A Unique Experience

Well at least for me anyway.  Yesterday, I had the pleasure of volunteering with an event hosted by The Bruery, in Placentia, CA.  They were judging the beers for their Batch 300 Contest and my job, along with about 10 others was to be a runner for the judges.  As a thank you we got a nice lunch out of the deal, and oh yeah, we got to sample the entries as well.

I can't really review the entries I tasted because, one, they were part of a blind taste test, and two, there were about 200 entries of various types of beer; anything from your traditional Belgian to Lambic Sours.

This is what the table looked like after the tasting was complete:

That is one full table

From what I sampled, there were a lot of good entries, among my favorites was on made with clover and honey, and a strong Dubbel.  So may the best beer win.

I thought the most interesting aspect of this experience though was the pool of judges.  There were about 50 - 60 of them all from varying backgrounds of, "I'm a Grand Master Beer Judge" to I work for the brewery.  One woman was even there because she wrote a book called The Naked Pint, one I'm going to have to look up when I'm in a bookstore.  I also thought it was pretty cool that as the judges were scoring the beers they were trying, they were offering the brewer constructive criticism on why their beer didn't score so well, or offered praises where their beer shined.

One of the funnier aspects was, as we stewards were clearing the tables, the judges would pass on their recommendations of the beers, "Try that one."  usually had us flocking to get a sample, of course that typically also happened with the "Drink at your own risk" beers, just out of shear curiosity, of how bad could it be. 

And generally those beers were kind of me to, something isn't right but it isn't terrible, but two of those beers... one made me gag, and one smelled just plain horrible, and tasted even worse. 

At the end of the day, I did get to try one new beer, The Bruery's Cuadruple,  a dark Belgian, with a rich thick malty flavor. 

The Bruery Cuadruple

I wish I could tell you more, but my palate was pretty much done by that time of the day.  I'll have to return and re-visit at some point.  In the meantime, one of my favorite beers from the Bruery is Mischeif, go grab yourself a bottle and enjoy.

Cheers!