Victoria Beer Week starts this Saturday, and if you’re not going, I’m going to assume you are missing the eff out, dude!
I write “assume” because I actually have no idea if the festival is any good. I haven’t been, and sadly, won’t be able to attend. It certainly looks good, though. There are what appear to be nifty events being held at groovy venues around the city. Passionate and intelligent beer people have organized it all, so I’ll stand by my completely uneducated assumption that Victoria Beer Week is good and worth buying tickets go.
Honestly though? I’m endorsing the festival because Victoria is the Real Deal as far as Beer Towns go. It’s far more entrenched in beer culture than Vancouver, and only partly because they’ve been doing it longer.
Nothing against Vancouver’s beer scene in any way, but this city really is in the toddler phase of its Beer Town development. I’ve read more than a few articles that claimed Vancouver has replaced Victoria as the Beer Capital of BC, which makes sense, I suppose, since we now have more breweries, more beer events, more bars with more taps, and a more muscular marketing network in which to argue this point.
But we’re masquerading as the Beer Capital, folks. We haven’t earned it yet. Victoria’s roots are soaked in beer. We need to recognize this.
Obviously, people in every city love beer. I think Victoria was in a unique position to become the Beer Town, given its roots as an English settlement, and the fact that it’s still a very English town in a lot of ways. Unlike Vancouver, there’s been no major cultural influence to erode the flavour the city was initially injected with.
And what are the English if not enthusiastic beer drinkers? I think this has a lot to do with the city’s cultivation and embrace of craft beer early on. That city makes some of the most creative, if not the best, beer in Canada. Driftwood and Phillips Brewing alone are unimpeachable. I will hear no arguments to contest.
I should point out that I lack a nuanced understanding of Victoria history, Victoria municipal law, or history or law in general. I’m looking at this from an extremely general perspective – so general and ridden with holes that an eighth grader could smash my argument to pieces. I’m OK with this. Arguments about this, I’m willing to hear.
I’m basing this on observations that I’ve made and conversations that I’ve had with people that live there – people my age who have grown up the past 10 years in a culture that values beer and are far more educated in it, en masse, than in Vancouver.
It’s an entrenched lifestyle on the Island, because it’s been one of the few cultural movements created there. Victoria has a more refined, more pure tradition of beer that needs to be respected and understood.
You hear that? Respect Victoria, kids. Go there. Love it.
