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When I was in college, I travelled to Kitchener to attend the yearly Oktoberfest event there, and it was nothing short of terrible.
The pilgrimage to the K-W included sleeping on the ground of a frat boy friend of a friend and it coincided with a lamentable period of my childhood that all men seem to go through where we find it humourous to hit each other as hard as possible in the balls. While my group of friends always had a gentleman’s rule that these shots were permissible only when administered open-handed, the agreement was not enough to prevent my 2 best friends from almost fighting each other in the center of a polka-filled hall of dirndl- and lederhosen-bedecked revellers that evening.|Thankfully, efforts have been made recently to offer a native Oktoberfest experience for folks who have functioning taste buds and a shred of dignity.
The pilgrimage to the K-W included sleeping on the ground of a frat boy friend of a friend and it coincided with a lamentable period of my childhood that all men seem to go through where we find it humourous to hit each other as hard as possible in the balls. While my group of friends always had a gentleman’s rule that these shots were permissible only when administered open-handed, the agreement was not enough to prevent my 2 best friends from almost fighting each other in the center of a polka-filled hall of dirndl- and lederhosen-bedecked revellers that evening.
Sure, on paper, it seems like fun. Outside of Munich, this is the world’s largest Oktoberfest and it has been taking place for more than 45 years. Politicians and local “celebrities” take part each year and a a veritable kuddelmuddel of Ontario’s German Clubs are official participants. The party-goers typically consume a gag-inducing 50,000 pounds of sausage over the weeklong celebration and there is a whole plethora of family-friendly events taking place at plenty of festhallen spread throughout K-W. There are car shows, a golf event, a fashion show, and even an evening of jazz with a water colour painting auction. I’m not kidding. Indeed, there is all manner of things.
One of those brewers will be each member of the neighborhood Waterloo-Wellington Craft Collective in Addition to Black Swan, Sawdust City, Tooth and Nail, Anderson Craft Ales, Forked River Brewing, Great Lakes Brewery, Beau’s and much more.
Bingemans, the sprawling entertainment, camping, and event complex, has long been a partner of the Molson Canadian Oktoberfest and this year, with much ado from local media, has opted to part ways with the official events in order to bring festival goers some more variety, if the multitude of Bingemans press releases is to be considered. They apparently opened their beer selection alternatives to discussion this year in response to consumers evolving tastes and, this year, are forgoing official status in order to embrace modern beer drinking tastes by partnering with…Waterloo Brewing Company.
Their efforts to rebrand and some decent new beers notwithstanding, Waterloo Brewing, the vestiges of Brick Brewing, founded in 1984, is a name that calls to mind the forefront of craft brewing. I get there were probably volume and *ahem* pricing concerns that came to the equation and, while I’m happy Bingeman’s has throw the monopolistic shackles of Molson Canadian’s Oktoberfest for technically craft beer, I’m likely to respond to the news of a new and enhanced Oktoberfest experience at Bingemans with a resounding, “Meh.”
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Categories: Events | Tags: anderson craft ales, Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co, black swan, brewing co-operative, Canadian, craftoberfest, Forked River Brewing, Great Lakes Brewery, molson, molson-coors, oktoberfest, sawdust town, together we are bitter, tooth and nail | Permalink.
Author: Ben
“We’re bringing in the beer that we’d want to drink ourselves,” event co-founder Alex Szaflarska tells me. “We have almost 30 breweries and cideries from all over Ontario taking part. We’ve been working with them to make sure that the beer selection reflects the season and the festival–marzens, spiced ales, pilsners, wet hopped beers. We’ve got it all.”
And needless to say, beer–that is kind of one of the primary attractions of any volksfest, is where the K-Dub really, really gets things wrong. That’s because from a time well before my friends and I were publicly open-handing one another in the genitals, Kitchener Waterloo’s Oktoberfest has featured beer from Molson exclusively. Specifically, the event is sponsored by Molson Canadian and, in case you’re new to Ontario, sponsorship by large brewers typically means they demand that the only beer served at said event(s) is their own. And, if you are new to Molson Canadian, consider that it the one beer I would drink if it was free and I was at a party where it was the thing to drink. Molson Canadian tastes like the liquid they drain out of a guy’s bloated abdominal cavity they find floating in a river. It tastes the way the music of Bruce Willis sounds. Molson Canadian is sadness that is basically liquid. The Germans have a word for how you are feeling after someone offers you a Molson Canadian and it is fuchsteufelswild. What I’m saying is that it is not a beer.
Yeah.
Instead, the Oktoberfest news I’m excited about this year is that the owners of Kitchener’s Together We’re Bitter Brewing Co-Operative will be hosting the fourth annual Craftoberfest this weekend, a type of alternative Oktoberfest celebration featuring beer that you might actually want to drink.
When I was in college, I travelled to Kitchener to attend the yearly Oktoberfest event there, and it was nothing short of terrible.
A brewery inviting other breweries to sell their beer right at a beer event alongside them. What a novel thought!
Published at Thu, 05 Oct 2017 08:38:13 +0000
http://www.bensbeerblog.com
As they did last year, both the Friday and Saturday evening events are already sold out but the Daytime Festhalle is available to the public and features free entry. Organizers are expecting over 1000 people to show up to the Kitchener Market‘s upper level and an adjoining outdoor beer tent.
Accordingly, I will forever associate my experience at Oktoberfest with a night of drinking and the anxiety about perpetually fearing force trauma to my penis and testicles. And while the organizers aren’t responsible for me linking Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest with being hit in the balls, it seems to me an apt metaphor for the yearly event.
A handful of occasions hawking Molson Canadian, Rickards, and Heineken, or a collection. That’s like the choice between being hit in the crotch or…you know…not being hit in the crotch.|
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Categories: Events | Tags: anderson craft ales, Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co, black swan, brewing co-operative, Canadian, craftoberfest, Forked River Brewing, Great Lakes Brewery, molson, molson-coors, oktoberfest, sawdust town, together we are bitter, tooth and nail | Permalink.
Author: Ben
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As they did last year, both the Friday and Saturday evening events are already sold out but the Daytime Festhalle is available to the public and features free entry. Organizers are expecting over 1000 people to show up to the Kitchener Market‘s upper level and an adjoining outdoor beer tent.
When I was in college, I travelled to Kitchener to attend the yearly Oktoberfest event there, and it was nothing short of terrible.
Sure, on paper, it seems like fun. Outside of Munich, this is the world’s largest Oktoberfest and it has been taking place for more than 45 years. Politicians and local “celebrities” take part each year and a a veritable kuddelmuddel of Ontario’s German Clubs are official participants. The party-goers typically consume a gag-inducing 50,000 pounds of sausage over the weeklong celebration and there is a whole plethora of family-friendly events taking place at plenty of festhallen spread throughout K-W. There are car shows, a golf event, a fashion show, and even an evening of jazz with a water colour painting auction. I’m not kidding. Indeed, there is all manner of things.
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