Once again, Bacon Magazine managed to weasel our way into the Toronto Festival of Beer at Historic Fort York in Toronto. The festival is a 3-day event featuring hundreds of major, macro and micro brews from Canada and around the world. From pale ale to dark stout, the festival has been the ultimate destination for beer lovers for the past seven years. There is no better opportunity for the beer connoisseur to try a variety of beers from Canada and around the world, while enjoying a great festival atmosphere. The festival gives the beer lover a chance to sample beer and speak with brewers, while listening to great music and mingling with a fun crowd.

Tickets, were priced better this year, at $1 a piece. Also, the cups were larger, giving the fans a better taste of some of the huge variety of beer available. Bravo!

What a terrific day for the festival. The Bacon team descended on Fort York on Saturday the 9th, and were pleased to see a huge crowd enjoying the sun, beer and festivities. Groups of people were browsing their way through the many beer tents trying whatever caught their eye. A steady stream of music was coming from the stage, as performers such as Jason Kahn, Crazy Strings and Siobhan got the crowd on their feet with a barrage of beer-friendly tunes. We tried our hand at beer-shuffleboard at "The World Beer Games" setup, and caught a piece of a "cooking with beer" seminar in the early afternoon. Everywhere we turned, there were beautiful Canadian women, and we hadn't yet put on our beer goggles.

We wandered our way through the crowds, snapping pictures of beautiful babes, and sampling a brew here and there. We found a hackey-sack circle, grabbed a glass of Trafalgar Brewery's "Raspberry Mead" and enjoyed an hour of exercise in the hot sun. Afterwards, needing to cool off, we grabbed a couple of glasses of 'Castle Lager' from Tiger Beer and relaxed on the grass. There was much to do and see, as well as an ocean of tasty beer.

A few highlights of the beer available included the aforementioned Trafalgar Brewery, as well as Cameron's, Black Oak and DAB. Also worth the wait were Steam Whistle, Amsterdam and Kawartha. We fully enjoyed everything from European Pilsners to Canadian stouts. The festival offered a rare opportunity to sample a variety of Canadian and Ontario micro-brews, a pleasant and tasty treat!

Full & tired, we stumbled our way out of the gates. The Toronto Festival of Beer is a terrific event. We had an awesome time, despite the sunburn, crowds, line-ups, and portable toilets, I'd sampled a large variety of beers, enjoyed a beautiful late summer day in Toronto, and what-do-you-know - I was more than a little tipsy.

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