{"id":37411,"date":"2023-01-06T11:35:21","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T19:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcaletrail.ca\/?p=37411"},"modified":"2023-01-06T11:35:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T19:35:21","slug":"looking-back-at-2022-the-year-of-the-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcaletrail.ca\/looking-back-at-2022-the-year-of-the-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back at 2022: The Year of the Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it the Year of the Comeback<\/em>: 2022 saw the return of beer festivals, beer judging\/awards, and beer conferences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With all the trials and tribulations of 2020 and 2021 behind us, we all went into 2022 with a hopeful smile and a Zen-like sense of serenity, right? OK, maybe it wasn\u2019t quite so serene and peachy-keen a year ago… I seem to remember we had a mini-lockdown during the holiday season \u2014 the 1970s-themed New Year\u2019s Eve party I was supposed to attend was cancelled, but I\u2019d grown too attached to the bushy moustache I\u2019d grown for it so I decided not to shave it off immediately, and I still have it today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Joe
Yours truly sporting a COVID ‘stash during Victoria Beer Week in May 2022<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many beer lovers were excited about the return of beer festivals<\/a> in 2022. That did happen, but it was with a bit of a shaky start: Victoria Beer Week<\/a> had to be postponed from March to April, and the Okanagan Fest-of-Ale<\/a> was pushed back from April to May and reduced in scope to a one-day, outdoor event.\u00a0<\/span>Victoria Beer Week did happen, though, and it was a roaring success featuring a mostly sold-out run of events. Unfortunately, even though everyone in attendance had to be double vaccinated, a bunch of us who worked at the events on the final weekend \u2014 myself included \u2014 came down with COVID right afterwards. In my case, it wasn\u2019t too rough (thanks to all my vaccinations no doubt), although it definitely knocked me back for a while.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the spring, I was excited to finally get back on an airplane again \u2014 it was the first time for me since the summer of 2019. That first flight took me up north to Prince George where I had the pleasure of co-hosting a media tour for several visiting journalists. It was a fun group and we all got along well, which is important when you are squeezed into a small vehicle for long drives for several days in a row.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n