A few things in life are finer than kicking back with a cold one at the Great Canadian Beer Festival (GCBF), Canada's longest-running beer festival.
The two-day festival which opened on Friday, Sept. 6 is on until Saturday, Sept. 7 at Topaz Park, a new location.
"For the 30th anniversary of the Great Canadian Beer Festival, we're happy with the change," Joe Wiebe, director of the Victoria Beer Society, said. "It's pretty fun to start fresh and have a new venue and just set things up a little differently and try a few different things."
The first GCBF was held in 1993 at an indoor venue.
"We wanna change the idea that beer was only for slobs, so we chose Victoria Conference Centre," GCBF co-founder John Rowling said. "We were in a big nice room with chandeliers from the ceiling, carpets ... This is putting a new face on beer."
Beer fest was at the conference centre for 10 years before moving to Royal Athletic Park.
The festival has not just grown to become a Victoria summer staple, but a community of people dedicated to the promotion of craft beer.
Wiebe, one of Canada's top beer writers and author of the best selling book Craft Beer Revolution, said the beer landscape in the first GCBF in 1993 was totally different. They only had about 10 or 12 breweries in attendance. At that time, there was also just a handful of breweries in B.C.
"It'd be interesting to compare that original beer line up with what we have now. Very small range of beers then, compared to a very huge range of beers now," Wiebe said.
This year's festival features over 200 craft beers from 80-plus breweries from across Canada, including award-winning Kelowna-based Grey Fox Brewing, who is joining GCBF for the first time to promote their gluten-free beer.
Chris Neufeld, owner and brew master of Grey Fox Brewing, realized there were not many gluten-free beer options around, at least not easily accessible in B.C..
"Being celiac myself, I thought, well, I had to figure out how to make gluten-free beer and it’s rewarding to know that Grey Fox beers are not only safe for people who can’t have gluten, but also tasty enough to stand up against the best brews in Canada,” Neufeld said.
Along with the change in venue, GCBF created a food-and-beer pairing as a premium ticket, that involves getting four specially made bites designed by Chef Brian Tesolin of the Courtney Room restaurant in conjunction with four local breweries – Ile Sauvage Brewing, Herald Street Brew Works, Small Gods Brewing and Whistle Buoy Brewing, each made a special beer to go with the snacks.
Festival goers can enjoy fun activities in between drinks by walking over to the giant Jenga and chess game area or racing through the 100-feet long inflatable obstacle course.
Asked what he thought about this year being the Great Canadian Beer Festival's 30th anniversary, Rowling said Victoria Beer Society has done a great job since taking over and that he knows what a rewarding experience it is to bring the community together for the love of craft beer.
"Not without frustrations, but after a while, you realize there are three groups of people in the festival - the brewers, the public and the volunteer. They all come back like it was old home week."
