TORONTO, ON

The winners, as selected by online voting by the general beer-drinking public, were as follows:

• Best Microbrewery in Ontario – Beau’s All-Natural Brewing Company, Vankleek Hill
• Best Brewery for Cask-Conditioned Ale in Ontario (presented in partnership with CASK!) – Granite Brewery, Toronto
• Best Bar for Draught Beer Selection in Ontario – C’est What, Toronto
• Best Bar for Bottled Beer Selection in Ontario – Bar Volo, Toronto
• Best Bar for Cask Ale in Ontario (presented in partnership with CASK!) – Bar Volo, Toronto
• Best Brewpub or Tied House in Ontario – Granite Brewery, Toronto
• Best Regularly-Produced Beer in Ontario – Beau’s Lug-Tread Lagered Ale, Vankleek Hill
• Best Seasonal or Specialty Beer in Ontario – Black Oak Ten Bitter Years, Toronto
• Best Cask Ale in Ontario (presented in partnership with CASK!) – Granite Hopping Mad, Toronto
• Best Beer of the Festival (based on votes at the event) – Church Key Black IPA, Campbellford

Four Editor’s Circle awards were also handed out, recognizing significant achievements in the Ontario beer industry. The Editor’s Circle awards were determined by Enright and a panel of Bar Towel members and associates. They went to:

• Great Lakes Brewery for their Caskapalooza event at Toronto’s Festival of Beer
• Ralph Holm for his Drinkvine website
• Milos Kral for his beer program at Chancey Smith’s in London, ON
• Brian Morin and beerbistro for their many contributions to Toronto’s beer culture

Set to take place September 20th to 26th, not many details have been announced yet, but organizers have issued a press release that describes it as follows:

Toronto Beer Week (TBW) is a collective series of events dedicated to the celebration and advancement of the craft beer movement. TBW will showcase authentically brewed and flavourful beer, the talented brewers who create them, and the licensees who proudly support them. It’s all about good beer – no bland, mega beer permitted!

The event will kick off the day after the Toronto International Film Festival comes to a close, and will feature dozens of events held at some of the city’s finest restaurants, bars and pubs.

For more details, keep an eye on the TBW website, Twitter feed and Facebook page.

Despite the name suggesting it to be a German-style weissbier, Oranje Weisse is actually closer to the Belgian-style witbier, as it is an unfiltered wheat beer brewed using coriander and two types of orange peel.

According to Amsterdam brewmaster Jamie Minstry, “This year we modified the recipe a little bit by increasing the unmalted wheat content to aid with the natural haze and slightly increased the sweet and bitter orange peel to achieve our goal of heightening the citrus notes in the beer.”

Amsterdam Oranje Weisse is available now on tap at select bars and restaurants around Toronto, and in a limited run of 120 cases of 500 ml bottles available only at the brewery retail store.

• Favourite craft brewery and brewery for cask-conditioned ales in Ontario
• Favourite craft regularly-produced beer, cask-conditioned ale and seasonal or speciality beer in Ontario
• Favourite craft beer bar, both for draught, bottled and cask-conditioned ale selection in Ontario
• Favourite brewpub or tied house in Ontario

Voting will remain open until August 10th, and the winners will be announced at the Golden Tap Awards party on Saturday, August 21st at beerbistro in Toronto. The event will also feature an Ontario craft beer festival, and there will be a real-time Golden Tap Awards vote for the best beer available at the festival.

New this year will be a special Golden Tap Awards craft beer dinner on Friday, August 20th.  This will be a seven-course dinner with exclusively Ontario craft brewers, including Beau’s, Black Oak, Denison’s, Grand River, Granite, Great Lakes and Mill Street.  Each brewery will have one of their beers paired with a course created by Chef Brian Morin.

Votes can be placed now at www.goldentap.com, and more details about the dinner and awards festival will be announced there soon.

As with the original batch that was available during the Winter Olympics, the beer is “brewed with heaps of Cascade hops, and dry hopped for extra flavour and aroma.” What has changed, however, is the logo, which now features a baseball cap and loon replacing the toque and skis that appeared on the previous edition.

Canuck Pale Ale is available now for a limited time at the Great Lakes retail outlet and select LCBO locations.

Influenced by the “I Am A Craft Brewer” short film produced by American craft brewers last year, and the BC-centric “I Am A Canadian Craft Brewer” video released to promote Vancouver Craft Beer Week in May, the video features clips of brewers and brewery owners from all over Ontario discussing their passion for beer, and why craft beer is better than mainstream products:

Schleimhammer Roggenbier was first released as a seasonal beer last fall, and is a traditional German-style rye beer, a style rarely seen in North America. It has 5.3% abv, and is described as having “rich fruitiness and a clean, dry, quenching finish.”

Betelgeuse Tripel is a 9.1% golden Belgian-style ale, with “peach, pear, apple, citrus, clove and bubblegum notes, and starts out sweet but finishes quite dry.”

Both beers are available for single-bottle purchase in the retail outlet at the Mill Street Brewpub in Toronto, and also in select LCBO locations along with bottles of the recently released Mill Street Lemon Tea Beer (which is also available in cans and in a Mill Street sampler pack, as noted here previously).

Beau’s first became aware of CAFE last fall when they were invited to speak at the Ottawa chapter about their experience as a successful family-run business. They subsequently won the Ottawa chapter’s annual award in February, which in turn led to their nomination and win for the national award, which was announced and handed out an a ceremony in Regina on May 28th.

For more information, see Steve’s blog post and an article covering the event in the Regina Leader-Post.

In a press release, the beer is described as follows:

This refreshing brew is made by adding several kilos of black tea to the cold-aging tank to infuse flavour. Lemon is added after filtration to give it a bright, citrusy flavour that begins subtly and grows with each sip. The finished beer is light amber in colour with a rocky white head and 5% alc./vol.

The new and more widely available version of Lemon Tea Beer is Mill Street’s first canned product, packaged in 473 ml cans that are currently available at the Mill Street Brewpub retail outlet, and will soon be available at LCBO outlets.

Lemon Tea Beer is also featured in the newest Mill Street Brewpub Sampler, a six-pack of bottles that also includes Mill Street Pilsner, Tankhouse Ale, Stock Ale, Organic Lager and Belgian Wit. The Sampler is available now at the LCBO.

The brewery describes the beer as follows:

Our Pale Ale is light in colour, but don’t let that fool you — this beer has flavour enough to satisfy even the most demanding connoisseur (known in the industry as a “beer geek”). A beautiful, slightly sweet malt flavour, with just a hint of roasted grains, is balanced by medium hop bitterness and fresh citrus notes from our premium imported hops. An amber-coloured ale for beer drinkers of all stripes.

Lake of Bays Pale Ale is currently available in bottles and kegs at the brewery, as well as at select bars and restaurants, and will soon be available at LCBO outlets throughout the Muskoka region.