Sunday was a special day for us. We finally hosted our first beer tasting party in a long while. It’s probably been close to two years since the last one (My daughter is almost two years old, probably just a coincidence). We had a great time and tried a lot of different beer!
Here’s a quick rundown of the beers we tasted:
- Sunset Orange by Shock Top Brewing Co.
- Heavy Lifting IPA by Boulevard Brewing Co.
- Monk & Honey by Torn Label Brewing Company
- Juli Goldenberg / Monkey Paw / Stone 24 Carrot Golden Ale by Stone Brewing
- Cherry Chocolate Beer by O’Fallon Brewery
- Grapefruit Gose by Crane Brewing Company
- Manhattan Cask Imperial Stout by Boulevard Brewing Co.
- Punkuccino Coffee Pumpkin Ale by Elysian Brewing Company
- Drew Curtis / Wil Wheaton / Greg Koch Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout (2017) by Stone Brewing
I tried to keep this list fairly local as the group I was hosting for was a lot of friends from out of town. The two from Stone Brewing just looked too good to pass up though. I personally wanted to try the 24 Carrot Golden Ale, as well I always try to have at least one beer on the list that is just there to stump everyone. No one is going to guess that they are drinking a carrot beer.
A couple of highlight from the night for me though were the 24 Carrot, crazy flavor, not at all what I was expecting going into a carrot beer. The Grapefruit Gose by Crane Brewing was probably one of my favorite flavors of the night though, they make some of the best fruit and sour beers I’ve had. This one had just the right amount of sour for me. And of course the Manhattan Cask from Boulevard was a treat. It’s a good thing we only had enough for a couple ounces each, otherwise we all would have just kept drinking that beer and then not made it home that night…
I’ll probably write up a post in the future with some tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way hosting multiple beer tasting events. The most important though is to have fun! We had a blast trying all these fun beers. We weren’t super serious about it, so don’t expect much from my Untappd check-ins that night. Knowing who your audience is and making sure they are having a good time is going to make them that much more likely to want to come back and continue trying beer.
