WIN!
Let your excitement take over — the inaugural National Capital Craft Beer Week approaches. But, that’s not the best part. “What could be better?” you ask. Alfredsson returning next year? Almost, but not quite. The stellar lineup for Beau’s Oktoberfest? Hmm…possibly. All right, don’t get your Lululemon Trikonasana pants in a knot, we’ll tell you. A contest! And not just any contest. But a chance to win two sets of passes to the National Capital Craft Beer Festival, taking place Aug. 17-18 at Marion Dewar Plaza.
To enter: Go visit the Ottawa Magazine facebook site and answer our skill-testing beer question. We’ll have one pair of tickets up for grabs this week and another next. Good luck!
Don’t know what this festival is all about? Well, we chatted with festival founder JP Fournier a few weeks ago (click here to check out what he had to say). And, he was nice enough to pick up the phone again to give us some more details.
When did you decide it was time for Ottawa to have a beer festival?
I came up with the idea two years ago. I had meetings with some of the breweries last year, they were excited but concerned about not having enough time to do something special for it. So I waited to get things in shape — and ended up getting the mayor to sign off on it as well!
What did the extra time allow you to do?
We’re now going to have a homebrew competition, a professional passport app, the entire beer week, and the (recently announced) Sessions Cask Ale Festival. And we’ll have some cool learning aspects for people who aren’t as knowledgeable on craft beer, such as a hop farmer on site and brewmasters to answer questions. I find it’s really cool knowing what goes into making a beer. It gives you a good sense of what beer is.
Did you ever think about including some of the big breweries as well?
My target was to get all the local breweries involved, and then a decent number of guest breweries from across the province. I’m very happy we’ve stuck with just craft breweries — that’s important. It means it will stay on the artisanal side of things and help people discover what else is out there [aside from the majors].