saison tasting

jan's summer beer tasting, may 26, 2007.

initially this was planned as a saison tasting, but some other (excellent!) beers slipped into the mix. a beautiful day on the patio, with great beer, great food, and great friends.

first beer of the day: fantome saison hiver. in the background left, barely visible in a white shirt is craig (aka crwills), then jeff (aka tupalev) in the green+white shirt, and paul (aka blankboy) on the right in the black shirt. middle ground we have alexa (aka Lexx) in the light blue shirt and jan (aka biegaman) in the foreground in dark blue.

slightly better shot of craig in the distance, eric (aka Viggo) in blue, and me (aka grub) in the black. still missing from a photo (and acting as camerawoman) is jenn.

jan still admiring the hiver.

here you can see more of the lovely setting for this tasting. nice covered patio in jan's back yard. perfect place for a saison tasting.

craig

this is a shot of the fridge fairly early in the tasting. tons of great beer. think we'll get through them all? we'll definitely try.

paul enjoying the cheese tray and jan working on a review. tons of great snacks were available in addition to the great beer.

jenn's finger, eric and i talking about something, and jeff's ass. and bugles!

even more finger, and me smiling for the camera.

i think by this point we were on to the jolly pumpkin madrugada obscura, dark dawn stout. quite an interesting and enjoyable beer. eric on pouring duty.

eric trying to get all fancy on us, posing for the camera.

i think this was the only place we got a picture that included jenn, since she spent the day rockin' the camera.

here we have jan trying to shoot the cork out of a bottle. he wanted to send it flying over the pool, but wasn't quite sure how to do it. eric tried demonstrating how to do it properly, but even jan knew he looked a little ridiculous.

on to another bottle. jan is being a good host and pouring for everyone.

hey, haven't we seen this one before? i don't think it worked the first time...

this looks more like the eric i know.

jan also did alot of reading from the bottle labels, telling us all about whatever we were going to drink.

those snacks came in handy with all that beer. here we also see jan's dad in the background. he was hanging out, talking and sampling beer with us for a while. big thanks to jan and his folks for hosting us (and helping cook the excellent dinner!)

me again.

jan.

i think at this point jan was just finishing the barley island bourbon barrel aged oatmeal stout and jeff was starting to pour the church-key catch her in the rye.

the empties table when the first half of the crew left. we lost jeff, paul, and craig early. that's ok, more beer for the rest of us!

dessert! jenn baked brownies, which we had along with some ice cream.

most of the remaining crew as the day wore on. we had many great laughs along with all the great food and beer.

one of the cats decided to clean up somebody's dinner place after they left it sitting out. eric got a good laugh out of it.

are the ducks fighting or making out? you decide.

our excellent host late in the day.

cork carnage.

the table when jenn and i left. already full, with a couple more left.

the final lineup (i think in the order they were drank):

• fantome saison hiver
• otter creek world tour cuckoo bock
• dogfish head pangaea
• jolly pumpkin maracaibo especial
• jolly pumpkin bam biere
• jolly pumpkin madrugada obscura, dark dawn stout
• barrel house duveneck dortmunder
• telegraph golden wheat ale
• telegraph california ale
• barley island bourbon barrel aged oatmeal stout
• church-key catch her in the rye
• goose island 19 year esb
• three floyds rabbid rabbit
• fantome saison
• st bernardus abt 12 60th anniversary edition
• ommegang abbey ale
• southampton saison deluxe
• ommegang witte
• sly fox saison vos
• lagunitas #10
• trappist westvleteren 8

an excellent tasting. thanks to jan for organizing and to everyone who contributed.

Posted by grub at May 30, 2007 11:29 AM