Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Review: Toronto's Festival of Beer


I received free entry into last weekend's Toronto Festival of Beer as part of their Social Media campaign. This allowed me to skip the entry line and have access to an exclusive Social Media Tent (ohhh fancy lady!) The event was heavy on the pilsners and lagers, wildly disorganized, and only really worth it because of the free entry. (Entry tickets were prohibitively expensive!) 

 
While there was 'an app for that' there were no printed maps for us non-smart phone people (or even worse – us Blackberry people!) The individuals working the 'exclusive' Social Media Tent had absolutely no information regarding locations and after several questions (and helpers) I was sent off with a 'good luck with that'. The worst part is that I remain worried that I missed an entire aspect of the event because I did not have a printed map!
The confusion continued as I discovered that the coupons handed to me at the Social Media Tent were not, in fact, the drink tokens required for beer. I stood in line to purchase the correct drink tokens only to discover that drink tokens were only sold in quantities of twenty – encouraging and ensuring maximum drunkenness! (God forbid that we actually savor the beer at a beer festival!) After the right amount of cash was procured I stood in line again to purchase the drink tokens, after leaving the window I realized that I still had no idea how many drink tokens were required for a drink!
The ratio of beer to token was one of the only satisfactory aspects of the event (although I think this was mostly a consequence of a small tasting glass!) Oh and the beer was okay too! The twenty drink tokens allowed me to sample any and all beers of interest to me and even left a few extras to return to the favorites.
Overall this event was more satisfactory than Cask Days – but only because last year's Cask Day ran out of beer by Sunday!

The Small Print: I received free entry into this event. I did not promise a positive review. The opinions presented are my own.  

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