Whether you’re a casually curious beer fan or a hardcore nerd thirsty for knowledge, Victoria Beer Week’s Beer School events have something for everyone.
Every year as part of Victoria Beer Week, the Victoria Beer Society holds a series of small-scale seminars and events to help you cram as much beer-related information inside your noggin as possible. It’s like summer school! Except in winter, and with beer.
This year’s curriculum includes five events that explore everything from ancient brewing methods to food pairing. Here’s a look at what you’ll be learning…
Greg Evans Memorial Beer Walk
March 7, 2020 • 11am and 2pm • $25
Hosted by Chris Adams of Discover the Past (Ghostly Walks) Tours, this 90-minute walking tour will visit various downtown historic locations where Chris will share beer-soaked stories from Victoria’s early days. The tour will culminate with a stop at Swans for a pint of beer (included in the ticket) and a chance to socialize and look at an exhibit showcasing some of Greg’s collection of beer-related artifacts and photos. Tickets available online here.
Food + Beer = Delicious
March 10, 2020 • 5:30pm • $25
Bitter, sour, sweet, effervescent: Learn how to pair beers with food and just how versatile it really is! Learn all about how to pair beer with food from an Advanced Cicerone®, Victoria’s own Stephane Turcotte, brewmaster of Île Sauvage Brewing. He will be pairing six beers with different, small components of food. Tickets available online here.
Walk on the Wild Side
March 11, 2020 • 5:30pm • $25
Wild yeasts are fickle creatures that don’t often work how you want them to, but can produce some amazing flavours. Learn how brewers wrangle these wild creatures and use them to create some spectacular beers. Advanced Cicerone® Stephane Turcotte, brewmaster at Île Sauvage Brewing, hosts this tasting session featuring six wild fermented beers, including some of his own along with some from other B.C. breweries. It’s a great chance to learn how so-called “wild yeasts” create unique and unusual flavours in beer. Tickets available online here.
Beer & Coffee
March 12, 2020 • 6pm • $15
Learn just how similar the processes between coffee and beer are and taste some samples of the glorious harmony that can be brewed when these two worlds collide. This world is filled with iconic duos: Batman and Robin, peanut butter and jam, Han Solo and Chewbacca, Calvin and Hobbes. But what about coffee and beer? Tickets include four coffee beer tasters and four coffee tasters. Tickets available online here.
Party Like It’s 999
March 14, 2020 • 3pm • $20
Taste through a flight of ancient style brews with the folks from Howl and Salt Spring Island Ales and learn what people brewing up a millennia ago. Have you ever wondered what people were drinking 1000 years ago? Ancient ales were often brewed as medicine involving lunar ritual, divine intervention, and a bounty of regional wild herbs. They very rarely contained hops, and brewers had no idea what yeast was, but the end result was often delicious and the recipes were then passed down from one generation to the next. Tickets available online here.
• Victoria Beer Week takes place March 6–14, 2020 at venues across Victoria. For the full event lineup and online ticket sales, visit VictoriaBeerWeek.com.
