June 2022 – Ben's Beer Blog

“The unexamined beer event is not worth attending.”

From July 22-24, The Beer Store Presents The Toronto Festival of Beer (TFOB) returns to Toronto for the 24th time.

Touted as Canada’s largest beer festival, TFOB will once again go down at Bandshell Park in Exhibition Place. And apparently organizers need my help.

At least, that’s what the email asking about media accreditation said.

Noting: “Your application does not guarantee your approval, as space for each day at Toronto’s Festival of Beer is extremely limited,” the media accreditation process includes a request to “provide us with as much detail as possible in your application so we can understand who you are covering the event for, what you’re most interested in seeing and how you can support TFOB 2022 before the event weekend.”

Zuh? “Support?”

I understand that as an event organizer, you hope that providing free shit to “media” will translate to positive media attention for said event, but can you just…ask for it? That feels bold to me. I mean it’s one thing to wine and dine “journalists” in your socially awkward media VIP area while the Spin Doctors play, but to proactively vet candidates for media passes based on their planned activities to “support” your event seems pretty blatant.

So I clicked through from this email to the actual application for media accreditation to see that, because “the live event business has been hit hard over the past two years” (fair enough) TFOB asks would-be media types to “share [. . .] how you plan on pre-promoting TFOB 2022 [. . .] Please provide examples of how you can help drive awareness and potential ticket sales for our event, ahead of our event.”

This, to me, feels pretty darn greasy. Continue reading “Ask not what the Toronto Festival of Beer can do for you” →

After over a decade writing about beer, I have discovered an interesting and cost-effective way to try new beers and find out what “regular folks” are into these days: I drink my neighbours’ beers.

It’s not an altogether scientific method, but, these days I find that I am more likely to discover something new by way of an unexpected beer delivery from a neighbour who puts something in my hand knowing that I’m a beer guy; ironically, sowing the fruits of my past efforts sharing my formerly-abundant “beer mail” with them*.

It’s of course an inexpensive way to try new things, but it’s also an interesting way to track trends in Ontario’s craft beer scene. My retired teacher neighbour heard about Black Bellows Brewery from a friend and stopped in on a trip to Collingwood and now there is a decent IPA in my mailbox I’ve never tried before. The family around the corner heard an ad for Cowbell Brewery on the radio and decided to try a mix pack from the LCBO and now I’m learning that Shindig Huron County Lager has been rebranded as I sip one on a late-evening walk by their porch. When I chat with our friends across the street who have twins roughly the same age as our youngest, we discuss drinking Collective Arts’ Sparking Hard Teas at an upcoming day by our pool that we probably won’t be able to coordinate until the kids are in high school. Continue reading “My neighbour brings me beer” →