RyanMM Icrontian

There's a cash mob event at the end of July before they close, if anyone is so inclined.

https://www.facebook.com/events/185196498681605/

All good things must come to an end, and sometimes you need to bite the bullet and drink the last (or only) bottle you have of a beer. This is going to be a journey through the darkest, dustiest parts of my cellar. There will be some rare stuff, there will be some old stuff, there will be some things that were bought, forgotten, and only recently unearthed. When you only have a bottle or two left of something irreplaceable, and you're like me, that can be paralyzing and make it difficult to ever bring yourself to open. So this tasting is going to be a catharsis for me in some ways as I force myself to get over that and take some bottles down from the wall.

It's not about waiting for a special day to drink that treasure, it's about looking at that bottle and saying, "Today is special because I'm drinking this with special people."

Because of the nature of cellaring beer, most of what we'll be dealing with will be 8% ABV and higher, darker, and maltier. There won't be much less than 3 or 4 years old in this tasting. There may be some surprises in store, but expect strong ales, barleywines, old ales, strong Belgians, etc.

I hope you'll sign up for the event via the Eventbrite registration and we'll see you folks there!

No need to post "In" here unless you want to publicly display your excitement - the only way to get in is to choose the Beer Tasting add-on when you're buying your Expo ticket.

So don't forget to do that!

Top 5 beers will 100% be in this tasting. Those beers are:

2013 Black Tuesday
2012 Black Note
2014 Speedway Stout with Vietnamese Coffee
2014 Pumpking Rum Barrel Aged
2015 Chocolate Rain

The remaining selections will be a surprise, heavily comprised of favorites from the voting, along with some personal selections I feel will complement, contrast, or otherwise enhance the overall enjoyment.

Once I've got the beer list worked out and removed anything that I don't have additional bottles of, I'm going to be messaging the BATCH 2 tasters so they can vote on their selections.

So hello there. I've been kind of scarce I know, it's not because I don't love you guys. Life is just...busy. But good! But busy.

I've been meaning to pop in here and get this going sooner, but yeah, REASONS and all.

So here I am! And here's the deal. Friday night at Midnight I have a wonderful time slot to blow your palates away and introduce you to some fine fermented grain beverages.

I've got two ideas. One of them is less work and is the one I'd prefer but it requires me to dig deeper into my cellar for some really rare stuff so it's pricer. I'd joke that I gave my right nut for some of these beers but that hits a little close to home. Suffice to say this is some elite shit. The other is more work since there'll be more people needed to attend but it'll cost less, though it'll be no less awesome.

Both would be once in a lifetime opportunities, I can guarantee. I don't want to go with the spendier option if no one will be able to swing it, so I put this up to a poll. It'll close on June 10th and then I'll open up the admittance process to whichever option is the most feasible. Some people who volunteered for the last tasting will get first dibs at seats and then it'll go up to first come.

Option 1: Extra rare beer tasting. 5 seats plus myself. An opportunity to taste beers of vintage or rarity that you may never get a chance to sample ever again. This tasting will be $60 per person.
This is not going to be a blind tasting. You will know what you will be drinking up front. The six tasters will be splitting bottles of the following 7 beers:

Avery The Beast (2004)
The first ever batch of Avery's high-octane barleywine-style ale. Not very many bottles of this exist anymore. With almost a decade of age, this one should be drinking wonderfully.

Bell's Expedition Ale (2007)
Expedition Ale is an award-winner in terms of its aging potential, despite being a rather 'common' beer in Michigan. A 1995 bottle of the beer took home the gold in the 2011 Great American Beer Festival "Aged Beer" category. A five year old bottle will have seen some of the aggressive notes fade back and for its complexity to come closer to the surface.

Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout (2011)
This is one of those whales of beer geeks, a beer they've heard whipsers of but never seen or had a chance to try. At one point, bottles of this were selling illicitly on eBay for over $150. It's criminal more of this beer has yet to be made.

Dogfish Head Worldwide Stout (2007)
One of the highest ABV beers in mass production, which was sadly put on hiatus in 2012, breaking the vertical of many a collector. At 18%, this stoutwine is reminiscent of a fine port, sweet, rich, and intense in its malty goodness.

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA (2004)
Another hallmark beer, one of the hoppiest beers on the planet when fresh but with a significant malt backbone that makes aging an interesting proposition. The oldest bottle of this that I've had was 2 years. I have no idea what to expect here, and I don't know if you'd find many beer lovers who could do anything but guess at what this will be like.

Kuhnhenn 4th Dementia (2008)
A truly award-winning brew from Kuhnhenn that gets better with age. I personally feel this beer peaks at the 5 year mark, so these bottles should be just about perfect.

Kuhnhenn Blueberry Eisbock (2013)
During creation of their most recent batch of Raspberry Eisbock, the brothers Kuhnhenn took a chance on a small sub-batch and replaced the raspberries with wild grown blueberries. There were less than 200 375ml bottles made. One of the rarest beers of the last few years.

Option 2: Blind Horizontal Tasting - Belgian Quadruples. 11 seats plus myself. An opportunity to taste a style of beer that is considered one of the best in the world. This style contains more of the top-rated beers than just about any other style of beer. It finds its history in the Belgian monastic brewing tradition and to this day the Belgian monks still make some of the best examples of this beer. But fine examples exist elsewhere. The goal will be to sample the best traditional entries in this style to help find the ones that you like the most (yes, ruling out ones that do barrel-aging or blending with fruit or other tweaks). Belgian quads do well with a little bit of age on them so the samples will be at least a year or more old in order to provide an optimal tasting experience. I do want to keep this blind, but for those in the know, yes. You will be tasting both the beers that vie for the title of "Best beer in the world." This tasting will be $35 per person.

Either tasting would include a small accompaniment of enjoyable food pairings, if you've been to a past tasting you know what to expect.

In order to make things easy on me, please fill out this quick Google survey so I know which tasting will be the most feasible for me to get together in time for Expo.

Cheers everyone!