fabulous!  A huge crowd gathered by the end of the night.

 There is a souvenir tent with fun teeshirts.

There is a tent where you could play games.

Everyone was having a good time!

We wandered into Caskapalooza (Gord likes cask beer) and discovered some dancers on a firetruck who were entertaining and attracted a crowd.

 When we left the festival, the media lounge was fairly busy.

Friday and Saturdays are usually sold out so it was fun to check it out tonight.  Thursday is definitely a fun night to go ... there are lots of fun people and no line-ups for beer and food.  One thing we noticed is at this festival there is more of a party atmosphere ... at the smaller craft festivals, the focus is on the beer.