We’re not saying what exactly is going to available – because that’s what makes it Queen Victoria’s Secret!  For the second year in a row, our May edition of the Brewer’s Backyard will be entitled Queen Victoria’s Secret, whereby we reveal our beer and food offerings only at the start of the afternoon.  But to get ready for the event, we’ve created another special poster to commemorate the day – check it out on the right side of this post!

Queen Victoria’s Secret will be taking place from 12-4pm at the Koerner Gardens and Holcim Gallery of Evergreen Brick Works on Monday, May 20th.  We’ll have beer offerings from Great Lakes, Granite, Oast House and Left Field, along with food from FeasTO, but you’re going to have to come and find out what everything is!  We hope to see you there.  Admission is free, and the event is all-ages.

After a little hiatus over the end of winter, we’re thrilled to be back with our next Brewer’s Backyard on Monday, May 20th.

Following our tradition from last year, the next Brewer’s Backyard will be called Queen Victoria’s Secret, in honour of the holiday Monday, and of course the famous monarch.

We are happy to welcome to the Brewer’s Backyard four unique breweries: Great Lakes Brewery, Left Field Brewery, Granite Brewery and Oast House Brewers.  Great Lakes was our first brewery at the Brewer’s Backyard last year, and we’re happy to have Left Field, Granite and Oast House for the first time.  And for food, we’re going to have delicious bites from FeasTO.

But to keep it fun, we’re going to reveal the ‘secret’ – which specific beers and food options – only at the event itself!  So you’ll have to come by to see what great brews and tasty treats we’ll have – but rest assured you won’t have tried everything before.

The Brewer’s Backyard runs from 12-4pm on Monday, May 20th at the Koerner Gardens and Holcim Gallery of the Evergreen Brick Works.  Admission is free, the event is all ages and you can purchase tickets for beer and food at the event.  We look forward to seeing you all again!

Full City version of Amsterdam’s Tempest available!

If you’re looking to make the first weekend of 2013 a tasty one, then Brew Year’s Day is for you on Sunday, January 6th at the Evergreen Brick Works.

From 12-4pm we’ll be serving extra rare, strong and unique beers from six breweries at the Brewer’s Backyard to celebrate our chilly wintertime.  And what better way to stay warm during the season than with a strong beer?

And if that doesn’t have you convinced, Brew Year’s Day is a pick in BlogTO’s Weekend Events guide, The Grid’s Night List, Post City’s Weekend Warrior and Torontoist’s Guide to Winter Beers.

We hope to see you there!

We’re excited to announce that the Brewer’s Backyard will be kicking off our 2013 season on Sunday, January 6th, 2013 with Brew Year’s Day!

Like last year, Brew Year’s Day is a special event where we celebrate our Canadian winter with exclusively strong, winter warmer-style beers.  It was possibly the first event of its kind in Ontario, and it continues to be a perfect way to keep us all warm as we enjoy this time of year!

This year, however, we’re going to kick it up a notch from previous Brewer’s Backyard events, with six breweries getting in on the fun – the most to date!  We’re happy to be welcoming for the first time Nickel Brook Brewery and Grand River Brewing, along with Great Lakes Brewery, Amsterdam Brewery, Indie Alehouse, and Cheshire Valley Brewing returning to the Brewer’s Backyard.

All of our brewers are bringing unique, rare and potent beers to Brew Year’s Day and you can expect to try, on draught:

• Amsterdam Full City Tempest Imperial Stout
• Cheshire Valley Oak Aged Scottish Pale Ale
• Grand River Russian Gun Imperial Stout
• Great Lakes Apocalypse Later Double Black IPA and Witch King Baltic Porter (collaboration with Biergotter)
• Indie Alehouse Christmas Spiced Porter and Jump the Shark American Strong Ale
• Nickel Brook Old Kentucky Bastard Imperial Stout

What a delicious way to kick off the new year! But that’s not all, we’ll also have some delicious food to complement all these excellent beers.  We’re happy to welcome Big E’s Grinds who will be providing some delicious Hawaiian street food for the Brewer’s Backyard.  Big E’s been at the Toronto Underground Market in the past, and you can expect some delicious eats such as grilled shrimp, pineapple and pulled pork for Brew Year’s Day.  Should be some great sunny snacks regardless of how cold it might be!

For this event only, we’ll be in a slightly different location at the Brick Works.  So we don’t have to stand outside all afternoon, we’ll be serving in the Young Welcome Centre, an indoor space adjacent to our usual Koerner Gardens area.  But in the Koerner Gardens will be an outdoor skating rink, so you can complement a tasty beer with a fun outdoor skate (but no skating and drinking at the same time!)

So mark down Brew Year’s Day on Sunday, January 6th from 12-4pm, and follow us @brewmarket and on Facebook for the latest info.  As usual, admission to Brew Year’s Day is free (you can purchase tickets for beer and food at the event), is all-ages and proceeds support Evergreen.

Rob & Davey from Beau’s at Torontoberfest. Photo by Andrew Badgley

After a great first year at the Evergreen Brick Works, we are happy to announce that we’re returning in 2013!

We’ll be changing things ever so slightly this year, shortening the schedule and doing a bit more at each event to keep things fun and exciting.  We’ll be having four dates at the Brick Works this year, beginning in January and continuing to October:

• Sunday, January 6th: Brew Year’s Day
• Monday, May 20th (Victoria Day): Queen Victoria’s Secret
• Monday, July 1st (Canada Day): The Constitutional Draught
• Monday, October 14th (Thanksgiving): Torontoberfest

All of our holiday Monday events this year were by far the most popular, so we’re going to keep those again, adding some more breweries into the mix for each one. We’re going to kick things off on January 6th, reviving our Brew Year’s Day, a celebration of strong winter warmer beers.  All the beers available will be 8%+ alcohol, and we’ll have a few breweries participating, including Great Lakes, Indie Alehouse and Amsterdam.  Stay tuned for more on that one.

If you are a brewery or food vendor and would like to participate in this year’s Brewer’s Backyard events, please drop us an e-mail.

We look forward to seeing you at the events again next year!

We are excited and looking forward to be a part of Cask Days this year, with a special Brewer’s Backyard section dedicated exclusively to pumpkin and harvest style beers.  And what a lineup it will be!

The full beer lineup for Cask Days was announced today, with the following beers being in the Brewer’s Backyard section:

• Howe Sound “Pumpkineater” (Imperial Pumpkin Ale)
• Half Pints “Punk ‘N’ Fest” (Pumpkin Ale)
• Hopfenstark “Greg” (Harvest American Foreign Stout)
• Railway City “Hoptoberfest” (Harvest Ale)
• Benelux “Molsson 2012” (Harvest Saison)
• Indie Ale House “Double Barrel Pumpkin Abbey” (Belgian Strong)
• Niagara College “Boktoberfest” (Barrel Aged Bock)
• Nickelbrook “Pie Eyed Pumpkin Ale” (Spiced Pumpkin Ale)
• Brasserurs Illimtes “Magouille” (Scand’Ale With Pumpkin)
• Grand River “Highballler” (Pumpkin Ale)
• Church Key “Pumpkin Ale” (Pumpkin Ale)
• Clocktower “Pumpkin” (Pumpkin Ale)

We look forward to seeing you there!  Tickets to Cask Days can be purchased online here.

First off – thank you everyone.  We wrapped up our 2012 Brewer’s Backyard series yesterday and it was a tremendous time.  It was one of our most successful ones yet – the weather was perfect and the Beau’s beer and WVRST sausages were delicious.  We sincerely appreciate your excitement and enthusiasm this year – our events support the great initiatives that Evergreen does and we are extremely thankful to everyone that has come out, and of course to all the breweries and food vendors that have participated this season. We’ll be back in the new year with Brew Year’s Day on January 6, 2013 – but you’ll have to stay tuned for more on that one.

But in the meantime, we can’t just stop doing what we do until then.  We won’t have any more dedicated events, but we’re happy to be partnering with our friends at Cask Days.  You may have noticed at our last two events that Cask Days were part of the fun, with ticket sales and giveaways to their great beer event coming up at the end of October.

Well, we were happy to have them join us and we had some great cask ales from Bellwoods, Indie Alehouse and Beau’s All-Natural at our last couple of events.  And now we’re thrilled to say that we’re going to be part of the Cask Days festival at the end of October!

As a part of Cask Days, we will be having a special Brewer’s Backyard themed beer area, exclusively featuring pumpkin and harvest beers from across Canada!  We’re very excited to be partnering with Cask Days and have this special themed style section which is perfect for the autumn season.

There will be a tremendous lineup of cask ales to try, with the following breweries having special pumpkin or harvest ales at the Brewer’s Backyard area: Howe Sound (BC), Half Pints (MB), Hopfenstark (QC), Railway City (ON), Benelux (QC), Indie Alehouse (ON), Nickel Brook (ON), Grand River (ON), Church Key (ON) and Brasseurs Illimités (QC).  It’s going to be a killer lineup from across the country and you won’t want to miss it.

Cask Days, like the Brewer’s Backyard, will also be taking place at the Koerner Gardens and Holcim Gallery of the Evergreen Brick Works.  This 8th annual edition will feature over 75 breweries along with numerous renowned chefs and restaurants, artists and music to complement the beer.  Tickets are available to different sessions on October 27th and 28th.  Tickets can be purchased online here.

We look forward to seeing you at Cask Days this year!

It’s been a great summer at the Brewer’s Backyard, and tomorrow is our final event of the season – but it’s going to be one of our best!  For our Oktoberfest, we’re happy to have our friends from Beau’s All-Natural and WVRST for beer and sausages to make the event as delicious as it can be.

Our event tomorrow was chosen as one of NOW Magazine’s Oktoberfest picks, as well as included in Torontoist’s Long Weekend Planner.  Thanks to NOW and Torontoist for your support!

We’re also welcoming our friends from Cask Days tomorrow – they’ll be there selling tickets for their amazing cask festival, which is taking place at the same location as our Brewer’s Backyards at the end of October.  And we’ll be at Cask Days too – if you come to the Brewer’s Backyard tomorrow we’ll tell you all about it!

The Brewer’s Backyard runs from 12-4pm at the Koerner Gardens & Holcim Gallery of the Evergreen Brick Works.  Free admission and you can buy beer and sausages at the event.  The event is all ages and goes rain or shine (we’re covered in the Holcim Gallery).

Well, we’re just about wrapped up our Brewer’s Backyards for the year (but don’t forget to come on Monday!) so we thought we’d take a look back at the great poster artwork that accompanied each event.

All of our posters reflected the fun theme and personality we wanted to inject into each event, and you can see them below. All of our posters were created by the excellently talented Jeremy Lenz and Bill Schaefer.  Click on a thumbnail below to see a larger version.

As you know, Monday October 8th is our final Brewer’s Backyard of the year, an Oktoberfest party with Beau’s All-Natural.  And what would Oktoberfest be without sausages?  And so we have sausages!  We’re happy to announce that our friends at WVRST will be joining us at the Brewer’s Backyard serving up some of their delicious sausages to complement the delicious Beau’s beer available.

So come to our unique Brewer’s Backyard version of Oktoberfest (nicknamed Torontoberfest) on Monday, October 8th from 12-4pm at Koerner Gardens at the Evergreen Brick Works.  You can see a fun poster we’ve done for the event on the right side here.  We hope to see you there!.