Celebrate the longest day of the year.
Across Scandinavia, midsummer has long been a season of gathering, food, music, and celebration. It's a moment to enjoy community during the brightest days of summer.
Join us for an evening inspired by Nordic midsummer traditions featuring Scandinavian food and a beer lineup celebrating northern European brewing heritage.
Featured beers include Nordic Farmhouse Ale, our 1896 Danish Lager, Icelandic stout and Gotlandsdricka, a traditional farmhouse ale from Sweden with roots stretching back centuries. Traditional scandinavian food available for purchase.
Expect long tables, patio atmosphere, good food, and good company.
Bring friends. Bring family. Stay awhile.
Family friendly. Dog friendly patio + parking lot celebration.
Date: Friday, June 19
Time: from 6pm to midnight
Tickets: $10 (includes a pint of your choice)
Location: Good Cheer Brewing
Explore Denmark through food, beer, and Nordic tradition.
Join us for an afternoon celebrating Danish culture, featuring traditional food, historical brewing, and stories from one of Scandinavia’s great cultural traditions.
Enjoy frikadeller, pickled herring on rye (smørrebrød), and Danish pastry alongside beers inspired by northern Europe’s brewing history. Each ticket includes: one frikadeller with pickled cabbage, mashed potato and beer butter, a half smørrebrød, a half pastry, and two taster sized beers.
Sample beers include our 1896 Danish Lager and Raøl, a traditional Nordic raw farmhouse ale connected to some of Europe’s oldest surviving brewing traditions.
Whether you have Danish roots, love Scandinavian food and culture, or simply enjoy discovering something new, Denmark Day offers an opportunity to taste history and experience another corner of the world without leaving Calgary.
Family friendly.
Date: June 7
Time: 12h00-14h00
Tickets: $30
Location: Good Cheer Brewing
Wednesday, June 17 from 6:30-8:30.
Join us for a celebration of Icelandic culture on Icelandic National Day (Þjóðhátíðardagurinn) and explore Icelandic culture through food, history, and beer.
Iceland’s story reaches far beyond volcanoes and glaciers. It also reaches Canada.
Join us as we explore Icelandic traditions, food, and the remarkable story of Nýja Ísland (New Iceland) and the Vesturíslendingar, the Icelandic settlers who helped shape communities in Canada. Our owner/brewer is a fifth-generation Vesturíslendingar who grew up 150m from the spot Icelanders first landed to settle in Canada.
Enjoy Icelandic-inspired food, including pylsa, Iceland’s famous hot dog, alongside an Icelandic stout and Nordic beer features.
The evening includes Icelandic trivia, a short historical talk exploring Icelandic history, settlement in Canada, and the enduring cultural connections between Iceland and North America. We’ll also have a contest to see who can best pronounce words like Þjóðhátíðardagurinn.
Whether you have Icelandic roots or simply love discovering cultures through food and drink, Iceland Day offers an evening of stories worth sharing.
Family friendly.
Date: Wednesday, July 17
Time: 18h30-20h30
Tickets: $12.50 (includes a pysla and an Icelandic stout taster)
Location: Good Cheer Brewing
Our 1990 West Coast IPA recreates that first wave of craft brewing: crisp, piney, and firmly bitter, capturing the moment IPA was reinvented for a new generation.
This beer uses 100% of its hops from the incomparable Myrtle Meadows Hop Farm in Pemberton BC. We select not just the varieties but the specific hop plants we use for this beer, creating a hop blend you won’t find anywhere else.
6.5% alc/vol
473ml
Roasted barley gives flavours of coffee, toast, dark bread crust, and bitterness.
A proper Irish stout from the 1950s was brewed for long evenings and full pints, not tiny glasses and ceremony. It was everyday beer. A working person’s pint.
Dry stout belonged to labourers, longshoremen, musicians, clerks, pensioners, and men standing shoulder-to-shoulder at crowded bars beneath yellowed nicotine ceilings. It was a beer for long conversations, slow evenings, and familiar faces.
3.8% alc/vol
473ml
By 1870, IPA was not just a drink but a symbol of British progress and pride. The Industrial Revolution propelled breweries to new heights.
The great Burton breweries, Bass, Allsopp, and Worthington, had refined the style into something precise and consistent: a pale beer with firm bitterness and a dry, elegant finish. This was the era in which IPA became a standard, not an experiment. It was a beer defined as much by balance and drinkability as by strength and preservation.
Our 1870 IPA reflects this moment: bright, structured, and composed, capturing the style at the height of its Victorian refinement.
7.6% alc/vol
473ml
The beer style grisette takes its name from the women in Industrial Revolution France and Belgium who were among the first to work outside the home. At the same time, it recalls the setting of their day. The grey stone of mining towns and the drab, coal-clotted streets of the Industrial Revolution that made grey the colour of urban life.
Like the spirit of the grisettes, perhaps, the drink provides a sharp contrast to its dull surroundings. Pale golden, light, and effervescent, it’s a kind of sunlight in a glass. The opposite of an industrial pub, subterranean mine, or coal smudged city. Perhaps that’s why it was so popular among the coal miners who spent long days underground harvesting the fuel Europe relied on.
Today, as in centuries past, we can enjoy it after a hard day’s work.
3.5% alc/vol
473ml
This is a re-creation of a 500-year old beer that was Martin Luther’s favourite.
Fresh bread and expressive hops made this beer stand out 500 years ago. At 6.5% it was stronger than many beers on the market so it could stand up to the stress of overseas export.
6.5%alc/vol
473ml
Germany comes to Good Cheer on Saturday, May 23.
Join us for a day of great beer, great food, and fun activities celebrating a country with a legacy of fantastic beers: Germany.
Our special guests Mr. Bretzelking will be preparing currywurst (sausages) and traditional German soft pretzels on-site.
We’ll also be pouring two brand-new feature beers brewed specially for the occasion:
-An Ainpöckischbier, re-created from a 1500s recipe and said to have been Martin Luther’s favourite beer
-A hopfenweisse, a modern hoppy wheat ale
Alongside them, we’ll be featuring rich German bocks, historical smoked beers, and a beer from Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery, founded in 1040.
Bring your kids to participate in the pretzel toss. Bring your dog to participate in a best dressed dog competition. Bring your arms to join you in a stein holding contest!
It’s all happening on Saturday, May 23rd.
Secure your space, tickets are $10 and include a pint of Ainpöckischbier or hopfenweisse. Kids get in free.
WAIT! There’s more! This is also the launch of DogDaysYYC, Calgary’s first hot dog festival. We’ll be serving three kinds of sausages - the currywurst, and Icelandic hot dog and a pretzel dog. $1 from the sale of each goes to the Pet Access League Society.
Event Schedule
2:00 - Session opens
2:10 - Opening pour ceremony and dinner launch
2:30 - Pretzel toss contest (kids and adults)
3:00 - 10 minute talk on the history of bock beer and weizen
3:30 - Stein holding competition
4:00 - Dog costume contest
4:30 - Beer garden trivia contest
Celebrate Norway’s Seventeenth of May (Syttende Mai) with an afternoon of traditional Norwegian food and drink. Come on a journey guided by a Scandinavian culinary artisan and a brewer as we travel from the age of longships to today.
Savour golden heart-shaped waffles with Norway’s famous brown cheese, the classic street food of Pølse med Lompe, and the crackling, succulent Ribbe - feasts that echo from Viking halls to modern tables. Delight in an epic medieval Norwegian ale, a Raøl, reborn from a recipe once lost to time.
$25 gets you a sample of each of the three dishes on offer and one taster glass of ale (additional beer available for purchase).
May 17 at noon.
Before McKnight Boulevard, there was Willie.
William “Willie” McKnight grew up in Calgary. A brilliant, rebellious young man, known as much for mischief as for talent he walked away from medical school in 1939 to join the Royal Air Force. Within a year, he would become one of Canada’s most remarkable fighter pilots.
He was the leading ace at Dunkirk, shooting down multiple aircraft in just days as Allied troops fled the beaches. In the Battle of Britain, he became Canada’s top-scoring pilot. By 23, he had destroyed 19 enemy aircraft and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar, the first Canadian in the war to do so.
But behind the victories was a restless, complicated young man. He was charismatic, impulsive, and searching for his place in the world.
This talk draws on rare photographs and personal memories from the McKnight family archive to explore both the legend and the person: the ace, and the man he was becoming before he disappeared over the English Channel in 1941, aged just 23.
Join us at 6:30pm on Tuesday, May 26.
The talk is free but you can reserve a spot by making a donation to the Historical Society of Alberta (see below).
Since 1907, the Historical Society of Alberta has supported individual researchers, authors and those who wish to know more about our history. They advocate for Alberta’s history and work in partnership with other like-minded organizations and groups.
This March, the Government of Alberta cut the funding ($76,000) for this 119 year-old organization.
You can help.
We’re hosting monthly talks delivered by members of the Historical Society on the last Tuesday of each month. The talks are free, but you can reserve a spot by making a donation below for $2 - $20.
If you’d like a tax receipt the minimum donation is $25. Please email nathan@goodcheer.beer with the subject line HISTORICAL TAX RECEIPT.
What if the world’s most celebrated wines weren’t shaped by modern innovation but by monks, working patiently over centuries?
Burgundy, Bourgogne in French, is one of the oldest and most influential wine regions in the world, with roots stretching back over 2,000 years to Roman vineyards. But its true identity was forged in the Middle Ages, when monastic orders like the Cistercians and Benedictines began to study the land with extraordinary care.
These monks were not just religious figures, they were disciplined observers. Over generations, they recorded subtle differences in soil, slope, and exposure, isolating individual vineyard plots. The Clos de Vougeot, established in the 12th century, still stands as a testament to their precision and belief that place matters.
And this is where Burgundy becomes truly remarkable.
With just two dominant grapes, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, winemakers step back rather than intervene. The goal is not to shape the wine, but to reveal it. In Burgundy, a difference of just a few hundred meters can mean a completely different expression in the glass.
This idea, terroir, is not just a concept. It is a discipline, refined over centuries, and still alive in every bottle today.
Join us for an exclusive talk led by Quentin, our assistant brewer and wine expert, born and raised in Burgundy. Through guided tasting and storytelling, you’ll experience how history, place, and tradition come together one glass at a time.
The talk is free, but you can reserve a seat by pre-purchasing a tasting flight of three Burgundian wines to pair with the talk ($28).
Tuesday, April 21. 6:30pm
Join us for a beer/talk pairing with our owner and head brewer as we go on a journey into the stories behind historical beer styles and how they’re made. We’ll discuss three styles: IPA, Porter, and Bock.
Each segment of the talk will be paired with two tasters of each style.
IPA - From the first IPA brewed in 1752 to the present day, we’ll explore the Beer of Empire with a tasting of our 1870 Burton IPA and our 1990 West Coast.
Porter - The first porters were brewed in the early 1700s, named after the men who carried cargo by hand from the London docks into the city. We’ll taste re-created porters from 1817 and 1901 as we trace the over 300 year-old history of the style.
Bock - This famous 700 year-old style was the reformer Martin Luther’s favourite. Taste two classic
German examples (Aecht Schlenkerla Urbock + Aynger Celebrator Doppelbock) as we tell the stories behind this famous style.
Tuesday, April, 14. 6:30pm.
$25 gets you a flight of 6 beers, admission to our one-hour beer history experience, and $5 off your next beer (either at the event of later).
Beer & Cheese Pairing: A Guided Sensory Workshop
Join us for an in-depth guided tasting led by one of our brewers exploring the chemistry of great beer and cheese pairings. Using sight, aroma, and taste, we’ll identify the dominant compounds in four distinct historical beer styles and discover how they interact with carefully selected cheeses.
Through a structured but relaxed tasting of four historical beers (200ml each) and four premium cheeses (30g each), you’ll experience how fat, salt, protein, and rind microbiology influence flavour perception - softening bitterness, amplifying aromatics, and creating harmony between malt, hops, yeast, and dairy. Each pairing will be demonstrated and explored together, from Victorian IPA with aged English cheddar to raw Nordic ales with washed-rind cheese. And at 800ml of beer and 120g of cheese this is a serious tasting!
This workshop blends sensory training, brewing history, and delicious pairings in a convivial setting. By the end, you’ll understand why certain combinations work — and how to predict great pairings on your own.
Seats are limited to maintain an intimate tasting environment.
Join us at Good Cheer Brewing, 1220 20 Ave SE, Calgary
Beer & Cheese Pairing: A Guided Sensory Workshop - Belgian Beer Edition
Join us for an in-depth guided tasting led by one of our brewers exploring the chemistry of great beer and cheese pairings. Using sight, aroma, and taste, we’ll identify the dominant compounds in four distinct historical beer styles and discover how they interact with carefully selected cheeses.
Through a structured but relaxed tasting of four historical beers (200ml each) and four premium cheeses (30g each), you’ll experience how fat, salt, protein, and rind microbiology influence flavour perception - softening bitterness, amplifying aromatics, and creating harmony between malt, hops, yeast, and dairy. Each pairing will be demonstrated and explored together, from Victorian IPA with aged English cheddar to raw Nordic ales with washed-rind cheese. And at 800ml of beer and 120g of cheese this is a serious tasting!
This workshop blends sensory training, brewing history, and delicious pairings in a convivial setting. By the end, you’ll understand why certain combinations work — and how to predict great pairings on your own.
Seats are limited to maintain an intimate tasting environment.
Join us at Good Cheer Brewing, 1220 20 Ave SE, Calgary
The is a free event, pre-purchasing a Trappist beer guarantees you a seat.
For nearly a thousand years, Trappist monks have brewed some of the most revered beers in the world. Not for profit, but to sustain monastic life and support charitable work.
From the quiet abbeys of medieval Europe to the globally celebrated breweries of Belgium and the Netherlands today, Trappist beer represents one of the longest continuous brewing traditions in human history.
Join us on Thursday, March 19th at 6:30 for an engaging and story-driven talk exploring how this remarkable tradition developed. We’ll trace the origins of monastic brewing, the rise of the Cistercian and Trappist orders, and how their disciplined way of life shaped the beers we know today.
Along the way we’ll explore:
• Why monks brewed beer in the first place
• How monasteries became centres of brewing excellence
• The difference between Trappist and Abbey beer
• The unique rules that govern Trappist brewing today
• The stories behind famous monasteries like Westmalle, Chimay, and Orval
This talk is informal, fascinating, and designed for both beer lovers and history enthusiasts alike.
Seats are limited.
Reserve yours by pre-purchasing a Trappist beer to enjoy during the talk. Your ticket will allow you to choose from one of: Orval (6.9%), Chimay Red (7%), Westmalle Tripel (9.5%), Chimay Blue (9%), La Trappe Quadruple (10%).
Grab a drink, take a seat, and discover the extraordinary story behind the monks who brew.
Thursday, March 19 at 6:30, Good Cheer Brewing 1220 20 Ave SE.
Step into an afternoon of Icelandic flavour and discovery on Sunday, March 15 from noon to 2pm.
Let Scandinavian culinary experts and brew masters guide you on a journey across oceans and centuries at our limited‑seating Icelandic Tasting. We’ll discuss Icelandic culinary history as you sample traditional and modern Icelandic foods.
Savour the modern street‑food spirit of Pylsa alongside the timeless traditions of Hangikjöt and Rúllupylsa, delicacies enduring from Iceland’s Viking past to today. Enjoy a pairing of craft‑brewed Icelandic beer, revived from an ancient brewing traditions and brought back to life for this experience.
Each ticket includes a sample of each food and a taster size (120ml) beer. Additional beer and food available for purchase at the event.
Good Cheer Brewing. 1220 20 Ave SE, Calgary.
On Tuesday, March 10 at 6pm, Good Cheer Brewing hosts Dr. Richard Unger, one of the world’s leading beer historians and author of Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Discover how brewing moved from medieval kitchens to powerful urban industries — reshaping trade, politics, and the modern beer we drink today.
This is not a casual tasting. It’s a rare live conversation with a world-leading expert. He’s coming into town for one night only so this is your only chance to hear from and meet him!
This is a free event but seating is limited.
If you would like to reserve a seat use the button below to pre-order any pint of your choosing at our lowest pint price (with tip included) to ensure you have a reserved seat. Our beers only, this does not count for the Belgians.
The pre-purchase includes tip. It is redeemable upon giving your order number and name to the person behind the bar on March 10th. It is only valid for March 10th. No refunds. You can give your order # and name to someone else if you can’t make it.
This is an in-depth exploration of flavour chemistry
This is not a casual pairing night. It is a guided, technical exploration of how beer and food interact, structurally, chemically, and sensorially.
Join us for an intimate four-course pairing dinner (maximum 14 guests) featuring four 250ml beer pours, each matched with a thoughtfully constructed dish. Together we’ll examine why these combinations work. From fat–bitterness binding and protein–polyphenol interaction, to ester resonance and salt modulation of aroma perception, we’ll guide you through the science of food pairings.
Pairings include:
Grisette + Ceviche
Exploring acidity balance, carbonation lift, and ester–citrus interplay.
West Coast IPA + Thai Green Curry
Bitterness modulation, capsaicin interaction, and hop–herb aromatic bridging.
Export Porter + Aged English Cheddar
Protein binding of tannins, salt-enhanced aroma perception, and roast–umami reinforcement.
Patent Porter + Dark Chocolate
Polyphenol layering, Maillard resonance, and controlled astringency.
Throughout the evening, we’ll break down the dominant flavour compounds in both beer and food, helping you understand pairing as chemistry rather than guesswork.
Limited to 14 guests to preserve a focused, discussion-driven environment.
This is a dinner for the curious — for those who want to understand not just what works, but why.
Beer & Cheese Pairing: A Guided Sensory Workshop
Join us for an in-depth guided tasting led by one of our brewers exploring the chemistry of great beer and cheese pairings. Using sight, aroma, and taste, we’ll identify the dominant compounds in four distinct historical beer styles and discover how they interact with carefully selected cheeses.
Through a structured but relaxed tasting of four historical beers (200ml each) and four premium cheeses (30g each), you’ll experience how fat, salt, protein, and rind microbiology influence flavour perception - softening bitterness, amplifying aromatics, and creating harmony between malt, hops, yeast, and dairy. Each pairing will be demonstrated and explored together, from Victorian IPA with aged English cheddar to raw Nordic ales with washed-rind cheese. And at 800ml of beer and 120g of cheese this is a serious tasting!
This workshop blends sensory training, brewing history, and delicious pairings in a convivial setting. By the end, you’ll understand why certain combinations work — and how to predict great pairings on your own.
Seats are limited to maintain an intimate tasting environment.
Join us at Good Cheer Brewing, 1220 20 Ave SE, Calgary
For centuries, Trappist monks have brewed some of the world’s most revered beers. Not for profit, but to sustain monastic life and charitable work. Their breweries have shaped the history of European brewing and continue to produce some of the most distinctive and influential beers ever made.
Join us for a guided tasting exploring the history, spirituality, and brewing traditions of Trappist beer. We’ll trace the development of monastic brewing from its early foundations through to the modern Trappist breweries of Belgium and the Netherlands, examining how these communities balance tradition, craft, and livelihood.
The evening includes a curated tasting flight (150ml pours each) of an abbey single, Abbey ale, double, tripel and quadruple:
Good Cheer Pattersbier
Orval
Chimay Rouge (Abbey Dubble)
Westmalle Trippel
La Trappe Quadrupel
Alongside each beer, we’ll discuss the origins of Trappist brewing, the role of monasteries in European beer culture, and what makes these beers distinct in both process and philosophy.
This is a relaxed but deeply informative session designed for anyone interested in beer history, European traditions, and exceptional brewing.
Seats are limited to maintain an intimate, discussion-driven atmosphere.
Join us for an in-depth exploration of mixed and spontaneous fermentation, one of the most complex and misunderstood traditions in the brewing world. One of the featured pours will be Cantillon, the legendary Brussels brewery that helped define modern lambic and is very hard to find in North America. This presentation is guided by a former Cantillon brewer.
This guided tasting features a curated flight of four special beers, including both local examples and renowned Belgian classics.
The evening will be led by a former Cantillon brewer, who will walk guests through:
The science of spontaneous fermentation
The role of wild yeast and bacteria
Barrel aging and blending traditions
The history of lambic, gueuze, and mixed-culture brewing
How modern brewers interpret these ancient techniques
This is not just a tasting — it’s a deep dive into living fermentation. Expect nuanced acidity, funk, fruit, oak, and complexity, along with the stories behind how these beers are made and why they matter.
Seats are limited to preserve an intimate, discussion-driven atmosphere.
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