The Vancouver craft-beer scene has been on fire for the past few years, with new breweries seemingly opening on every corner. There’s so much going on here that it’s easy to forget about what’s happening in Victoria, the city that gave birth to Canada’s first brewpub, Spinnakers, in 1984. But the upcoming Victoria Beer Week, which takes place from March 7 to 15, is a great opportunity to catch up.

“People in Vancouver may not even realize what’s going on in Victoria,” says Joe Wiebe, who cofounded the event with a handful of other beer enthusiasts. The author of Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries (and a Georgia Straight contributor) lives in the provincial capital and says that Victoria led the way in the B.C. craft-beer industry in the 1980s and ’90s.

While he doesn’t claim that one city’s craft-beer scene is better than the other’s, he notes that they evolved differently. “Victoria has long been punching above its weight [in the craft-beer scene] for a city of its size, compared to Vancouver,” he says in a phone interview. While the pace of growth has recently exploded in Vancouver, it has been steady in Victoria, with a new brewery opening every few years. “We have a really unique cultivation of brewpubs and breweries in a very small area,” he says, noting that visitors can do a “Victoria Beer Mile” loop of four brewpubs and four breweries in the Upper Harbour area alone.

Wiebe and his cofounders pulled the nonprofit festival together relatively quickly, and over 3,000 people attended 14 events in March 2014. Wiebe says that with the benefit of experience, this year’s festival will be bigger and better, with 22 scheduled events. The organizers are expanding on what proved popular—there are two cask nights instead of one, for example—and increasing the number of food-pairing events.

The festival stretches over two weekends, giving mainlanders ample time to hop a ferry. Breweries from around B.C. will be on hand throughout the week. For example, on March 11, the Craft Beer Thunderdome event sees the release of 10 brand-new beers from places like Powell River’s Townsite Brewing and Port Moody’s Yellow Dog Brewing.

Many of the events, however, focus on Victoria and the city’s iconic beer spots. For example, on March 8, Pedalin’ for Pints on International Women’s Day consists of a women-only guided cycling tour around town with stops at Spinnakers, the Moon Under Water Brewpub, Driftwood Brewery, and more to chat with women in the brewing industry. From March 12 to 14, there will be evening brewery crawls by limousine bus hitting local hot spots.

And of course, there will be a chance to check out what’s new. West Coast Brewery Tours, a company that launched in the past year, is offering a bus tour called the New Brew Cruise on March 14 that will travel to new, buzz-worthy spots outside of downtown Victoria. These include Category 12 Brewing, which opened in the suburb of Saanichton last December; 4 Mile Brewing Co., which opened about a year ago in View Royal; and Loghouse Brewpub, which is on the cusp of making its debut in Langford. The tour is a great opportunity to check them all out with the benefit of a designated driver.

Some of the events, like one focused on sour beers and another on beer-and-pizza pairing, are already sold out. But tickets are available for many others, including a Cooking With Beer class at the London Chef on March 14 and the closing Brewmaster’s Brunch on March 15. The latter morning takes place at a long table in the impressive reclaimed-wood ambiance of the Atrium building. The Island Chefs’ Collaborative will be creating a sit-down meal; each of the six courses will be paired with a four-ounce beer from around Vancouver Island.

According to Wiebe, the festival also has a strong educational component. Eureka Beer Guide’s Ken Beattie is returning with his popular History of Beer class on March 8. On March 13, the CBC’s Khalil Akhtar will host a town-hall evening with panellists discussing what’s next in craft beer for the province. During the event, luminaries like Phillips Brewing founder Matt Phillips will also address the question, “What will craft beer in Victoria look like in 2020?” and Wiebe will launch his newly revised second edition of Craft Beer Revolution.

It’s a challenge to keep up with all the brewery activity in B.C., but a tasty one indeed.

See Victoria Beer Week (victoriabeerweek.com/ ) for information and tickets. For transportation and accommodation information, see Tourism Victoria (tourismvictoria.com/ ).