Bizarre brews excite Vancouver beer lovers

For many craft beer lovers in Canada's western coastal city of Vancouver, the summer doesn't quite get started until the unveiling of the Vancouver Craft Beer Week, an event launched seven years ago to boost the emerging local craft beer industry.

For many beer lovers, the wackier the better. So in the big craft beer festival wrapping up the event, people could find over 100 craft brewers with nearly 400 craft beers available, some of which may quite interesting -- or a little bizarre -- with ingredients that might come as a surprise.

Chris Bjerrisgaard, Craft Beer Week organizer, said on Saturday that Vancouver's rising number of brewers are more creative than ever with their recipes and ingredients.

Each year, Canadians drink about 22 million hectolitre of beer, with Canadian-made craft beer comprising an increasing portion of that total each year.

Craft beer must be independently and locally owned by small-batch brewers. It's fermented longer and is made without preservatives. No two craft beers are the same.

The festival has doubled in size each year, with organizers expecting more than 10,000 people for this two-day tasting finale.

Meanwhile, the number of breweries in the city has nearly tripled over the past seven years since the festival was first launched. Endi