Bottle Share or Beer Tasting Questions

I picked up a bunch of cheap plastic 5 oz cups for people that don't bring their own. Can be easily found on Amazon.

I like to have music on in the background and something to do. Makes the night more enjoyable and you don't feel rushed to drink it all. Cards Against Humanity makes for a great night. Having a pool table helps a lot.

As far as food, I think "bland" stuff like pretzels are perfect. Make for great palate cleansers. Too many flavors will mess up the tasting. Let the beer be the star of the show.

 

Beds.

 

For any group gathering, a pot of chili with a few packs of saltines will usually make everyone happy.

 

Beer + food + a comfortable place to enjoy both = great tasting

 

If it is simply a tasting, why get hung up on glassware? I live directly across from a church & they have a monthly "Attic Treasures" rummage/white elephant//odds & sods sale. I bring home a load of decent glassware that can be used and/or broken for a modicum of $.

As to snacks, we usually have a theme & everyone is encouraged to bring something appropriate. Saltines are always welcome! They make for a nice palate cleanser + when we have smoked beers, we have smoked snax, like oysters, salmon, cheese(s), all of which go well on saltines.

Water! Bottled water is inexpensive & a good lay-in will not go to waste.

We usually have mine on my porch so lawn chairs are provided, but some people bring their own.

 

Sounds like you are doing the right thing.
We have accumulated over 20 tasting glasses over time from hosting shares so we always have plenty.
We always provide chips, dips, cheeses, meats, nuts, and other snacks.
We always provide plenty of bottled water.

We have a retro pie setup with a gazillion games, a pool table, darts, a pool. Plenty of entertainment. When its warm we have the share on our covered patio in the backyard. We have a huge farmhouse style table there.

Its always fun, everyone brings too many beers, so everyone drinks too many beers.

 

Breathalyzer and don't let anyone leave who fails it.

 

I think you're doing it right.

I've never really done an "informal" beer tasting because we always talk about the beer and give a kind of presentation, but they're pretty relaxed.

If I'm doing the presentation I go through the beers in a certain order and talk a little bit about each one as it's being poured and tasted. I use different glasses for each beer, as to style as best I can, and put out simple snacks like bread, carrots, cheese, crackers, and unsalted pretzels - nothing that's too flavorful or going to stick with you.

The other way I've done it is basically the same except that every one brings their own beer, a bottle or two depending on the size and number of people present, and we roughly decide as we go along what we'll drink next (i.e. Saison before Russian Imperial Stout). The person who brought the beer gives the history, explanation, tasting notes, whatever. The snacks remain the same except that we've usually got more salty and chocolatey stuff as everyone brings their own snack as well. For glasses on this one everyone gets a standard pint glass and we rinse as we go. These are held in the church basement every month so there's plenty of room and no need to set up your own house - and because there are plenty of newbies you can bring almost any beer, it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

 

Cheese and bread work well as snacks and with loads of water not to be forgotten about. As far as the beers go, we don't always follow the "start with the lighter ones and end with stouts" but rather try to go through the main bottles (often big imperial stouts) sometime on the first half of the evening, instead of hurrying all of them up in the end, when the palate is already tired. Often variation between sours, hops and stouts keeps the palate in check. Not perfect or by-the-book but works for us. Small random beer tasting glasses/snifters work fine for all styles as no one usually has the perfect glasses for each beer style in sufficient quantities etc.

 

Yes on all of the above.....I also have two Rubbermade type tubs and two pitchers of water on the table for rinsing the glasses after each beer. We usually have 12-15 people. We closeout each tasting with a great stout such as Brewdog Tokio with 70% cacao chocolate to enhance the stout flavors. Folks love it.

 

Chocolate is always great with the stouts!

 

Sounds like you nailed it, my friend.

My $0.02 on the importance of glasses is @woodychandler's water is triple way more important, @cavedave's breathalyzer is at least that if not double triple, and @Realsambo's pot of chili (or the equivalent) is double more important.

The one chance I got to try Westvleteren 12, I'd have drank my couple ounces out of a plastic bowl if that's all we had. Anybody excited about glasses ain't excited about beer, which is important to note because you'll need to make sure that guy/gal has a cool glass they can get excited about, but the people there for the beer and only the beer generally won't care one iota about the glassware.

Hope you and your group keep it up!

 

A few short guidelines to insure success almost every time
1. Everyone brings their own glass ware and id you dont a plastic cup will be provided.
2. Bring a beer to share. If you dont have a beer to share then bring food.
3. Water.
4. Have jams on in the background. Yacht rock or dad rock.

I usully only have 4-5 people show up and i have enough beer out to share with everyone. I dont ever expext everyone will bring beer. I have stuff like pavement or ryan adams or silver jews or black sababth or pinback on.

 

Exuse the spelling errors.
Id should be if*