Calgary International Beerfest

[wookster]

Beerfest can be pretty fun, but like was already said, it can be pricey. I personally like co-op's Grape Escape better. They have quite a few beer vendors at that event as well as wine and hard liquor and food and its $45 per person and you don't need drink tickets once your in there. It only lasts for 4 hours or so but I always seem to get my money's worth, lol. But with that being said, I'm going to beerfest tomorrow as well because I got 2 tix through work (our social club) for $10 each and they gave us 20 tokens each as well.

[Beerfest]

I honestly hadnt heard about this until today.

Ive heard about it during previous years, perhaps it wasnt as much advertised this year?

I was in line for this last year on the Saturday, but there were no tickets left, but they were apparently going to slowly allow people in line in. I didnt wait around for that though.

[Montana Moe]

I've never heard of a beerfest charging admission, that's just crazy.

[Ducay]

Went last night, its a pretty terrible venue, with terrible "ambiance", but I had a good time because of the people I was with.

Its essentially a uber-crowded, blue collar wine-fest.

Most booths charged 4 tickets ($2) for the 4oz cup, however some were 3 tickets.

Can't say I'd go again though. The majority of beers stalls were imported beers and there were only a handful of actual microbreweries.

[fundmark19]

I felt the same way. Wine fest was way better layed out and not everyone squeezed in to a bar. Some real interesting people were present so if your a people watcher you would enjoy. Had a great time but that was because of my group as well not so much the event

[troutman]

Originally Posted by J-bo09

^Further to this there is a German Bar opening called "The Wurst" that will be a new German Beer hall in Mission.

http://www.wurst.ca/

Tried out Wurst tonight. It should do very well. Upstairs is a classy restaurant, downstairs is a real German style beer hall. There are long tables where people are encouraged to mingle. They were not ready for the crowds on opening weekend (crowded like a mosh pit) and by Sunday were out of stock on most beers.

There are lockers were you can keep your stein for $250/year, but they already sold out before they opened. They may add more lockers.

The food was good quality, but lacking in quantity.

I was most interested to see they offer trays of Kolsch Beer. This is famous in Koln (Cologne). They bring you a tray full of little 0.2 Litre beers - Koln style.

[Frequitude]

Was at Wurst on Friday. It was an absolute blast. That place will do well.

Too bad they ran out of half their beer at about 10:00. I was jonesing for a stein of Stiegl. Still a great time.

[Cain]

Found beerfest in past years to be extremely disappointing.

I'm a huge beer snob and was disappointed by the vast amount of lagers available compared to ales. Expensive, very busy, loud and hot. Just did not have fun at all...I guess it would be alright if you are just getting into trying out new beers...if you have experimented with different beers on your own already you probably won't be exposed to too many new exciting beers...you can get better recommendations from the beer threads from the past on this very forum.

I'll have to check out Craft Beer Market, sounds intriguing.

[JD]

The Wurst sounded so intriguing from the couple of posts here describing it, and then I clicked on that link their awful awful website and lost all enthusiasm for the place. No pictures, just bleak, dreary blackness with a supposedly Bavarian font that annoyed me to no end.

I'll try not to hold the website against them and actually try the place though!