POWtoberfest!

We made it to Powell River and Townsite Brewery dead on schedule where we met Paddy, the CAMRA Powell River President and Karen the head instigator at Townsite.  We tapped 2 casks, one of their superb 7800 Saison with cherrywood and Time Warp flavoured with applewood-smoked fresh hops.  I loved the Saison – great to see one done properly by Cedric their head-brewer and bona-fide, card-carrying Belgian. The saison is dedicated to his brand new baby – Congrats!

The smoked fresh hops were fascinating; big smoked flavour but not that heavy flavour typical of an overdone Rauchbier. A tour of the brewery and preview of their delicious Christmas beer followed, thanks so much guys!

On to the completely sold-out Oktoberfest in an adjacent building.  We didn’t know what to expect but the hall was huge and packed to rafters! Again Townsite were pouring the Saison but they quickly ran out and had to go and grab more from the brewery – they also had the SunCoast Pale Ale, (which I think is their best) a beer that will never be available off the Sunshine Coast!
A roast pig which had been slowly cooked all day – and had been fed on the spent grain from the brewery was served and everyone filled up quickly.  The floor show of choirs, bands, dancers, drag stars and much more was great fun – everyone had a good time.

The after party at the hub was pretty great but lots of folk were partied out by then so in the end, Danny Seeton, Paddy and I wound up in Paddy’s rough and ready local drinking more SunCoast!

The next morning we all rendezvoused back at the brewery where we took a few photos but as we were taking them the bus was moved to another spot. Unfortunately the  back doors weren’t secured and as it took the corner we all saw the growlers and shopping fall out onto the road and roll down towards the pulp plant!

We scrambled to catch everything and found that only a couple of growlers had broken luckily. The stainless steel ones from Townsite were absolutely fine – a ringing endorsement!

Because of the ferries and the impending Whitecaps game, the visit to the Persephone Brewery was only 45 minutes (no rest-stops were permitted until we got to the brewery) but all of their beers were well worth the wait! A big thank you to Anders and everyone there, I strongly suggest that everyone takes the ferry over to check them out.

This, like other CAMRA trips will become legendary and will hopefully mean more of them to come – I’m certainly hoping to go back to Powell River for their Oktoberfest again next year!

Mark Galvani, a CAMRA YVR member on the bus trip wrote to me:

This was a super fun opportunity to meet and get to know other CAMRA members. This was our first time on the Sunshine Coast, somewhere that without the bus trip, we may never have thought of visiting. Trying special edition beers at Townsite and Persephone Brewing, as well as participating in the first annual Powell River Oktoberfest made for an awesome weekend away. We are eagerly looking forward to the next CAMRA trip!

A huge thank you to everyone who made this trip so much fun: Paddy, Karen, Cedric, Katy, Graham, Danny, Dan, Veronika, Mark, Valery, Kevin, Julian, Bryan, Ira, Eric, Yvonne, Anders, Ira, Brahm and anyone else I’ve forgotten- same time next year?