Beer Tastings

For the past year, I have been holding beer tastings at my apartments for all different types of styles of beers.  This whole idea started because for the past 3 summers we have done an IPA tasting with some out of town family members.  I enjoy introducing new styles and new beers to friends and family.  Typically what I do is making a list of all the beers, and as we taste each one we rate it anywhere from 1-10.  Each time I do these tastings I have new people show up and I highly believe I have changed some non-beer drinkers into beer drinkers...people who don't like IPAs into people who like IPAs...etc.  Since the summer tastings are what started this I would like to share those experiences now with pictures of our lineups and which we thought were the best....

 Pictured above is our 2012 line up.  This was the first year we did this.  All the beers were found at our local beer store.  If memory serves me correctly the winner was Hop Red Rye by Bear Republic.  Another contender was Flower Power by Ithaca Beer Co.  But we had a great time, caught a great buzz and it really started something with some family members were never big beer drinkers.

 Fast forward one year later and we have our 2013 line up.  Half the beers were out of town beers I picked up on my 2013 road trip.  It also introduced some black IPAs into the lineup.  The hands down winner this year was shockingly enough the only non-IPA or Pale Ale beer in the tasting and that is Gumballhead by Three Floyd's.  It is a hopped up Wheat, and since we had more people join the tasting who weren't huge IPA drinkers I think this beer helped since it is smooth, crisp, hoppy but not too hoppy.

 Lastly is our 2014 line up.  Consisting mostly of beers that I got on different road trips and some newer stuff to our area.  Since I try not to repeat any IPAs I couldn't use most the regulars so it was fun to try a bunch of new ones including many new Sessions that have been hitting the market.  We successfully made it through all of them.  The lowest rated of the day was the Harpoon IPA and a local IPA made by our brewery Resurgence...however I think that's partially due to a horrible growler fill at the brewery. There were a few beers with great ratings including Heady Topper, Rising Tide's Session IPA, and Brew Kettle White Rajah..but the winner isn't even pictured and it was our local IPA made by Community Beer Works.

I will begin sharing all my tastings night over the next few days which include Pumpkin Night, Stout Night, Christmas Night, IPA Night and Beers Under 6% night.