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