These days, if you live in Whitehorse and you like good beer, you will find yourself nestled into one of the cushy chairs at the T & M lounge, catching up on golf highlights; you go there because it is still the only place in town that offers a wide array of craft beer.

But sometimes you want a change of scenery; sometimes you don’t want to go where everyone knows your name; sometimes you want to try a spectrum of beers without blowing your carefully calculated beer budget.

Enter the Yukon Beer Festival; or, dare I say, the Great Yukonian Beer Festivalia, held in Whitehorse on October 17 and 18.

The Yukon Beer Festival is the brainchild of Andrea Pierce, former manager of the T & M lounge, who is responsible for turning that bar into a Mecca for craft beer drinkers. Planning for the festival has been underway for many months, but Pierce recently handed over the reins when she moved south to deal with family matters.

Luckily, Kaori Torigai, always a sucker for punishment, agreed to take on the role as president of the festival and keep the suds rolling.

The venue has been booked (the snazzy Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre), the precious beer order has arrived at the YG liquor warehouse, volunteers are being rounded up, and Torigai, who should have aged a decade in the past month, looks surprisingly perky. Thankfully, the board and several volunteers have stepped in to pick up the slack. It’s no small feat to put an event like this together.

Next stop: Flavourtown

This is a beer festival, but there will be a couple of ciders in the mix, and you’ll even see Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters slinging java for those who like a little up with their down. And for those needing more solid internal fortification, Grateful Spud will be serving delectable bar snacks. Here’s your opportunity to re-forge your beer ties, and even if you are not a complete beer convert this is an opportunity to see if your palate has recalibrated — they say it does every seven years or so. Maybe now you are ready to try that Imperial Hefeweizen or that huckleberry wheat ale.

Besides, it’s only $25 for one of the four-hour sessions (Friday, October 17, from 6 to 10 p.m., Saturday, October 18th from 1 to 5 p.m., or 6 to 10 p.m. Check out the website for more information: http://yukonbeerfestival.com or www.yukontickets.com for ticket purchases.

And if that doesn’t convince you, maybe the talent at GBP Creative will. GBP has posted videos on the Yukon Beer Festival website, each with the tagline “It’s about taste”.

For example, do you want naked baloney on day-old Wonderbread, or do you want slow-roasted free-run chicken on ciabatta with fresh greens and garlic aioli?

I thought so.

The Yukon Beer Festival is your chance to take that train to flavourtown. Come on, you know you want to.

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