Toronto's Festival of Beer
| Toronto Festival of Beer | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Food, Attractions and entertainment |
| Dates | Late July |
| Location(s) | Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario |
| Years active | 20 |
| Attendance | 30,000 |
| Website | |
| http://www.beerfestival.ca | |
The Toronto Festival of Beer (TFOB), also known as Beerfest, is an annual event that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival celebrates Canada’s rich brewing history by featuring more than 120 brands around the world and many Ontario craft brewers. The event has become Canada’s largest beer festival with 30,000 people attending every year. Established in 1994, the Toronto Festival of Beer has been sampling beer for those ages 19+ for 17 years.
Greg Cosway is the president and owner of the festival. His love for beer started at his time in Carleton University where he started “The Gourmet Beer Club of Canada” with Scott Rondeau which was the first of its kind in Canada. Starting the gourmet beer club lead to the idea and start of the Toronto Festival of Beer with Scott Rondeau. This year will mark the 17th year the festival has been in operation which is now run by Beerlicious Inc., a company owned by Eventric Partnership Inc. The festival has also grown to become a key promoter of the beer and barbecue lifestyle.
The festival used to be held at Fort York in Toronto, but in 2009 due to its growing popularity and expansion, the festival moved to Bandshell Park in Toronto’s Exhibition Place. It has grown from just a small beer festival to now including a variety of well known musical acts, brand experience areas and also gourmet barbecue demonstrations. Small Ontario craft breweries are now finding it hard to compete for space at the festival while competing with some of the biggest breweries in the world. Last year Budweiser brought massive trailers and sprayed its logo across the main music stage and Sleeman’s brand experience booth had a beach volleyball court.
In 2011, the Toronto Festival of Beer also launched the Queer Beer Festival, a separate one-day event marketed toward Toronto's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
During the event, 60 different exhibits will be showcasing over 120 different types of beer. Many are old types of beer but there are new additions of beer every year such as beer smoothies and millennium buzz beer.
The Toronto Festival of Beer also offers food and refreshment services to paying patrons. These services vary from drinks, to classic BBQ, and even exotic food.
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