2010 Golden Tap Awards

The Golden Tap Awards (GTAs) showcase excellence in the Ontario craft beercommunity. The categories such as best craft brewery, best bar for bottle selection, best bar for tap selection, etc, are democratically voted by the public. Organized by Cass Enright and the good folks at Bar Towel this set of awards have quickly risen to be one of the more prominent awards given out in Ontario.

During OCB week at Cass’ & Troy’s First Annual OCB Pub Crawl Cass made several exclusive announcements to the crawlers. The first one was with regard to the GTAs. The 2010 Golden Tap Awards will be held over 2 days this year! Saturday August 21 will be the usual due at beerbistro (which I block off in my calendar months in advance) however they have added a second night of GTA festivities. Friday August 20 will be the date for an all Ontario beer dinner at beerbistro, which to my recollection beerbistro have never done before. Beau’s, Black Oak, Denison’s, Grand River, Granite, Great Lakes and Mill Street will all be present and one of each of their beers will be paired with a course prepared by Chef Brian Morin and team.

I started attending the GTAs in 2008 and it quickly became a staple on my beer calendar, right up there with the c’est what spring and fall craft beer festivals and cask days at volo. beerbistro usually clears all ~20 of their taps and puts on Ontario beers for the occasion. A handful of casks are also available on offer as well as a dozen or so bottled options. Remember, these are all Ontario beers! The beer list usually gets released a week or two before the event.

It would not be a trip to beerbistro without having something to eat! On offer for these events is typically pulled pork sandwiches (cut directly from the roast pig), mini-burgers, frites (of course!) and other sumptuous choices. As noted above this year will include a beer dinner on the Friday. I have been to a few beer dinners at beerbistro before and to say they do a good job is an understatement. Everything is meticulously planned and is nothing short of perfection.

List of previous awards winners.

Take a few minutes to explore the GTA site and cast your vote for the beers, breweries, and bars that help make the Ontario craft beer community the special thing it is. Vote now!

Cheers!

OCB Week Day 3 – The Day That Wasn’t

I didn’t manage to get to Duggan’s as planned for my day 3 of OCB week so not too much to post. I made it a day for personal responsibilities and volleyball. Not completely disregarding the importance of the week I managed to enjoy my first can of Muskoka’s Pilsner Light. To be honest I did not give it the proper attention it deserved. It was the end of the evening and after some running around on the sand I was really after something cold tasting and easy drinking tasting. My favourite flavours! Just kidding. I have a few more cans kicking around so I’ll give it a side-by-side with another Ontario pils for a frame of reference. (But not this week.) From what I could tell it was fairly decent and was very refreshing. A welcome addition to the Muskoka product shelf.

On tap for the rest of OCB week:

Day 4 – Wednesday – Cass’ & Troy’s First Annual OCB Pub Crawl
Day 5 – Thursday – Project XXXX at Great Lakes.
Day 6 – Friday – Volo & Night of the Flying Monkeys @ The Only Cafe
Day 7 – Saturday – TBD (wedding to attend)

OCB week, redux:

Day 1 – Sunday – Rebel House and “Granite”
Day 2 – Monday – BelgOntario @ Volo

OCB Week Day 2 – BelgOntario @ Volo

To celebrate the second day of OCB week I headed to Bar Volo to partake in their BelgOntario beer menu. Primarily featuring Belgian styles as brewed by Ontario brewers, as well there were a few non Ontario brewed Belgian style beers to round out the tap menu. And then…there was the one exception that transcended both categories: The Vrienden Wit – the collaboration brew between Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co(Ontario) and De Koningshoeven (Netherlands).  This beer, a Belgian wit, was brewed to “commemorate the 65th anniversary of liberation of The Netherlands by Canadian troops.” Commissioned by the Dutch embassy this beer, Vrienden (“friends” in English), was made using ingredients available in both Canada and the Netherlands and was to feature at the Dutch and Canadian Creative Culture festival in Ottawa this past May. The plan was for a brewer from De Koningshoeven to come to Canada to brew side by side with Beau’s. Due to the gratuitous volcanic activity over Iceland during this period it was not possible for DK’s brewer to fly over at the time of brewing. Per GCBP blog, the DK brewers were able to correspond with Beau’s using the phone and internets to ensure the beer was made to the recipe they had established.