The thought of one person walking around the grounds of beer festivals for a couple of days and objectively telling you what the “top” or “best” beers are is blatantly absurd. There are hundreds of beers to sample through, and the fact that everyone’s tastes are distinct makes it even more difficult to come up with a list of beers.

And yet, among the greatest joys of attending a beer festival is being able to sample different things and reflect on your discoveries and preferences afterward. With that in mind, you should certainly try the following craft beers during the next festival and see if they make it to your favorites list.

1. 3 Minutes to midnight

An Imperial Stout beer with 10% alcohol content by Bellwoods Brewery, this beer is aged with tart cherries for three months to give it rich and complex notes of tart fruit, roast malt, and bitter chocolate.

2. Fermium House Ales

Brewed by Bar Volo, this Black Imperial IPA with 7.5% alcohol content has a wonderful mix of mango, pine, and orange, as well as roasted malt and chocolate/

3. Red Tape Stout

Brewed by Indie Alehouse with 10% alcohol, this is a delicious, creamy stout with black color.

4. Witchshark

Another Imperial IPA but brewed by Bellwoods, this double IPA has 9% alcohol and combines an aggressively bitter and hoppy taste with juicy and fruity tones. It is deceptively smooth and consistently among the top beers in Canada.

5. Zombie Apocalypse

Another top brew by Indie Alehouse with 10% alcohol content, this is the kind of strong drink with a chocolatey, roasty, boozy feel.

6. Fangboner

A Brett IPA brew by Great Lakes that combines hops with Brettanomyces yeast to produce an appallingly brilliant bitter/funky hybrid that begs to be guzzled down.

7. Amsterdam  Bar Hop Brett Bier de Garde

This all-brett IPA by Amsterdam is brewed with a different hop every time, though it maintains its dry bitterness with complex pineapple, mango flavors and notes of herbaceous grape. It has 6% alcohol content.

8. Coffee Porter

Brewed by mill Street, this is a nice, award-winning porter with 5.5% alcohol content. It is made with Balzac coffee.

9. 504 Pale Ale

Brewed by Liberty village, this is a refreshing and vaguely subtle IPA with 4.8% alcohol content that is meant to calm you after riding the dense route for which it is named.

10. Nutcracker Porter

Brewed by black Oak, this dark porter has 5.8% alcohol and notes of coffee, figs, cinnamon, and spice rounding.

This list is not conclusive, and with breweries introducing new drinks to the market, feel free to try out new entrants at the beer festival. They might just make it to the list next time.

 

Photo Credit: BlackOakBeer