1st Summer Festival Of Craft Breweries

We moved our annual spring beer festival into June to coincide with Ontario Beer Week and the first day of summer. Over four days we offered up seventy-one choices from thirty-five producers of which about five-dozen were unique Ontario-made brews.

Although some may think of summer as a time for lighter flavours, the summer festival-goers said "go big or go home" picking an Imperial Stout and an Imperial Pale Ale as their top choices. The two that finished in the top tier (with median scores of eight out of ten) were Amsterdam Tempest Stout and Flying Monkeys Smashbomb Atomic IPA (cask version). In all, 40 of the choices were deemed worthy of purchase with median scores of seven or more while only 10 were relegated to the "meh" zone with scores of less than six.

Some of the more adventurous brews were not as well received with bourbon barrel ageing, blueberry, strawberry, and papaya hitting a sour note with many tasters. Exceptions to this rule were the pineapple-tinged Spearhead Hawaiian Style Pale Ale, Mill Street's Lemon Tea Ale which garnered scores of seven.

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Scores for products rated by 15 or more people, maximum score is ten

Samples

Std Dev

Median

40

1.5

8.0

Flying Monkeys Smashbomb Atomic IPA, cask

23

1.5

8.0

16

2.1

7.5

77

1.8

7.0

72

1.9

7.0

67

2.3

7.0

59

2.0

7.0

58

1.6

7.0

56

1.9

7.0

49

1.6

7.0

43

1.9

7.0

41

2.1

7.0

40

1.7

7.0

2.6

7.0

2.4

7.0

2.2

7.0

1.9

7.0

1.8

7.0

1.5

7.0

2.0

7.0

1.4

7.0

2.3

7.0

2.8

7.0

1.6

7.0

2.2

7.0

2.1

7.0

1.6

7.0

1.0

7.0

2.1

6.5

2.2

6.5

2.1

6.5

1.8

6.0

2.1

6.0

2.2

6.0

1.8

6.0

1.8

6.0

2.0

6.0

2.1

6.0

2.0

6.0

1.9

6.0

2.2

6.0

1.8

6.0

1.4

6.0

1.3

6.0

2.0

6.0

2.3

5.5

1.9

5.0

1.6

5.0

2.2

5.0

1.9

4.0

2.2

4.0

2.2

4.0

24

4.0

1.9

3.5

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