The Suggestion: Throw a Favorite Beer Party
Originally published 10/22/2010.
Sometimes all you need is a reason to get together. And this is a plenty good reason, which also happens to be plenty affordable. Much more affordable than heading out for a bar crawl or a nice dinner.
Invite 15 – 20 friends over to your house on a Saturday night and tell them that you’re throwing a Favorite Beer Party. Their assignment is to bring a six pack of their all time favorite beer, and to be prepared to explain these three things:
1. Why they like it so much
2. Where and when they first had it
3. If they associate any specific memories with it
Once everyone is there with glass in hand and some good music is going, put the names of all of your guests in a hat. Draw a name, and that person then gets to tell you the story behind their favorite beer.
Then it’s time to taste. And just a few ounces. It’ll add up quick as the night goes on.
Leave plenty of space in between each name draw / beer pour for tasting, conversing, and all that usual stuff which tends to happen at house parties. You’ll find a rhythm.
Sound cheesy? A little bit. But it’s a blast. You’ll hear some incredible stories, drink some beers that’ll become your new favorites, and you’ll probably try some beers you’ll never want to ever have again.
Extra pointers:
- Make sure you have enough glasses
. Not plastic, not paper cups, glasses.
- Also have some masking tape and a marker on hand to label those glasses if need be.
- No snobbery. If someone’s favorite beer is PBR? Or Michelob Ultra? Good for them.
- Be honest. Don’t pick something obscure to impress. Your stories won’t be as good.
- Get a 3 – 4 gallon beer bucket
and a few bags of ice. You’ll run out of room in the fridge.
- Points for growlers. Big time.
- Food helps. A lot. Have those who are so inclined bring some kind of appetizer.
- Designated drivers and/or cab company phone numbers are a good idea. The point is to taste beer, not get drunk, but things could get tipsy for the lightweights
Top Photo Credit: Patrick Barry
My advice: find Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA. By far the best beer I’ve ever had.
This sounds like an awesome idea!!
Will definitely try this! I can never get enough of good tasting beer
Stone IPA, Racer 5 IPA. West Coast beers!
Great idea! We’ve done a couple of variations of this in the past year…
1. Everyone had to bring 2 beers they’ve never had but wanted to try. Then shared them with everyone.
2. We rounded up 22 different Sam Adams brews and then taste tested and rated each.
I think the next one will be a crap beer fest where everyone brings their favorite (or least favorite) crap beer.
Nice photo of the British ales! I’ve had every one of those =))
That got me thinking though – do you take all the photos for your posts yourself, or are they stock images?
Little of both…
Another suggestion is to arrange your order from lightest to darkest as you would for a beer tasting at a brewery or brew pub.
I just had Green Flash West Coast IPA for the first time last week. Amazing! Sooo hoppy.
Gee. Great idea…wait…where have I been to one of these things before…..?
Mmmmmm… Arrogant Bastard….
Stone IPA
Racer 5
Ballast Point Sculpin IPA
Ballast Point Sextant Stout
Speedway Stout
Russian River – Pliney the Elder
Green Flash – West Coast IPA
Party Time!
Kasteel Donker
Chimay Blue
Rochefort 6, 8, or 10.
Pauwel Kwak
I sense a pattern….
This sounds like a great idea!
My favorite six would be:
The Alchemist Heady Topper DIPA
Short’s Huma-Lupa-Licious IPA
Founder’s Breakfast Stout
Boulevard Tank 7 Saison
Troegs Nugget Nectar Imperial Amber
and of course Bell’s Hopslam
Honorable mention to about a billion others
if you plan to do this, also get some cheeses & chocolates..
cheeses pair better with beer than wine in my opinion..
Dark Lord Imperial Stout – And who ever brings a bottle of this is pronounced King of the party.
Oh i love the Belgians
So glad I live in Vermont, home of The Alchemist….
My favorite VT microbrewery right now though is Hill Farmstead. Their Edward is probably the most perfect pale ale I’ve ever tried.
Rochefort 10 for the win. One of the best beers out there. Just bought 6 of them on a sale actually.
I will definitely try this. This will be a great summer bbq idea. I will however, say bring your favorite drink, as most of my friends don’t drink beer like that.
If you enjoy this (which I do!), consider trying their Burton Baton. It’s an occasional release, but so outstanding. Keep your eyes out!
Three Floyd’s Robert the Bruce
Rouge’s Dead Guy Ale
Obviously!
If you’re ever traveling through Wisconsin, you HAVE to bring back as much New Glarus as you can. As far as I know, the beer isn’t available outside of Wisconsin (which is a crime), but it’s a great American micro-brew with tons of character.
I’m going to put this out there and you can check beeradvocate for yoruselves – Oskar Blue’s Dale’s Pale Ale. It is phenomenal and basically the whole world agrees. This is one beer where “personal preference”doesn’t mean a thing – if you don’t like it, you are wrong.
Followed by Half Acre Daisy Cutter. Chicago’s finest – especially with nice warm weather!
And like Chris said – any quantity of Dark Lord makes you the king. Any other Three Floyds brews are just added bonus. They all rock
Oh, almost forgot – Huma Lupa Licious from Short’s brewing! Solid from start to finish!
Agreed…I sneak over the border a couple times a year for Spotted Cow
I’m big into trying the local brews my town has to offer. We’ve had too new local breweries open up on opposite ends of downtown, both close to my home. They’ve opened their taproom doors for everyone to enjoy. I’ll be sampling some of those local brews tonight! But, if I had to pick an all time favorite beer, I still can’t argue against a nice dark Guiness. I’m trying my hand at some of the higher gravity beers…but they tend to weigh me down a little more (pa dump ch). Wacka Wacka Wacka!
Have you not tried the 120 Minute or do you just like the 90 Minute better?
I’ve had a few beer tasting parties with friends. They’re fantastic. One we did all Belgian Tripels. The second was all stouts & porters. The third was huge and everyone just brought whatever was their favorite or something they’ve wanted to try. We’ve had some great beers in all of them.
liquid gold
judging by the selection you must be in/around Michigan…. and also have an excellent palate!
mmmm… oaked arrogant bastard, especially
Legend Brown Ale from Richmond!!!
The 120 minute is outstanding. Couple of those and you’re on your ass though.
As a fellow Vermonter I could not agree more, as much as Heady Topper is a solid choice, Hill Farmstead’s Edward is unreal.
I live about ten minutes from the Oskar Blues farm/restaurant/brewery/etc.
What did you get them for? I’ve found the cheapest around $6 to $7 a bottle.
The liquor store I normally go to has them at $6 all the time. They were on sale for about $4.80. If I hadn’t already spent so much this month I would have bought more.
Dogfish is quickly becoming one of the top craft breweries in the country; 90min is the best if you’re going to have a few and 120min is liquid gold, but like 18% ABV.
A couple rarer brews that are right up there are Great Divide Titan IPA and Southern Tier 2X IPA. Both have great deep flavor and run about 8% ABV.
90 minute is pretty good. there are a couple others that are as just. Cigar City Jai Alai IPA and Chimay premiere red. These are the absolute best I have tried so far.
Any brew by Allagash, Hitachino Nest, Russian River, Lost Coast, Stone, Lagunitas..
Try Gueze or lambics for interesting styles.
Some friends of mine and I have done something similar, but smaller and WAY more involved: a Beer Bracket. This requires at least one friend with some expertise in beer, but it basically works just like an NCAA bracket. In our case, we start out with 16 beers, all with a general theme: American Microbrew, Imported, Seasonal, etc. The host assigns each beer a seed rank based on reviews on ratebeer.com and other sources.
We then (4-6 of us) get together once a week for blind taste tests. We try to pair alike varieties against each other at first, like IPAs, stouts, and so on. We rate them on appearance, aroma, taste, and mouthfeel. Printouts, clipboards, palette cleansers, the whole works. We only drink a little of each beer to start out but when we get down to the final 4 we drink the whole beer. The host tallies up the scores at the end and we have a pretty damn empirical way of figuring out the group’s favorite beer.
Then after we have a winner we party down and drink the remaining bottles of the losers. It is a lot of fun and a great way to have something to do during commercials while the game is on.
Past Beer Bracket winners include:
Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale
Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout (we like Bell’s)
Sam Adams Black Lager (dark horse candidate!)
Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout
Left Hand Milk Stout
Pliny the elder – Russian River
Blind Pig – Russian RiverHop Stooopid – Lagunitas
90 Minute – Dogfish
Aventinus is probably my favorite. But I dont have any interesting stories attached to it. :
I love living in Fort Collins near Odell and New Belgium brewing companies! I feel sorry for the rest of you. 😉