(a blurry late night/early morning iPhone photo from inside the German Beer Pavilion)About halfway through Vancouver's Winter Olympics 2010, we started receiving receiving reports that the German Fan Fest tent or German Beer Pavilion, as I called it, had sold more beer in one week than the last two Olympics combined. So much so that they were sending for emergency beer reinforcements from Germany. Prohibitionists would be ashamed. But, in Canada, and our only response was A-W-E-S-O-M-E, let's drink more!
While I have not been able to confirm these reports, and, in fact, no one seems to be giving out volume numbers of beer consumption; our inquiring minds want to know! So, if we can assume that more visits to the beer gardens would equal more beer drunk, then the only conclusion can be that the Vancouver Olympics were one GREAT party.
Take, for another example, the Heineken House. This was a pavilion that was way out of the City centre, in Richmond, but still put up enormous numbers. According to a story on bclocalnews.com, the Heineken House "nearly doubled the early estimates, reaching 120,000 visitors ... more than in Beijing, China in 2008 and Torino, Italy in 2006 ... Little did they realize the capacity Canadians had for partying." According to another story in The Province, "Heineken expects to pour 320,000 beers during the Games". Now, that was before the Games, and, at that point, they were only expecting about 50,000 visits. Therefore, we can assume that the Heineken House actually sold at least 800,000 beers during the 2 week span. And, considering there were reports they were significantly outpacing their proposed beer consumption rates, that number could be significantly higher. Okay, so that place was a party.
Lets take another angle here. According to that same story in the Province before the Games, the Molson Hockey House cost $15 million to construct and run. Were they expecting to make a profit? "If Team Canada goes deep into the tournament, we should be OK", said Jordan Bitove, some Molson marketing dude. Well, that Team Canada did go deep in the Men's Hockey tournament. They won the Gold! So, if we minus out the exorbitant door fees (although it was amazing inside), that still leaves $ millions upon $ millions sold in beer. Even at $7/beer, do the math, that's well over 1,000,000 beers; no matter which we way you add it up. Now, with approximately 3,000 visitors a day, albeit a rotating 3,000 visitors including in and out privileges, that's an enormous amount of beer being drunk per person as well. PARTAY!
So, WOW!, there was something going on in Vancouver. Hopefully you were able to experience some of this Country's biggest ever beer bash. We did, and our Drink Toques were our Co-pilot in Fun the whole way. Thanks Vancouver!
