‘Pre-Cask Days’ Event – Traditional English Ales

Bar Volo has announced the line up of Traditional English Ales that will be featured during their special pre-Cask Days event running from Monday October 26th to Wednesday October 28th, 4:00 pm – 2:00 am while supplies last (no tickets required):

Pale Ale  – Durham’s Signature Ale, Magnotta Pale Ale
Bitter – Granite Best Bitter Special, Saint Andre Brass Monkey Ordinary Bitter
E.S.B – Cheshire Valley ESB, Durham ESB , Maclean’s Battle X  ESB, Mill St. ESB (Dry Hopped), Duggan’s #6 ESB
I.P.A – Durham Triple X IPA, Granite IPA
Brown – Hockley Valley Traditional Dark Ale
Mild – Grand River Mill Race Mild
Porter – Scotch Irish Black Plain Porter, F&M Porter
Stout – Durham Blak Katt Stout
Strong Ale – Wellington Iron Duke Strong Ale
Old Ale – Granite Peculiar Old Ale
Barley Wine – Granite Gin Lane
Gruit Ale -  Great Lakes Eunuch Brew
Guest – Fullers ESB / Fullers London Pride

Cask Days 2009

Tickets go on sale 4:00 pm Tuesday October 13th for Ontario’s largest cask ale festival, Cask Days, organized and hosted by Bar Volo, 587 Yonge Street, Toronto (http://www.barvolo.com).  This year’s looks set to be another memorable event for cask ale fans, with more casks available than ever before during the week-long festival.  The main event runs from Friday October 30th to Sunday November 1st 2009, with various pre-Cask Days tasters and teasers starting on Monday October 26th.  For more details visit http://www.caskdays.com

CASK! Social Details for October

If you attended our first CASK! Social at the Granite Brewery last month, you may have vague recollections of having enjoyed yourself.  If you missed it, you get a second chance.  We’ll be meeting at C’est What (67 Front Street East, just east of Church) on Saturday, October 17, between 3 and 6pm.
There is no agenda, there will be no speeches, and no fundraising efforts will take place.  It is merely an opportunity to get out of the house, gather with like-minded people, and drink very good cask-conditioned ales.  That’s as easy as we can make it.  Drop in for one, or stay for several.  Simplicity itself.
Hope to see you there.  (And until someone thinks of a better name we’ll keep calling it the CASK! Social.)

Our first CASK! Social

Join your fellow cask ale lovers at the Granite Brewery (Mount Pleasant and Eglinton) on Saturday, September 19 for our first CASK! Social. 
The concept of the CASK! Social is a (possibly monthly) informal event that celebrates cask-conditioned beer while getting us out of the house and into a pub.  If this idea catches on, we’ll move around from pub to pub, getting you to places you may not know about or places you don’t get to often enough.  There’s no structure to this event; just turn up some time between 3 and 6pm and have a drink with us.  How hard is that?
For this premier CASK! Social, we’re offering a one-time-only opportunity to have your photograph taken with our handsome new Golden Tap Award, given to us in recognition of the CASK Ale Crawl of April (see post below).  (Bring your own camera; we spend all our money on beer.)
Hope to see you there!

CASK! recognized at this year’s Golden Tap Awards

CASK! was proud to receive one of four Editor’s Circle awards at this year’s Golden Tap Awards event held on August 29^th.  The award was presented for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Beer’ in recognition of our Cask Ale Crawl event in April 2009. 

The Cask Ale Crawl was a popular weekend-long cask ale trail around some of Toronto’s best cask ale pubs.  The event would not have been possible without the support of our local cask ale brewers and pubs.  Our thanks go to everyone involved, and to all of you who participated in the crawl.  Here’s to next year’s crawl!

Golden Tap Awards – Saturday August 29th 2009

The Bar Towel, Ontario’s premier beer resource, will be hosting a fun awards event on Saturday August 29th to recognize the best craft beer achievements in Ontario, as voted by you and fellow craft beer enthusiasts.
Of particular interest to cask ale fans will be the announcement of winners for three new awards this year: ‘Best cask-conditioned ale’, ‘Best cask-conditioned brewery’, and ‘Best bar for cask-conditioned ale’, presented in conjunction with CASK!
And of course, there will be cask-conditioned ale available at the event.  The following cask ales have been confirmed so far:

• Granite Hopping Mad
• Black Oak Hop Bomb

Where: beerbistro, 18 King Street East
When: Saturday, August 29th, Doors open at 4pm, Awards show at 8pm
Cost: Free admission, pay for beer and food at the event

For further details, visit: www.goldentap.com

Cask! Members Hit the Great British Beer Festival

Recently a group of 14 Cask! members and Toronto cask ale fans met up at the Great British Beer Festival in Earls Court, London.  A great time was had by all, sampling the 450 cask-conditioned ales on offer.  Well, some of them anyway!  And with this many Cask! members gathered together on the other side of the Atlantic we just couldn’t miss out on a photo opportunity.

Cask! members at the Great British Beer Festival, Earl’s Court, London
Wednesday August 5th 2009

If you happen to be travelling to Europe next summer, we can heartily recommend the festival to anyone interested in experiencing an awesome selection of fine real ales, including an impressive range of cask beers from other parts of Europe, USA and the rest of the world.  Sadly, there were no cask ales from Canada available, but we hope that as cask ale popularity continues to grow here we may yet see a Canadian cask ale at GBBF.  Here’s hoping, or should that say ‘hopping’?

For more information about the festival, visit http://gbbf.camra.org.uk/home

Vote for your Favourite Cask-conditioned Ale, Brewer and Pub

For the first time, the Golden Tap Awards, in collaboration with CASK!, are honouring cask-conditioned ales in Ontario. 

There will be three new cask-related awards given this year for:

• Favourite cask brewery
• Favourite bar for cask-conditioned ale
• Favourite cask ale in Ontario

We are delighted by the recognition given to the spread of our favourite style of beer, and we encourage all CASK! members to participate and encourage the brewers of cask ales and the publicans who serve it.  Voting ends on August 16^th, and the awards will be presented on August 29^th. 

Vote at http://www.goldentap.com/.

Victory Summer Cask Ale Festival – Beer List Announced

The Victory Café has announced the following list of cask ales that will be featuring in their Summer Cask Ale Festival on Sunday July 12th 2009.

Black Oak Summer Saison (Marmalade Edition)
C’est What? Caraway Rye (County Durham Brewing Company)
Cameron’s High Hop Silver
Cheshire Valley IPA
Cheshire Valley English Mild
Compass Albion Ale (Better Bitters Brewing Company)
Durham Hop Head
Durham Hop Addict
Durham Witbier
F&M Stonehammer Strawberry Light
Grand River C’est Wheat
Granite Summer Ale
Granite Hopping Mad
Great Lakes Orange Peel Ale
King Pilsner (unfiltered)
MacLean’s Farmhouse Ale
Michael Duggan No.9 IPA
Mill St. IPA (dry hopped)
Neustadt Black Velvet

Just a reminder on admission/ticket prices:
$12 – admission, souvenir glass, two half-pint beer tickets, plus one food ticket
$8 – admission, souvenir glass, and two half-pint beer tickets
$4 – additional food ticket
$3 – additional beer ticket

Sunday July 12th 2009
12:00 noon
The Victory Café, 581 Markham Street, Toronto

Ontario Cask IPA Challenge: The Final Showdown at Volo

On Thursday, July 9th to Saturday, July 11th, Volo (587 Yonge Street) will be holding the 4th and final round of their Ontario Cask IPA Challenge, pitting the two beers that have made it through the previous rounds against each other to establish which beer will reign as the top Ontario-brewed cask IPA.

The beers making it through to this round are Mike Duggan Number 9 and County Durham Hop Addict. The beers will be served blind, and the votes will then be tallied to find out which beer is the champion.

For more information on the previous rounds, see the Volo website.