Funk Fest, The Lowest of the Low and my busy, busy Canada Day Weekend.

Happy Canada Day!

Funk Fest 2018

Well, July has hit us here like a wave of lava. We are on our third or fourth day of extreme heat warnings and I picked this weekend to be extra busy. First up, on Saturday, June 30th,  was the wonderful Funk Fest at Sawdust City Brewing in Gravenhurst. For those of you who have never heard of our annual celebration of funky beers, Funk Fest showcases some of the best breweries in Ontario (and beyond now) that brew beers, which are considered "sour" or "funky."  It started out mostly as a character of Belgian beers, and Flander's Reds but breweries started to experiment and we now have Goses, Sour IPSs Sour Pale Ales, Auld Bruns, Farmhouse Saisons. It is a lovely mix of different beers. It is the third time The Queen of Pint Jockey Headquarters, and I have gone and quite frankly it gets better every year. This year we only sampled around 40 or so beers and the humidex was courting the forties (Celsius) and there wasn't much cloud cover or shade. They did have a misting tent this year which was a nice addition to the show, and they had a Paramedic on pancake duty, thankfully I don't think he was utilised much.  There were 40 Breweries this year pouring around 100 beers. In addition to about 33 Ontario Breweries, we had A la Fut rejoin us from Quebec, and three breweries from B.C: Dageraad from Burnaby, Four Winds from Delta, and Powell from Vancouver, and a few 

Tasty Sours

breweries from the USA. I'm very happy to say Funk Fest gets bigger and better every year and I can't wait for the next one. I did attempt to live blog again this year but, the same issue happened as last. With so many people at the event utilising the wifi is impossible. And I didn't want to see my cell phone bill after I uploaded so many pictures. So I broke out the old notebook and went analogue on this blog, so I am a little slow in posting my Funk Fest notes, mainly because I have to decipher my own handwriting.

The Lowest of The Low

Then on Canada day, after a long hot shift at work, we went off to The KEE to Bala, which if you are not from around here, is the Holy Temple of Canadian Music. (read it's a barn someone turned into a concert venue 75 years ago and anyone who is anything in the Canadian music scene has played there.) The Canada day concert this year featured my favourite Canadian band "The Lowest of the Low." They are perhaps one of the best indie artists to come out of Canada and are a truly genre-defying punk-folk-pop- rock-blues group. Their songs are lyrically driven guitar heavy pieces of art. and I suggest you check them out. I know many of you who are long-time readers have heard me natter on about them before... but truly they are worth the listen. It was the Queen's first time to hear them and she really did enjoy herself (she has good taste in music!) Oh, and I think Matt Mays was there too... not sure.

Anyway... I've rested... time to get those notes up. Stick around and see if I can figure out what I was trying to say.

Cheers


CJT