Do you have your own tasting events?

Last week my friends and I did a blind tasting of IPAs and next week is a bottle share where everyone brings their favorite beer (no judging).

I'm trying to get my friends into craft beer and I find these are fun ways to get them involved.

 

Exactly! Same here!

 

Sometimes I'll take a "taste" of my beer, look over at a friend and say, "This is pretty fuckin' good man! You should order one."

I've hosted have my own events, and it goes down a little differently,

"Put that in the fridge and help yourself to anything there. If you grab a bomber, let me know and I'll get a few glasses."

 

For the blind tasting we rated each beer. At the end of the tasting we averaged out the scores and brought the least favorite beer first and so one to the top rated beer and while each person claiming which bottle they brought. The winner has the right to pick which style for the next blind tasting.

 

In the formal sense of the term "event", I have only helped really do one. In that case, the line-up was set, a fee was charged to attend, info on the brews chosen was given out in between samples, etc. Very fun, informative, but it really was truly just about the beer.

I prefer "tasting events" that are more like a happy hour. I pull from the cellar, stock the fridge with good brew, and I may even pick a theme, i.e. pepper stouts, sours, IPAs, etc. This way we could do some blind tests if desired, but usually I just want the focus to be about hanging out with my friends or making some new friends and the good beer is just a tool to help me do that.

 

I've hosted a few. Doing the Mikkeller single-hop and single-yeast series (or at least as much of it as we could get a hold of at the time) were two interesting ones. Also, living in Germany now, the craft beer community here is a little smaller, so it's not uncommon to get together with people when somebody comes across something rare or really good in their travels and brings a bit of it home, and then of course it's nice to share.

 

Houston has at least two monthly bottle shares at two different bars. They let us bring in outside bottles. The rules are, bring something the bar does not have, buy something from the bar (usually lots of food), and tip well. Austin has one as well. The Austin gathering has been going on for about 7 years, and the first Houston gathering about 6 years. It is something I look forward to every month.

 

I have a core group of 5-6 buddies who are all beer geeks. We get together once every month or two and have tastings. Usually, everyone brings 2-3 beers and the unspoken rule is that they are always beers that we can't get locally (or ones that were rare/limited like bourbon county stuff). We usually have a loose theme (stouts, sours, or IPA focused) but there are always a few outliers. We had a good stout tasting last month (huna, backyard, vanilla, prop, Remy's pappy, a few barleywines thrown in) and next we are doing a Bruery themed tasting (mostly stouts like BT, MW, GM, CR, I'll probably throw down a Oude Tart w Cherries for shits and gigs). Pretty fun shit, we always have a great time.

 

I'm hosting one tomorrow. I have assembled 12-15 beers all of different styles and have invited over 4 good friends to see what beer has to offer. Can't wait!

 

I have not done this and would really like to develop a regular group to do tastings with in the Burlington area. I have too many friends who are Bud Light drinkers still.

I did hear about an cool format for a 'tasting' event the other day. Each person brings two bottles of his/her favorite beer at a selected price point. Everyone's first bottle is opened and tasted by the group. Each beer is ranked by each individual according to their own taste and preference. The owner of the beer that turns out the best brings home everyone's second bottle.

 

Our group gets together about once every two weeks and brings 2-3 bottles a piece. The core group is the 7 of us...All good dudes, frequent traders and members on BA, and some of us actually met through this site via events. Every now and again we get some new people who tag along or hear about it via Facebook. Very loose theme but we keep it mostly to out of State distro and harder to find (rare) beers. Somehow we always either have too many IPAs or too many BA stouts...but who can really complain about that.

 

I host a nightly tasting event with myself