Amato will lead two sessions, one on Friday night from 7pm until 10pm and one on Saturday afternoon from 2pm to 5pm. The tours are for women only and only cost $10 (in addition to your festival admission). This fee allows participants to skip the line-up, sample beer with Amato (who will be providing interesting facts and tasting notes), and indulge in a beer and dessert pairing at the conclusion of the tour. 

Tickets for the Ladies VIP Brew Tour are available by calling Garrison Brewery, at 902-453-5343. Please note that there will only be 25 tickets per session!

August 3, 2010… More and more locals and visitors to Toronto are making the trip to Black Creek Pioneer Village to tour the Black Creek Historic Brewery – an authentic working reproduction of a 19th-century brewery, the only one of its kind in Canada. The Brewery uses traditional tools, techniques and recipes to recreate the ales, stouts and porters enjoyed in Upper Canada before Confederation, and because everything is done by hand on a small scale, visitors have a unique opportunity to learn about beer and the brewing process up close and directly from a Brewmaster. 

During the summer, tours of the Black Creek Historic Brewery are offered twice daily where visitors can learn the whole story of how beer was made. (From September to December the tours are offered once a day). Participants can see where the grain was milled, how the barrels were made and even see hops growing in Village gardens. Committed to sourcing all ingredients locally, as it would have been in 19th-century Ontario, the Brewery will even start growing and malting barley on-site over the next few years. On the tours, participants are immersed in the world of 1860s’ beer making while learning about the people of the time period. Visitors are given a character card with the name and story of a historical personality. The tour introduces some of Toronto’s colourful brewing past, including notables like Thomas Molson, or Joseph Bloore, (after whom Bloor Street in Toronto is named), Mary Short, proprietress of the Wheat Sheaf Hotel, Toronto’s oldest pub, Timothy Eaton, (a pious abstainer), and George Brown, founder of the Globe newspaper and temperance advocate. 

“People have a lot of fun with the character cards,” said Blythe Haynes, one of the tour guides at the Black Creek Historic Brewery. “They are surprised by the social history of beer and find it as interesting as the process of brewing beer. I invite them to play along with their characters, and that makes it a very lively social experience for everyone, including the children. By they end of the tour everyone is talking and laughing.” 

Sampling the actual beer right from the barrels is a highlight for tour participants, and there is old-style root beer for the children. “People are surprised by the taste of the beer, because it is barely carbonated and room temperature,” said Haynes. “We get a lot of different reactions and I tell them that your taste buds don’t lie. Some don’t like it, but a surprising number of people like it more than commercial beer. They say it has more body and flavour.” 

- Calgary, AB – Wild Rose Brewery is pleased to announce the launch of Wild Rose Saison on July 30th, a local brew made in the classic Belgian style. This spicy, yet smooth beer is the craft brewer’s newest member of their limited availability Seasonal Release Program. From the French word for “season,” Saisons are traditional farmhouse ales accurately described as refreshing and perfect for summer. 

Historically, Saisons were enjoyed by hard working farmers in the French speaking area of Wallonia in Belgium and were considered as nutritionally as important as milk or bread. Sometimes referred to as an “endangered” style, locally brewed Saisons can be difficult to locate, especially in Alberta. 

The Wild Rose Saison has a hazy orange hue and expresses the crisp, citrus character and classic dryness of the style. With an unexpectedly smooth mouthfeel, the earthy, yet fruity aromatics are influenced by the addition of Belgian yeast as well as Saaz and East Kent Goldings hops. This Saison is further spiced with the addition of ginger (Zingiber officinale) and grains of Paradise (peppery seeds from the Aframomum melegueta plant). 

Brewer David Neilly describes the new brew: “A warm, hazy goldenrod hue catches the sun, of this 5.4% alc./vol. brew while the classic Saison citrusy character and lemon crisp dryness offer an unexpectedly silky mouthfeel.” He continues, “The aroma just doesn’t get any better than this - earthy, sweet and fruity - with a lot of underlying spice to tickle the nose.” 

On Friday, July 30th, in celebration of the launch, a special cask conditioned batch of the Saison will be tapped at 4pm MST at the Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom. Crafted in limited quantities, Wild Rose Saison will be available only on draught at select restaurants and bars in Alberta including The Ship and Anchor in Calgary and at Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom (403.720.2733). 

Established in 1996, Wild Rose Brewery is a local Calgary craft brewery, which is passionate about creating great tasting beers, and is dedicated to using only the freshest ingredients. Available throughout Alberta in bottles and on tap, all of Wild Rose’s beers are all natural, unpasteurized and preservative-free. This quality is reflected in Wild Rose Brewery’s six bottled beers – Wild Rose Velvet Fog, Wild Rose SOB, Wild Rose WRaspberry Ale, Wild Rose WRed Wheat, Wild Rose Brown Ale and Wild Rose IPA. 

Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom is located on the Currie Barracks at #2, 4580 Quesnay Wood Drive SW, Calgary, Alberta, T3E 7J3. www.wildrosebrewery.com - 30 - For more information contact: Tina Wolfe Marketing Manager . Wild Rose Brewery This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 403.720.2733 x101 (office) . 403.629.2739 (cell) . 403.720.2803 (fax) www.wildrosebrewery.com