Craft beer festival on tap in Sudbury this weekend

Paul Loewenberg, co-ordinator of the Elgin Street Craft Beer Festival, said northerners' love of craft beer is gaining the festival some attention.

This year, Toronto's MIll Street brewery makes the trek north alongside 20 other brewers. The festival estimated that over 60 beers, wines and ciders will be available for tasting.

"We've certainly noticed since the first one the number of brewers that deliver to Sudbury on a regular basis has expanded greatly, and that means that they know northerners drink beer, and we're a market that needs to be attended to," Loewenberg said.

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Loewenberg hopes that the costs of bringing their gear to Sudbury doesn't preclude some small brewers from taking part in future festivals.

"Sadly, it's difficult for a lot of the very small brewers to get up to Sudbury, because a lot of them are sort of one-to-three person operations, and there's a craft beer event going on in a different city in Ontario every weekend of the summer -- at least one, many times two and three -- so, it's difficult to get a lot of the smaller ones to come up," he said.

The festival kicks off with a street party tonight and runs all weekend.

The festival happens alongElgin Street and Grey Street.

For more details, visitelginstreetcraftbeerfestival.com.