99 Bottles of Beer (on the table...)
TheViperMan
Posts: 235 Member
Greetings all!
I just saw this "club" mentioned in the "women who drink beer" thread and didn't even hesitate to join!
My name is Jeff, but I go by the "ViperMan" and am an avid homebrewer! My Untappd username is "ViperMan" as well.
This weekend I'm having a party at my house called the "ViperDen Brewery 99 Bottles of Beer Party." I have 99 - well actually 110 - bottles of beer to share, 81 of which are homebrewed. I have 6 different styles, from a mild cream ale, to a brown ale, and even a (very) hard cider!
This is of course separate from the other 6 batches of beer that I've been preparing for my 3rd-Annual ViperDen Brewery Tasting Event in April. By then I'll have a fruit beer, an American Ale and Lager, a cream stout, a brown ale, and a brutal dopplebock! I'm also thinking of tossing a porter into the mix if I can have it ready in time.
Cheers to all!
I just saw this "club" mentioned in the "women who drink beer" thread and didn't even hesitate to join!
My name is Jeff, but I go by the "ViperMan" and am an avid homebrewer! My Untappd username is "ViperMan" as well.
This weekend I'm having a party at my house called the "ViperDen Brewery 99 Bottles of Beer Party." I have 99 - well actually 110 - bottles of beer to share, 81 of which are homebrewed. I have 6 different styles, from a mild cream ale, to a brown ale, and even a (very) hard cider!
This is of course separate from the other 6 batches of beer that I've been preparing for my 3rd-Annual ViperDen Brewery Tasting Event in April. By then I'll have a fruit beer, an American Ale and Lager, a cream stout, a brown ale, and a brutal dopplebock! I'm also thinking of tossing a porter into the mix if I can have it ready in time.
Cheers to all!
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Replies
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Welcome ViperMan!
Wow that sounds awesome. Love that you do your own little festival. What a great idea!0 -
Pretty cool idea! I have an outdoor winter maibicock fest that I make ten gallons for every year in response to a local breweries festival exploding and becomming an overpopulated nightmare to attend. This was my fourth year and I believe I had close to 50 people. If it grows much more I'm going to have to up production.0
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Wow - I wouldn't have room in my house for 50 people.
Heck when I threw my wife a baby shower we had about 25 and it was a madhouse!
Yeah the tastings have really been a lot of fun, except that none of my friends are actual "beer snobs" - so they have NO idea how to rate/judge/taste/etc. This time I'll have about 2 geeks, so I should start getting some better feedback.
I'm also doing a lot of research and starting to procure necessary items to begin nano-brewing - making 1 gallon batches for experimenting and making a wider variety of beer. My plan is to start buying in bulk and storing grains (uncrushed) while also starting my own yeast bank so that I can literally "brew whenever I want" without having to run to the brew supply store, 30 minutes away. Of course, the start-up cost to pull this all off is kinda pricey, but my hope is that by the next tasting party in 2014, I can have up to 10 different varieties of beer without having to make 10+ cases!0 -
Those experiments can be great fun if you have the time and resources. They can also be the best sources of feedback when playing with recipes. Always remember that the majority of beer consumers are not beer snobs, they are everyday people and they often give the best feedback if you can get them to tell you why then like or dislike a beer. Experiments like splitting a batch and using 2 yeasts or different combinations of hops to dry hop or even the exact same recipe with 2 different fermentation temps can inform the palate and educate your subjects. Also at times I have set out a written description of the beers, what they are supposed to be and what you were trying to do and then left paper and per for feedback. That can be fun if people participate.0
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Yeah - the only problem I have is when people say,
"Ugh, I don't like this..."
"Why not?"
"I dunno - it's just yucky..."
"...."
I'm hoping the "beer snobs" - who are good friends by the way and I use that term affectionately - can tell me that maybe I mashed too high or fermented too low or didn't have proper water chemistry, etc.
And yes I'm REALLY looking forward to trying similar base malts but with different yeasts or adjuncts. My first ever-tasting consisted of one beer split in half. One batch got fresh orange peel, the other got orange peel from the LHBS. THEN I took each batch and split them into EIGHT bottles, each one getting different ratios of orange vodka, orange extract, and vanilla extract. In the end we had 16 beers to sample.
The hilarious part was that I had people judge them (only had like, 4 people) and they had to give a score to 100% - basically the likeliness that they'd "order another" - and then a brief description. On every page, the handwriting got larger, loopier, and harder to read as you went down the page, until towards the end people were writings things like, "I think I farted" and "your sister is hot" - they were hilarious to read the next day, and I actually still have them.
Here's my beer-list for the party this weekend.
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That sheet is awesome!!
See, I like the people that say the things you mentioned because those are the ones that you can open a new worrld for. Most poeple think about the foods they eat, the cola they drink (think Coke vs. Pepsi), the movies and TV they watch, the clothes they wear, the card they buy, etc., but they don't think about the beer they drink in the same way. Most were raised with this "beer tastes like beer" mentality that NEEDS to be crushed.
When people me they don't like beer and I say they haven't had the right one and I have proven many poeple wrong. My favorite go to, particularly with women is a lambic, often one of the fruity Lindemans variety, or if available a Duchesse de Bourgogne. I dont' ask that they like it, just that they try it and tell me what they think.0 -
So very fun! We don't brew our own beer yet, but you gave me an idea on a great annual get together with our fellow beer drinkers!0
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I really want to be at your party. If there's unconsumed beer remaining at the end of the night, feel free to mail me some :drinker:0
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can i come??????0
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Hey thanks for the replies. Rottnme I do agree that people could benefit from some knowledge - I just know these friends. I'm wasting my time trying to teach them anything. The most fun I've had though is with my father-in-law. He's one of those "raised in an anti-alcohol family" types, and made almost that exact comment a year-or-so ago: "I always figured beer was beer - never thought that there were different kinds..." Mind you this guy loves cooking, and I almost laughed at him. "Really? How many different kinds of butter are there?? You figured there'd be only one kind of beer??"
The party unfortunately was quite a flop. TONS of people bailed on us, some minutes before the scheduled start-time. HOWEVER, the small handful that DID show up as a group included one SERIOUS homebrewer and one EXPERIENCED beer conneiseur (too lazy to check the spelling on that one.) The conneiseur had really helpful comments on my flavors and styles of beer, while the brewer gave me some expert advice on my brewing strategies. The next day I brewed an apple lager (1.060 OG, 22 IBU's, 5.8 SRM, 5.4 estimated final ABV) and I achieved a whopping 83% extraction efficiency on my grains. I was stoked!
But yes, we have about 73 bottles remaining... :-\ There's a homebrewing club meeting this Tuesday I'm going to bring a bunch to in hopes that it can get consumed.
Next event is the annual tasting in April - really excited for that one.0
