A fresh brewery is joining East Vancouver's 'Yeast Van' strip, Calvin Harris has confirmed a Canadian date, and the city's libraries are throwing a Dolly Parton festival. Here's what's worth knowing if you're in town or planning a visit.
Discovery Brewing Company is the newcomer to watch. It's opening at 310 Victoria Dr. this fall, pairing its own craft beers with shareable tapas. You don't have to wait for the doors to open to try the beer: the 815 Helles Lager (a nod to the Munich region's early brewing history) is already pouring at The Magnet, The Gull Liquor Store and High Point, while the Lovelace West Coast Pilsner is on shelves at the two liquor stores. If you're plotting a brewery crawl along Victoria Drive, a couple of these cans would make a good warm-up.
Music fans have a bigger date to circle. Calvin Harris is heading out on his first career-spanning tour of North America, and Vancouver made the Canadian cut. He plays Rogers Arena on Sunday, May 16, and general admission tickets go on sale at noon on Thursday, Oct. 22 — worth setting a timer for, since arena EDM shows in Vancouver tend to sell fast.
The week's quirkier item: last week's windstorm stripped a local tree bare so quickly that a before-and-after Reddit post went viral, with the two photos taken just 48 hours apart. Blustery autumn weather is very much part of the Vancouver October package.
On the practical side, delivery apps Skip and Instacart have integrated with each other, so you can now order groceries and essentials through Skip, and Instacart users can tap into more than 50,000 restaurants across Canada. Members of either subscription (Skip+ or Instacart+) get some delivery-fee perks out of the deal. Handy if you're staying in an Airbnb and cooking for yourself.
There's also a decent slate of low-key events this week: a witchy T-shirt crafting session and a board game social at the Vancouver Public Library's Renfrew Branch on Tuesday, Oct. 13; the opening of the 'Of Flesh and Flavour' exhibit at Slice of Life Gallery and the library's Dolly-Palooza — Dolly Parton film screenings plus trivia — on Thursday, Oct. 15; a free screening of the 1911 film Dante's Inferno at Roedde House Museum that same evening; a linocut printing workshop at R&B Brewing on Saturday, Oct. 17; and the End Times Garage Sale at Heritage Hall on Sunday, Oct. 18 for second-hand hunters.
Why it matters: if you're visiting Vancouver this month, the Victoria Drive brewery strip and the library's eclectic events calendar give you stuff to do beyond the usual Stanley Park circuit — and most of it is cheap or free.
