A sense of community.

*A great big apology to WindsorEats as the post on the Windsor Craft Beer Fest is coming.  I ended up with a great interview with them and want to make sure it comes across doing the festival and the city justice.





Community:

• people with common interests living in a particular area;

• an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location      

We are big believers in the craft beer community.  We believe in people sharing something they love with each other.  

For a long time now Twitter and blogs have been a great way to interact with other beer lovers in the area but there is always that sense of "I know them, but I don't know them."  We often pass each other at festivals and never even realize till hours later when we comment on a photo saying "You were there? We need to meet one day!"

 Back in September after an event it was mentioned that we really should, as an Ottawa Twitter beer community, meet face to face.  We here at For Barley or For Wort thought that it was a great idea and took up the challenge of putting it together.

It went surprisingly easily. The first challenge was a venue that would open its doors to us. They had to have craft beer, good food and willing to put up with a bunch of chatty beer fans.  A mention was put out on Twitter and Stoneface Dolly's answered immediately.

Invitations to breweries went out and the link to reserve spaces was launched to the masses.  Within the first half hour 24 spaces were gone.

Breweries jumped on board for a chance to mingle with Ottawa beer fans. Not from behind a table as they poured them beer but in the crowd and on a more personal level.

We were honoured to have the place full of other beer lovers who just wanted the chance to shake hands with the other people they spent so much time chatting to on the net.

Check out this crowd!

On hand in the crowd we had a number of brewery people including Tyler from Flying Monkeys, Grant from Spearhead, Scott from Muskoka, JP and Trish from Turtle Island and Kichesippi's Paul Meek. 

The night was full of handshakes, stories and laughter.  We ate amazing food and drank some really good beer.  We raffled off some wonderful prizes given to us from Spearhead, Muskoka and Kichesippi.

We are a silly bunch.

 Some of our raffle prizes.

Overall the event was a huge success.  There are already thoughts of doing it again in the Spring, a sort of seasonal meet up to talk about all things beer.

The whole thing would not have been possible if it were not for Stoneface Dolly's and the amazing staff.

It also would not have happened if it wasn't for Ottawa's great beer community.  Everyone who attended proved once again that this city has a strong, vibrant and friendly group of craft beer lovers, bloggers, twitter posters and homebrewers.  

I am happy to call them all apart of my community.

 Thank you to Stoneface Dolly. To Jeff Russell and all the staff that took care of us on Monday night.






 Thank you to Scott, Tyler, J.P., Trish, Grant and Paul.

A big thank you and raising a pint to all of you who came out. You made our night.