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Ben Leon, managing director of the Dandy Brewing Company, is keeping his cask a secret.

This Saturday, the Calgary nano-brewery will be among 28 other brewers tapping firkins – 40-litre vessels of one-off brews – at the Edmonton Beer Geeks Anonymous 5th annual Real Ale Festival. It’s the marquee event for the organization that’s dedicated to growing Alberta craft beer. Nearly sold out, it will host 400 beer lovers, some of whom will be the only people to ever try Dandy’s mystery beer.

“I know it’s going to be a good toast to the end of the summer,” says Leon. “Not to give too much away.”

He will say, however, that the festival fits Dandy’s aesthetic perfectly. “All our beer is real ale,” says Leon. “When you get a beer that’s conditioned with the proper yeast and given the time to let that yeast work with the beer, you get a more complex profile – a truer profile.”

Because this kind of beer is more perishable, few brewers make their living sending out what is known as “live” product. That’s what makes Saturday’s event unique in Alberta. At the Real Ale Festival, we can expect, you might say, nothing but the truth.

Getting real

Real ale is cask or bottle conditioned, meaning it’s unpasteurized and not artificially carbonated. In the brewing process, it’s the stage where the last standing yeast, having eaten nearly all the grain sugar in sight, are lazily tidying up and drawing fermentation to a close.

“Fresh beer is best,” says Shane Groendahl, EBGA founding president and one of the festival’s principle coordinators.

So is creativity, he adds. The festival – likely Alberta’s largest single collection of casks (25 of them supplied by the province’s breweries) – invites brewers to “go nuts, be creative,” says Groendahl. “Make something that you’re going to want to drink and you’re proud to show off.”

The event showcases the province’s brewing talent as much as the product. A brewer himself (a co-owner at Blindman Brewing), Groendahl feels it helps put “a face to the 6-pack.” It’s a relationship-building opportunity for brewers and consumers – something that, as breweries rapidly continue to accumulate in Alberta, could prove all the more valuable in years to come.

“It’s something we want to continue to do no matter how big the industry gets,” says Groendahl of the event.

Better beer

Just as the Real Ale Festival has the potential to strengthen the brewing community and boost local demand, it could be a crucible for even better brewing in Alberta. The event’s focus on experimentation will almost certainly lead to cross-pollination.

“I’d be crazy to say you don’t go to a festival like that and try someone’s awesome cask and say, ‘We’ve got to step it up,’” says Leon. “Or you never know if a brewer has visited another city and brought back a really cool style or trend.”

Which means Saturday will be a day of surprises for everyone in attendance. Among the possible eye-openers might be the marked difference in the taste of fresh versus off-the-shelf beer; the flavours that emerge when nearly 30 brewers are invited to “go nuts”; and maybe even a glimpse of where this young industry is be headed.

The drawback for Leon? It’s not his turn to bring Dandy’s cask. This year, the brewery’s second at the festival, the honour goes to sales director Matt Gaetz. “It’s always rock, paper, scissors,” says Leon with a laugh. “I wish it was me.”