Craft beer festival celebrates return to Newmarket
As yet another sign of some normalcy coming back to events throughout the region, a craft beer festival returned to the heart of Newmarket over the weekend.
The Newmarket Winter Craft Beer Festival took over the grounds of the town's legion hall over the last few days. The winter event serves to launch various upcoming craft beer festivals throughout the area.
"It feels really good to be back," says the festival's director Michelle Planche. "It's like clearing the cobwebs a little bit because after not being in person for two years, there's a lot of relearning again. A lot of things have changed, so you're trying to figure out what you want to keep from the last few years from what you've learned in terms of safety and whatnot and also where we're going."
The event featured approximately 25 different vendors from across the province. Beer enthusiasts had a wide choice from cideries to producers and, of course, craft breweries.
"This is obviously an event where you get to mingle, eat and drink," says Planche. "A lot has happened in the last little while, and a lot of restrictions have been lifted too! So we wanted to create a great environment and a safe environment and allow people to come and have fun."
The winter festival first started in 2019 but was forced to shift to a virtual format throughout the pandemic. Instead of the traditional in-person gathering, they partnered with local Ontario producers to put together monthly-curated boxes, each led by a particular brewery and featuring a virtual tasting.
"Over the last two years, we continued to support local breweries in whatever way that we could and Ontario producers," says Planche. "It was a great way to stay connected and continue to support local and support local breweries."
It also served as a fundraiser for Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Survey shows employees aren’t disconnecting from work on vacation
Although remote work has cleared the way for workplace flexibility, allowing employees to work in various locations (and climates), a new study suggests it’s taking a serious toll on work-life balance.

'Canadian friends, reinforcements are coming': France sending 100 firefighters to Quebec, Macron announces
France will be sending firefighters to aid Quebec as the province continues to battle massive forest fires, French President Emmanuel Macron announced.
Increase in mosquitoes 'a trend' across Canada this year. Here's why
Mosquitoes have always been pesky, but this spring it seems the bloodsuckers are thirstier than ever, a trend one expert says is increasing.
Nova Scotians’ personal information stolen in global security breach: province
The Nova Scotia government says it is investigating the theft of personal information stolen through a global privacy breach to a third-party file transfer system the province was using.
Adult victim in Que. fishing incident that killed 4 children identified
Quebec provincial police (SQ) have identified the adult victim of a fishing incident that claimed five lives over the weekend, most of them children. Keven Girard, 37, was among a group of 11 people swept up by the tide late Friday night while fishing along the shore in Portneuf-sur-Mer, a village about 550 kilometres northeast of Montreal.
Uncertainty remains for Halifax-area evacuees as wildfire 100 per cent contained
A wildfire that tore through homes and businesses in the Halifax area is 100 per cent contained, but a historic fire in southwestern Nova Scotia remains out of control.
Canada sticking with 2050 net zero targets, but progress may come faster than expected, minister says
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says the federal government is not ruling out finding ways to achieve net zero sooner than the existing 2050 goal, but would not say whether there would be a definitive commitment to move up the target.
Apple is expected to unveil a sleek, pricey headset. Is it the device VR has been looking for?
Apple appears poised to unveil a long-rumoured headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world, while also testing the technology trendsetter's ability to popularize new-fangled devices after others failed to capture the public's imagination.
Ukrainian father rushes home after Russian airstrike to find 2-year-old daughter dead in rubble
A Ukrainian man rushed to his home outside the central city of Dnipro in hopes of rescuing his family, only to find his two-year-old daughter dead and wife seriously wounded as he helped pull them from the rubble of their apartment destroyed in one of Russia's latest airstrikes of the war, authorities reported Sunday.