[Giveaway] 2014 Roundhouse Craft Beer Festival

The annual Steam Whistle (@SteamWhistle) Roundhouse Craft Beer Festival is back! One of my favourite boozy events each year, the 2-day event gathers an allstar list of Ontario microbreweries allowing festival-goes to sample a variety of independent beers. Did I mention there will also be food trucks on site?

[Giveaway] Carlsberg St. Party's Day

Besides recovering from the apocalyptic snow storm Toronto is experiencing, guess what else will be happening this weekend? Oh yes. It's that time of year again. Your annually opportunity to enrobe yourself in green and get in touch with your Irish roots is here. Happy early St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Since 2011, Carlsberg has been hosting Canada's largest St. Patty's Day party, aptly named as St. Party's Day! (Twitter: @StPartysDay, Facebook page here)

THE DETAILS
Who/What: 4th annual St. Party's Day festival hosted by Carlsberg
When: March 14th-16, 2014
Where: Andrew Richard Designs (571 Adelaide Street East, Toronto)

[GIVEAWAY] Steamwhistle's Winter Craft Beer Festival

It seems like mother nature is not letting us forget how cold it can be this winter. Seriuosly, power outages, frozen tree branches, the mythical frost quakes?! Brutal. But as Canadians, we probably take pride in that. If there's two things Canadians know a thing or two about, it's how to do winter and beer right.

And so it would seem only fitting that Steamwhistle's (@SteamWhistle)first ever outdoor Winter Craft Beer Festival is taking place during one of Canada's coldest winter in the past decade. Are you Canadian enough to brave the cold? If so, free up your calendar, because this festival you don't want to miss.

[San Francisco] Jasper's Corner Tap

Location Review
401 Taylor Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Website

You know you're Canadian when you order the two most patriotic consumables down south in America. You know what I'm talking about. Poutine, and beer.

One of my nights in San Franciso, I had a late night rendez-vous with my currently-residing-in-America-but-Canadian-at-heart friend, Joanne. The outcome? A trip to Jasper's Corner Tap (@JaspersSF) for the aformentioned Canadian eats. I guess you never really grow out of being Canadian, eh?

Jasper's Corner Tap

[Event] Toronto Festival of Beer 2013

Last weekend I had the pleasure of once again attending the Toronto Festival of Beer (@TOBeerFestival). Despite it being the 19th annual TFOB, this would only be my second time in attendance. And with all the lessons I managed to learn from my first beer festival visit last year (see here), I think it's safe to say I was able to enjoy it this time around even more!

The Preparation

First order of business was to (a) buy tokens (no tokens, no beer!) and (b) to hang out a bit in the media lounge. It's a nice refuge from all the walking and standing around, and it also doesn't hurt that there are an endless supply of Neal Brothers (@NealBrothers) chips and LOL Candy trees (@LOLcandyco)to snack off of! :)

Official Beer Festival Currency

[Events] Oktoberfest at Steam Whistle Breweries

So now that it is October, it’s only fitting that I do a little post on Oktoberfest, right? Right. But make no mistake, despite it commonly celebrated over Thanksgiving weekend, Oktoberfest actually starts in September, and lasts a total of 16 days. The very first Oktoberfest took place in 1810 in Munich Germany, and was to commemorate the marriage of a German King Ludwig to his bride Therese. 200 years later, this festival of beer is still celebrated by 5 million people all over globe. A ceremonial 12 gun salute and official tapping of the first keg marks the beginning of the 2 week long festival.

This year Oktoberfest began on the 22nd of September, and so last week I decided to join in on the festivities by attending Steam Whistle’s (@SteamWhistle)annual Oktoberfest celebration. Complete with a celebratory first keg tap, traditional German fare, and lots (and I mean LOTS) of beer, I just couldn’t resist going!

I made a trip out to downtown where the Steam Whistle brewery is.

Steam Whistle Brewery

[Event] The 2012 Toronto Festival of Beer

Just over a week ago, I had the pleasure of attending the 18th annual Toronto Festival of Beer at Bandshell Park. Being Canada's largest beer festival, it was definitely an overwhelming feat for this newbie! Each year the festival brings together hundreds of beer exhibitors and pavilions showcasing everything beer related. From cigars to food, hot girls to zoo animals. So much to see, do and soak in all at once! It was definitely a good time, but I wish someone would have told me how to tackle it strategically to make the most of my day. So here it is, Mary's guide to The Toronto Festival of Beer.

There really aren't too many words to describe this event aside from being one collosal beer party!

1) Equip yourself!

Photo by: Yvonne
So the first thing you do when you enter is buy tokens. These are the golden universal currency of the festival, as it is the only currency vendors will accept. Sold at $1 each in packs of 20, make sure you stock up on these. You don't want to get caught running of them!

Tasting Dinner at Noka

Location Review
513 Bloor Street W
Toronto, ON
(647) 351-1188


Probably due to it's proximity to University of Toronto, the Annex is saturated with countless budget friendly food establishments. I regret to say that I don't usually eat in this area, but just walking through that strip of Bloor, I couldn't help but notice how many Japanese restaurants there were. And just when you thought there were already way too many, another pops up. Situated between Menchies and Sushi on Bloor, is the newly opened Noka Japanese Cuisine & Sushi (@NokaToronto). They have lunch specials for as low as $5.95, how can you NOT come here?

[Toronto] Bellwoods Brewery

Location Review:
124 Ossington Avenue
Toronto, ON


So what do Carmen (@carmenhungry), Grace(@foodinthecityTO), Jessica (@wherejessate), Vickie (@kiki_BFF), and I, have in common? Let's not jump to the most obvious two answers in relation to our genders and ethnicities here! Give up? Turns out, we've all never been to Bellwoods Brewery (@bellwoodsbeer) before, and it has been on our restaurant radars for a while!

So a little while back (yes, I'm still extremely delayed on these posts, I apologize!) the five of us girls headed over to Toronto's newest brewpub (opened just this April) in the Ossington area to see what their beer and snacks menu had to offer.

Beer Bistro

Review Location:
18 King Street East
Toronto, Ontario
(Major Intersection: Yonge St. & King St. E)

MENU (Beer)

MENU (Food)

Beer seems to be well adored in the city of toronto. It is so versitile, and at Beer Bistro, it has taken a classier face similar to the reputation of wine. I was overwhelmed by the restaurant's beer list which was an entire booklet with hundreds of beer choices --it was definitely hard to choose just one!

Mill Street Brewery Pub

Review Location:
55 Mill Street, Building 63
Toronto, Ontario
(Major Intersection: Lakeshore Bvld E & Cherry St.)

 MENU

My family and I were in the Distillery District the other day and despite raining we had a pretty good time. Kind of sucks that everything except the restaurants close at 5pm on the weekends. Because of that we ended up having an early dinner. Since it was my parent's first time at the Distillery, I felt it would be appropriate to eat at the brewery!

Puck 'N Wings

Review Location:
10720 Yonge Street
Richmond Hill, ON

MENU

Puck N' Wings is actually a franchise, and I'm not sure where all the other locations are, but I was told that there are about 5 other ones in Ontario. This location used to be an All Star Wings and Ribs so the layout of the restaurant hasn't really changed much. The decor is a little bit more themed now, all decked out in hockey stuff (like hockey sticks as jacket hangers) and had TV's at every angle playing different hockey matches.

In terms of the food, I think it's comparable to a lot of wing places.

Left: "Dry Cajun" -onions, bell peppers, chillies, pepper, herbs, garlic, 

Right: "Sweet Red Chili" -garlic, red jalepeno, chili peppers

The first thing I notice when I eat the wings, is that they are very meaty. Sometimes I go to wing places, and sure they are big, but it's just all batter with very dried up tiny wings on the inside. The ones we had here were really juicy with not too much batter. In fact it's almost as if they just deep fried it with no batter on. And even with such a thin layer of batter, the wings were considerably large! Each piece was around 7-10cm. The sauces flavours and combinations are not as unique as some of the other wing places, but we ended up choosing some typical flavours in the end, and as expected, they tasted pretty standard.

"Black N' Tan Onion Rings"

We also decided to order onion rings cause I was really craving it. On the menu, there was an option of regular onion rings, and these Black N' Tan onion rings. Although I'm sure I would've been satisfied getting the regular ones, we couldn't resist ordering these which had this as a description on the menu : "Not your average onion ring. Colossal Spanish onion double dipped in Canadian beer and Stout batter." And I'm so glad we ordered them. They were in fact quite colossal in size, and had a very prominent beer taste in the batter. AMAZING. I highly recommend ordering this if you like beer and/or onion rings.

Overall a good experience.