Chicago Beer Lovers: Next Event Date

You're very welcome, I've been waiting quite a while to share it with people who would enjoy it. Surprisingly that beer made its way back from DLD without bein cracked...

 

Yes and things like this are not good for those who are gracious enough to host. They deserve to not be a liability in these scenarios.

 

All is right in the world. Thanks for the help. I'm looking forward to busting some of these bombers open with you guys when we reconvene for the next installment of this share.

 

I'll say it......I really want to hear the story about what happened and why your car....sounds like it got impounded.

 

Yeah let's hear it.

Glad you're ok and looks like you'll be in a reconcilable situation. Post the story so others may take heed of what may happen.

 

Would love to get on the list for next time.

 

I agree

 

I'm relatively new to the craft beer world and frankly afraid to go to these shares/fests/etc because all I've heard about them is how people got hammered. I love trying new beers but fests/shares just seem like a recipe for disaster for making a fool of yourself or worse, with the law. Living in the burbs, taking a cab or staying in hotels for the crazy number of beer fests would be very pricey. How do you guys handle it?

 

1) don't take every single pour. i turned down bcbs vanilla and cherry, for example, because i've had them before and needed the liver capacity.
2) if something isn't to your preference, dump it out unless it was a super in demand bottle like, say, BA abraxas was, in which case you could offer the remainder to someone else. if it's not a bottle share and it was, say, a pour at a festival, just dump.
3) have a plan in advance that doesn't involve driving home until you're sober enough to do so. make friends with BAs that live in the city and crash on their couch after fests you all attend. split a cab over to a late night eatery and get some food and chill out for a few hours until you sober up enough to drive home. have your s/o drive you and pick you up. anything but driving drunk, please.
4) per grohnke below, eat a substantial meal beforehand. drink a lot of water, way more water than you think you need to drink.

 

Money: dropped off to local train station (free), metra to lasalle ($5), [enter color]-line fare ($3), walk to location, repeat in opposite direction. Safe and you spent less than $20.

Drunkness: eat whatever meal is appropriate ahead of time, substantially. Drink water and maintain hydration throughout the event.

(note: Just make sure you leave on time, I left late on thursday, and had to pony up $20 for a cab fare to lasalle )

 

this too, though late-night stuff doesn't really jive with metra from what i understand.

 

referring to schedule?. Yea, that's what sucks, 12:30a was the last train for me that day

 

yes that is what i was referring to. i didn't realize that they even ran that late.

 

I'd say 99% of us absolutely do NOT do this to get hammered. Sadly, like any other event, there's always at least one asshole who just doesn't get it. The overwhelming majority are down to earth, easy to chat with, and responsible.

Keys are WATER, FOOD, small pours & taking your time.

 

Learning these two lessons are the hardest thing about large bottle shares. Thankfully, learning one pretty much leads to learning the other.

I over did things a bit at the Side Project Brewing debut bottle share... took pours of things I'd had before just because I liked them. By the time I got my pours of their release beers from the tap, I was pretty much done for and could barely tolerate the alcohol taste in a sour, let alone a big BA stout.

I ended up giving most of a glass of The Origin away to someone who missed out. Made his day. I tried it, liked it, but couldn't drink it all. Better to let someone else enjoy something than down it and make a mess of yourself.

 

also to like paraphrase costanza or the dox equis guy, know when to leave or call it a day. Feelin kinda sick or thirsty, maybe time to stop and enjoy some water. But this is me, a 31 year old dood that's learned the hard way probably too many times so preachin to an invincible fella in their 20's is like talking (or typing) to a wall. I'm sure this whole board is probably filled with guys who had a one invincible dood moment. Whatever happened, I suggest keeping it to yourself as to not get the gracious host in any sort of trouble or associate the event with something unfortunate.

 

Ahhhh yes very good point!

 

yeah i'm not going to pretend i haven't had some bad moments after having too much to drink, but luckily for me that never involved getting behind the wheel of a car when too drunk to drive or really doing anything put anyone in danger of anything except myself.

by the way, if i've been a dickhead while drunk at one of these events, please do bm me and tell me so; i've been told by others that i'm a fairly nice and generally not sloppy drunk but you never know.

this too. as much as people would like to know what happened, chris is putting himself out there a bit by hosting one of these, and i'd rather that whatever bad events happened just not happen again, because it wasn't chris's fault that someone drank a bit too much.

 

One other thing to keep in mind - palate fatigue. As @tinypyramids alluded to above, if you've tried something before, you are probably better off holding out for other things that you want to try before everything starts tasting like 'GENERIC BA STOUT PRODUCT'. Try as one might, it will happen to just about everyone at FoBAB, so plan those first dozen or two tastes carefully!

 

This is very true. Pretty much anything bourbon barrel aged is just going to taste the same after a certain point and you won't be able to enjoy it. Trying to tick every bottle that gets cracked at some of these is a recipe for palate fatigue then when you get your pour of Barrel Aged Abraxas you will say it tasted like crap.