5th Annual Spring Festival Of Craft Breweries

The best of forty-two

Hundreds of beer lovers of all shapes, sizes, and sensibilities gathered at C'est What on Friday May 22, 2009 for the fifth annual Festival Of Craft Breweries. True to the basic nature of taste, our intrepid samplers didn't agree on much. Individual scores for each brew would, more often than not, run the gamut from zero to five. One thing that nearly everyone who tried it agreed on was the superb qualities of Denison's Weissbier which was the only entrant to garner a median score of the top mark, five. Other notables were the Grand Church-Key Stout, River Russian Gun Stout, Wellington Russian Imperial Stout, Mystique Cider, C'est What Hazelnut Chocolate Ale, Mike Duggan's IPA No. 9, Durham Hop Addict (cask), and McAuslan Vintage Ale which each had a median score of four. The most sampled beers were Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion and Mill Street Lemon Tea Ale.

For those of you that are statistically inclined, we served 3860 samples in the five hours, up 83% from last year's Springfest. That amounts to about one serving every five seconds. The simplified rating system seemed to work with 44% of samples scored compared with 14% the year previous.

The full table of scores can be found here.

Pool Party

Winner selected weekly

We will be randomly selecting the name of one of our e-news subscribers every week to win a pool party for them and up to a dozen of their closest friends. A mixed platter of appetizers and three hours of billiards at two tables are included. No dieting to fit into a swimsuit is necessary.

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Sara Kamin + Trevor Campbell + Maggi Faye

Sara Kamin's powerful voice has been compared to notable female artists like Jann Arden and India.Arie with an emphasis on staying in the moment, Kamin's live show is direct, in your face and powerful. According to Ron Sexsmith, Kamin "has a very natural way with a song and a voice that is lovely and pure". Kamin chalked up a co-production credit for her debut album, In Her Own Time, with independent producer Carlin Nicholson (The 68s).
After months of studio sweat, the seven track album was released in August of 2001 with the song, Mary, going on to win runner-up in the 2002 John Lennon Songwriting Competition. Kamin's tunes reveal her appreciation of all musical styles citing a diverse catalogue of influences, with roots flavoured pop, r&b and blues making their imprint on her writing.

Sara Kamin is joined by Trevor Campbell and Maggi Faye.

Thursday June 11, Doors 9:00 p.m., Show time 9:30 p.m., Advance tickets are available for $6.00

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David Ward + Jennifer Plummer + Laura Smith

As dubbed by John P. McLaughlin of The Province “David Ward is an exceptional, eclectic singer/songwriter who defies easy characterization. Jazz, blues, folk, R&B - he employs them all and more in a constantly changing and ever compelling set." A firm believer in the power of music and story-telling, David embraces a connection through an art form that blurs the line between audience and performer, uniting all in the spirit of community.

February of 2008, David released Unstruck Note with his band Loose Change and producer Adam Fulton (Paul McCartney, Teri Clark). In the fall of the same year, David and his band completed a 25 date cross Canada tour with great success and support from both CBC Radio 3, 2 and 1 and numerous other radio/ television shows across the country.

Wednesday June 17, Doors 9:30 p.m., Show time 10:00 p.m., Advance tickets are available for $6.00

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