Roundhouse Craft Beer Festival, Toronto, ON

Gord and I went to the second annual Roundhouse Craft Beer Festival this afternoon.  It was from noon 'til 7pm downtown.

It was $10 for admission ($15 at the gate) ... sampling coins were $1 each.

You could buy tickets inside or outside the grounds.

There were quite a few people there when we got there about 1:30pm.

The brewers who were there were:

• Steam Whistle Brewing
• Black Oak Brewing
• King Brewery
• Wellington Brewery
• Grand River Brewing
• Mill Street Brewery 
• Left Field Brewery
• Hogsback Brewing
• Flying Monkeys Brewery
• Great Lakes Brewing
• Beau's Brewing
• Amsterdam Brewery
• Lake of Bays Brewing
• Nicklebrook Brewing
• Neustadt Springs Brewery

My first sample was an Ampel Weiss from Mill Street Brewery ... it was good.

Thanks, Lucy!

We met up with my friend, Darlene, and her friend, Christine.

Next stop for me was Flying Monkeys for an Orangemungus ... it tasted a mimosa but with beer instead of sparkling wine.  It was good.

I had a Riverwalker Summer Ale from Lake of Bays ... it had a strong ginger lemon taste.

I had a couple samples of cider from Thornbury.

The four of us are cat lovers so we had to try the Tabbey Abbey Ale from Grand River Brewing.

Here we are ... Christine, Gord, me and Darlene.

I had a Lugtread from Beau's ... I've had it before and like it.

There was a good variety of food trucks (we didn't eat anything) ...

They made it convenient if you need more cash.

There were bands throughout the afternoon ... they were good.

It was in a nice park and there was lots of green space.  Since it was downtown, it was handy for us to get to.  The problem was the line-ups were CRAZY!  At some breweries, the line-ups were five minutes or more.  A couple strategies were (1) going to the brewery with the shortest line whether you wanted their beer or not or (2) get your sample and then get back in a line right away.

Around 4:30pm, Gord and I had had enough of the lines and left.  A good policy they had was if you still had sampling coins, you could sell them back and get your $$ rather than taking a loss or guzzling your beers at the end of the session just to use your coins.

When we left, the line-up to get in was quite long.

It was fun when it was early but as time when on and it got more crowded, the line-ups were a real turn off.