Since there was no hockey on this past weekend, Mandeeeezy and I were forced to spend our time doing something else other than yelling at the TV. Fortunately, we had the pleasure of heading down to Jasper for the weekend with Tourism Jasper! We’ve always been good friends with the group, so we were ecstatic when they invited us out to the Inaugural Beer & Barley Summit at the Jasper Park Lodge. 

Believe it or not, this was the first ever beer festival I attended. I’d like to say I’m still early into my beer drinking days, so my beer preference always falls under a lighter lager or IPA of some sort. I’ve never been a fan of Stout or Porter beers….until Saturday night where I drank ALL of the dark beers!

The Summit was a fantastic weekend that had activities ranging from outdoor hockey games to sausage making seminars. We only made it to the beer drinking part of course, but we heard amazing things from everyone about the rest of the weekend. The beer festival gave us a great opportunity to speak to beer brewers and distilleries around Alberta & BC. As always when hanging out with Adam, we couldn’t walk anywhere without having a conversation about beer or hockey with some stranger at the Summit. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming to us.

Overall there were 20 different breweries & distilleries at the event. If every table has an average of three different beverages and you add that up, that’s a LOT of alcohol to drink. Thankfully there were other people at the event to help Adam and me out with drinking it all. Also shoutout to Dog Island Brewing for letting us crush them for eight foosball games in a row!

On Sunday we got up bright an early to take on the Maligne Canyon Ice Walk. It was a guided tour put on by Sun Dog Tours which was originally scheduled for the day before, but due to the heavy snowfall blocking the roads on Friday we decided to reschedule. I’m actually happy with all the snow we got. Granted the drive to Jasper made me feel like I was on the Highway Thru Hell show, it was definitely worth it to see the snowy terrain during the Ice Walk.

The Ice Walk was a three-hour tour through the deepest canyon in the Jasper National Park and gave us an up-close look at natural ice sculptures, the Jasper cave system, and un-freezable waterfalls. David Y. was a great tour guide who made sure we didn’t fall off any cliffs or slip and fall. He also took a photo of you anytime you asked him to.  I mean, what else do you want from an Ice Walk tour guide? My favourite part of the walk was wearing the ice cleats they attached to our boots. I’ve never felt more like a superhero walking up icy inclines with no worry at all about slipping and falling.

Probably the best part of the trip was how many Nation Citizens we ran into along the way. I mean, we only travelled a few hours down highway 16, but it always blows my mind how easy it is to run into a Nation fan in other cities. It began in the first few hours on Saturday when Adam and I were taking flag photos at the Jasper Brewing Company. One moment we’re snapping pics at the bar, and the next moment David here approaches us to show off his FIST tattoo! Talk about a small world. David and his wife were up for a work event from Edmonton, and we ended up running into them two more times that day.

Later at the Jasper Park Lodge where the Beer Summit was, countless Oilersnation fans came and said hi to us – probably cause we were flaunting the flag around – and I’ll never get tired of talking to other Oilers fans. Adam probably walked away with a dozen business cards and tons of new numbers in his phone.

Speaking of flags, we decided to leave one behind at our favourite watering hole in Jasper! If you live there or are passing through, be sure to stop by the Jasper Brewing Co. and ask for it! We only left one, so first come first serve!

We couldn’t have experienced this awesome weekend without the love from our friends at Jasper Tourism. We wanted to give a big thank you to the Lobstick Lodge for hosting us all weekend and dealing with my obnoxious turkey hat on Friday night. It truly was a great time and we can’t wait to come back!