Fest session 1
Fest session 1
Fest session 1
When things started to happen in craft beer industry, Brian Titus of Garrison Brewing, the brewery that he co-founded in Halifax back in 1997 and Bruce Mansour, founder of Make It Happen, Inc., an events management and sponsorship consulting firm asked themselves 'Why doesn't Halifax have a craft beer festival?' It did not take long for the former diving officer in the Navy, to jump in and look at the opportunity. Titus has always had a love of craft beer and was an avid home brewer and when he came to the East Coast and noticed there wasn’t much of a craft beer scene he decided to start one so it should be no surprise that he and Mansour would soon organize the first Halifax Seaport Beer Festival. The first event in Halifax was 5 hours and included 15 breweries which saw about 1,200 people come out to sample what was on tap and available in Halifax and what the craft brewing had to offer. Fast forward to 2019, “what started as a thread has become a rope,” says Mansour. The event changed its name to the Halifax Seaport Cider and Beerfest this year to represent the diversity and inclusivity of the industry, with over 140 brewers and more than 350 beers, ciders and meads from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia along with brewers from Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, UnitedKingdomand theUnited States as “Why doesn't Halifax have a craft beer festival?”
“The whole idea is brewers learning from other brewers around the world and just sharing beers,” said Sean Sullivan, the very passionate craft beer ambassador and executive director of the Maine Brewers’ Guild as we spoke at Garrison Brewing.
“What started as a thread has become a rope.”
“The craft beer industry is known for being collaborative, we really see this as a symbol of that global craft beer community collaboration,” said Sullivan. About 200 people from Maine’s brewing industry were in Halifax not only to pour beer to the many festival goers but to have the opportunity to meet and collaborate with local brewers to learn and share best practices with those in the industry here in Canada. The craft beer industry continues to grow as a result of these interactions which keeps rising the bar for the industry itself. Very much like the craft beer enthusiasts that come to these events to meet the people behind the beer and learn the story about their beer, it gives brewers fromMaine a professional reason to do the same. “The idea behind the Maine Beer Box is to promote Maine as the best destination for craft beer tourists and to do that our brewers need to go outside of their comfort zone and their professional bubble to meet brewers from all over the world, and learn about different beer styles and the Maine Beer Box gives them that opportunity.”
Fest session 1
the Maine Beer Box made a stop at this year’s festival supporting a cross-country beer trade making the Halifax waterfront a craft beer enthusiasts paradise drawing in over 6,000 attendees for three tasting sessions spread over two days. The Halifax Seaport Cider and Beerfest brought 78 brews from 65 Maine breweries across the border this year in a very unique fashion with the Maine Beer Box, which is a massive 40-foot, refrigerated shipping container set up as a mobile keg fridge with taps fitted right into the side of the container. In addition to visiting Halifax, the Maine Beer Box has also visited Leeds, UK in 2017 and Reykjavik, Iceland in 2018 in the hopes of promoting both Maine’s local beer scene and the opportunities for international beer trade.
Fest session 1
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2019
37 SEPTEMBER 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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