A look at the 1st Annual Summer Beer Tasting and Pool Party.....

Setting up....

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of co-hosting a beer tasting party. For almost a year now, our friend Daniell (my latest guest contributor by the way....) and I have been talking about having a beer tasting party. Well, this past weekend, we finally pulled the trigger on it, and got it done! Being late June, we figured we would also make it a pool party. Being a pool party, I figured summer beer would be the way to go (the pool part never really materialized, since it was 118 degrees that day, no one wanted to go outside in the pool). It was held at the home of Daniell and her husband Bobby (awesome hosts, thank you!). It had everything you would like in a summer pool party tasting! A taco bar, with everything, chicken, beer, pico de gello, ceviche, beans, cheese, tortilla chips, you name it.

Our "Beer 101" display

We even had a sort of "Beer 101" display on a table, with a collection of various beer glasses, with explanations of what styles go with which glass, and why. Even a verity of loose leaf hops, for party goers to smell, and experience.
After some discussion, we figured, rather then have a sort of formal tasting, we would have a blind tasting, and make a contest out of it. We decided to have everyone bring their favorite summer brew, to enter into a blind tasting! Everyone would try each beer that was brought, blindly, and rate them all, and vote on their favorite one. The person that brought the top vote getter, won a prize (a beer glass set!).

Hops!!

OK, I will admit, I really had no idea what to expect. I knew most of the people that RSVP'ed, but not well enough to guess what they might bring for a beer. I was afraid we would end up with a dozen entries of Summer Shandy, a few Sam Adam's Summer Ales, and maybe, if we were lucky, a Mr Pineapple or two.
Again, I had no idea what to expect, but I can tell you, I was SO pleasantly surprised! Not only were there far more people there then I was expecting (so much more in fact, we had to totally change the way we conducted the tasting at the last minute) In fact, of the 19 entries we had, only one Summer Shandy, and the only duplicate, was Mr Pineapple, but lucky, one was a growler, and one was in cans, so we were able to distinguish them from each other. Here is a list of the beers entered and tasted.....

1. Bells Oberon (that was my entry!)
2. San Tan's Mr Pineapple in a growler (that was Mrs Czar's)
3. San Adams Summer Ale
4. Wasatch Summerbrue
5. Breckenridge Vanilla Porter
6. Laughing Dog's Huckleberry Cream Ale
7. Unita Hoo Doo
8. Sudwerk Hefeweizen
9. Stone's Arrogant Bastard
10. Anderson Valleys Summer Solstice
11. Maui Brewing's Bikini Blonde Ale
12. Sam Adams Double Agent IPL
13. Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy 
14. Iron Horse's Irish Death
15. Maui Mana Wheat
16. Iron Horse's High Five Hefe
17. Mr Pineapple (in a can)
18. Iron Horse's Double Rainbow
19. Shock Top

I have to say, I have always been a HUGE fan of blind tastings. When preconception and bias is totally removed from the experience, and all you are going on is appearance, smell, and taste, the results can be surprising. I must say, it was also fun, listening to the comments made about the beers people were drinking, not knowing what they were drinking at all. Some people didn't care much for the beers they brought, others ended up loving beers they would normally have turned their noses up to. Its funny, I am not sure anyone ended up voting for the beer they brought! Sadly, no one voted for my beloved Oberon, but in reading the notes, most people at least enjoyed it!

In the end, the hands down favorite of the evening surprised me somewhat. Not because it wasn't a "good beer", its in fact one of my favorite's actually, but rather because it was by no means what I would call a "summer beer", but Breckenridge Brewing's Vanilla Porter was a hands down favorite. In fact, the only other beers to get more then two votes, were Laughing Dogs Huckleberry Cream Ale (that got 3 votes) and Mr Pineapple (from the growler) got 2..

Cheers!

All in all, it was a great time! I want to send out my sincere gratitude to all of you that attended, for making this evening such a great time. Not only do I hope you had just half as much fun as I did, if you did, you had a great time, but I hope you leanred even just a little something about beer that you didn't know when you got there!

I also want to thank my wife, for all her help and support (and patience) going into this party. Most of all, I want to thank Bobby and Daniell for not only opening up your home to all of us, but for putting forth so much effort to make sure everyone there had a great time, and maybe even learned a few things.

If you were there, and have some comments or suggestions as to how to make our next party even better, either comment below, or email me at thebeerczar@gmail.com, I really would love to hear all comments, good or bad, its only going to help the next time!

If you would like to see all the photos from that day, you can check out the album on my Facebook page here, and please, while you are there, if you haven't "liked" my page, please go ahead and do so!

Keep an eye out for an invitation to the next one!

Thanks again to everyone, it was awesome, so, as I always say....

Until next time

Bottoms up my friends!

The Beer Czar

Stone Smoked Porter(s)

Very early on, in the days when I was just starting to discover craft beer, I use to tend to drift towards brown ales. As my palette sort of developed, I discovered porters. Everything wonderful about a brown ale, cranked up a few notches. Early on it was Anchor Porter that was always in my fridge. Still a beer that holds fond memories for me to this day. In those days, craft beer wasn’t as readily available like it is getting to me now, and I was always on the lookout for new and exciting beers. One afternoon, while on a date with the woman that would become my wife some years later, at the now defunked “Rockfish” restaurant by the Chandler Mall, I took noticed of a beer on their tap list “Stone Smoked Porter”. At the time, the only thing I knew about Stone was they had awesome labels on their bottles. Since I loved (still do) porters, I decided to order one, as did my future wife. From the first sniff, and sip that soon followed, this beer shot to the top of my all time favorites list, will it still holds a rather comfortable place among some amazing and gigantic beers.

My KBS!!

This beer is just a classically good beer. You don’t hear a lot of people getting excited about it like they would a Dark Lord, or KBS, Kate the Great or something, but you never hear anyone say they don’t like it. This is an easy drinking, smooth beer that will give you hints of chocolate, and some coffee, with a nice, level smoky finish. It’s a solid, drinkable, enjoyable beer that you must try if you haven’t.

Now, the only thing that gets me more excited than a smoked porter, is a vanilla porter. Now, a smoked vanilla porter, well, that would just be heaven in a glass wouldn’t it! Yes it would, and now you can try it, thanks to Stone. They have taken their second oldest beer they’ve been brewing (since 1996) and breathed a breath of; I won’t say new life, but “different” life? If that makes sense. For a limited time only, Stone is releasing their Smoked Porter in a Vanilla version, and Chipotle pepper version.

While on a recent trip to San Diego, I was lucky enough to find a few bottles of each of them. Let me tell you about them…..

I’ll start with the Chipotle pepper version, since I enjoyed this one the least, which, however, is in no way insinuating that I didn’t enjoy this beer at all, quite the opposite in fact. At first sniff, you may not notice the peppers, it’s not obvious. There is more of a grassy, garden freshness to the aroma. Also malty, and smoky. This smells like a nice beer to drink on a chilly evening. The taste is almost classic porter at first. Smoky, chocolaty and malty, with a slight hint of peppers. I was almost disappointed, until I swallowed the mouthful, and waited. My mouth started to feel like I just eat a slightly spicy salsa. The peppers heat, while quite mild, doesn’t really make itself known till the finish, which is quite nice! Very enjoyable!

Now, I said before, Vanilla porters get me a little excited, so I was VERY excited to try this one! I was not disappointed at all! If you like vanilla, you will like this beer. It is on the verge of having almost too much vanilla; I’ve read some complain about it. For me however, I loved it, there was a lot of vanilla, the most I have ever tasted in a beer in fact. It’s a smooth, smoky, chocolaty vanilla flavor, throughout the whole glass! I enjoyed every sip of this beer, and still have one more bottle in the fridge, not sure when I’ll open it, but it’s going to be soon, not sure how long I can let it sit!



So, if you get a chance, and you like peppers, or vanilla, and beer, look for these beers. If you find them, buy them, and enjoy them. I owe a lot of my love and interest in craft beer to that Stone Smoked Porter I had, all those years ago, and I am glad to see a new interest and excitement around this beer, some 15+ years after it was first released.

A very impressive trio

Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar.

Below is some info on both beers, taken from Stone Brewing's Blog site.

Stone Smoked Porter with Chipotle Peppers.

Stats: 5.9% abv, 53 IBUs

Availability: Limited 12oz bottles. One-time release, beginning June 18th
Distribution: AZ, CA, CO, FL, IL, MA, NC, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TX, VA, VT, WA
Malt bill: Pale Malt, Crystal 75, Chocolate Malt, Peat-Smoked Malt
Hops bill: Columbus & Mt. Hood

Suggested Pairings...

Appetizers: Stuffed mushrooms, bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, quesadillas

Entrées: Manhattan clam chowder, French onion soup, baby back ribs, blackened fish, mole negro
Cheeses: Parmigiano-Reggiano, aged Cheddar, Ossau-Iraty, Mahón
Desserts: Tiramisu, apple pie, coffee cake, flourless chocolate cake, cinnamon rolls
Cigars: Ashton Classic, Montecristo, CAO Brazilia


Stone Smoked Porter w/ Vanilla Beans

Stats: 5.9% abv, 53 IBUs

Availability: Limited 12oz bottles. One-time release, beginning June 18th
Distribution: AZ, CA, CO, FL, IL, MA, NC, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TX, VA, VT, WA
Malt bill: Pale Malt, Crystal 75, Chocolate Malt, Peat-Smoked Malt
Hops bill: Columbus & Mt. Hood

Suggested Pairings...

Appetizers: Coconut shrimp, candied nuts

Entrées: Butternut squash soup, New England clam chowder, pumpkin ravioli, seared scallops
Cheeses: Aged Gouda, Mimolette, Beehive Cheese Co.‘s “Barely Buzzed”
Desserts: Maple-glazed donuts, chocolate chip cookies, cream puffs
Cigars: Paradigm 262, Gurkha Evil, Alonso Menendez. Almost any cigar with a Brazilian wrapper will impart nice chocolate notes perfect for this beer