Edmonton International Beerfest a Bust

Post date: 24-Apr-2010 22:00:57

Colin and I attended 2 beer festivals during our RTW trip: Oktoberfest and the British Beer Festival in Earl's Court. I know it's unfair to compare Edmonton's International BeerFest to the two amazing world wide know events that we attended, but I don't have anything else to compare it to. I was not expecting Edmonton's festival to be as nice as the other two festivals but it was held at the Shaw Conference center.

We attended on Friday, April 23, 2010 and spent $90.00 to attend the event and sampled 14 different types of drinks between the two of us (that were not all beer). It was advertised that there would be 200 samples of beer to try from around the world. We only saw maybe almost 50 different kinds that you could try. There was also rum, wine, coolers and tequila to sample.

Sorry for the bad quality. These were taken with a cell phone.

We thought that it would cost $0.50 for each 4 oz. sample but the tickets were $0.50 each. The cheapest 4 oz sample you could get cost 3 tickets and the most expensive 5 tickets. This means on average you were paying $2.00 for 4 oz of beer. You can buy beer at the liquor store for cheaper than $1.50-$2.50 per bottle depending on the brand.

The event reminded me of Taste of Edmonton because you could also purchase food with your tickets. We spent 12 tickets (so $6.00) for 6 little bites of beef from Celtics. We opted to spend $8.50 on two burgers that the Shaw was selling instead of more food from restaurants. I was disappointed that there were no soft or hard pretzels available or even nuts. The Nutman could have made a fortune if he had a booth set up. We did see two guys walking around who were wearing pretzel necklaces that they made. Brilliant.

Here's the breakdown of what we spent:

$42.25 for cover for two people (purchased the tickets in advance from TicketMaster)
$40.00 for 40 $0.50 tickets
$8.50 for two burgers
$5.50 for two people busing to the event. We had someone pick us up after the event.

Here's everything we sampled and we shared most of the samples with the exception of the first two:

Cazadores Tequila from Mexico
Miller Chill with Lime
Edelweiss from Austria
Ankerbrau from Germany
Peet's Mojito Cooler
Peet's Acai Pomegranate Cooler
Innis and Gunn from Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Scotland
Creemore Springs from Creemore, Ontario, Canada
Rivercity Raspberry Ale from Brewster's
Lanigan's Irish Ale
Spring Maibox from Brewster's
Flying Frog brewed in Canada and the US
Piraat from Belgium (it was creamy, tangy and sour, my favourite sample of the night)
Augustijin from Belgium (my second fave of the night it was light and creamy)

The set up was not very classy for the Shaw and given what the tickets cost it could have been way classier. The first 1000 people received a free beer mug. Plastic mini 4 oz beer mug that is. We drank out of glass mugs at Oktoberfest and the British Beer Festival and we paid to rent or buy our mugs. If you didn't drink out of your free mug, you could drink out of plastic cups that fancily dressed servers took from you on trays. I could see that this service might have been needed if attendees were trusted with glass mugs (which would have been more environmentally friendly), but it looked pretty pathetic to see the tiny glasses being whisked around on trays. There were enough garbages so most people were capable of disposing of their own plastic cups themselves.

The atmosphere was like a bad night at the bar. There were scantily clad girls in tall boots and mini plaid skirts pole dancing and serving beer. Two DJs playing music competed with the live band that was playing. It was impossible to speak to your date just like being at the bar. You often waited in line to receive your over priced drink, which is also like being at the bar. Needless to say we won't be attending the next beer festival. I also think that the organizers could learn a few things from other International Beer festivals around the world. Perhaps that is why this was called "Beerfest." It wasn't good enough to have the full "festival" in the title of the event.

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