CASK! Social Details for December 2009

Thanks to everyone who made it out to our previous CASK! Socials.  These monthly gatherings are proving to be very popular so we intend to keep the momentum going.  The next Social will be on Saturday December 5th from 4:00 to 7:00 pm Upstairs at Victory Cafe, 587 Markham Street, Toronto (near Bloor/Bathurst). 
As usual, this will be an informal gathering.  No agenda, no speeches, and no fundraising.  It is simply a chance to socialize with like-minded people and drink some fine cask conditioned ales.  There will be three cask ales available for our December event.
Hope to see you there.

‘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/.

Tickets Now Available for Buffalo Cask Festival Bus Trip

CASK! is hosting a bus trip to the 1st Annual Buffalo Cask Ale Festival on Saturday, December 6th, 2008. The event is taking place at Cole’s (1104 Elmwood Ave.) and Mr. Goodbar (1110 Elmwood Ave.) in downtown Buffalo.

The cost per person is $75 payable in advance (ordering details below). This will cover transportation to and from the Festival via luxury coach with an onboard washroom, as well as lunch and your first pint at Cole’s.

The two festival venues are a couple of doors from each other, and admission to both of them is free, you just have to pay for the beer. There will be approximately 15 casks available between the two bars.

Before purchasing a ticket, PLEASE READ THESE IMPORTANT TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

• This trip requires a minimum of 40 attendees to be financially viable. If we do not reach that minimum by Tuesday, November 25th, the trip will be cancelled, and full refunds will be issued.
• Aside from the situation described above, there will be no refunds issued under any other circumstances.
• The bus will be departing at 9:00 AM from Front Street in front of Union Station, and will be leaving downtown Buffalo for the return trip at 6:00 PM. Anyone not at the departure points at these times will be left behind, and no refund will be given.
• All attendees must be 21 years of age or older.
• While a passport is not yet required for land travel to the US, it is highly recommended, as it will make the border crossing much smoother. If you do not have a passport, you will require a government issued photo ID such as a driver’s licence, PLUS a birth certificate or citizenship card. All attendees will be asked to show their ID BEFORE boarding the bus in Toronto, and those with insufficient ID will not be allowed to board.
• For reasons of liability and safety, and to avoid border delays, there will be ABSOLUTELY NO ALCOHOL allowed on the bus. This means that no beer or other alcohol should be purchased in Buffalo to be brought back to Toronto.
• All attendees will be liable for any damages or spillages they cause on the bus that lead to a fee being incurred by the bus company.
• Finally, and most importantly, we request that all passengers be witty and charming, and experience pleasure at all times while sampling cask ales. It’s about having fun and getting out of the house, all right?

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR TICKET – $75 PER PERSON

You will not be sent a physical ticket, your name will be on a list to be checked off at time of departure. If you require tickets for more than one person, please place a separate order under each person’s name.

Orders are being taken via PayPal, but you do not need to have a PayPal account to order, you simply need a credit card. All information requested, including credit card info, is completely secure and encrypted.

Payments are being processed using the PayPal account of Taste T.O., a website business operated by Greg Clow, one of the core members of CASK!.

Thanks for ordering, and we look forward to seeing you on December 6th!