Cleaning Out Jay’s Fridge
Aaaaaand we’re back.
Sorry things have been so quiet round these parts. Life has just been a little busy and a lot of crazy lately here at Beer & Nosh HQ, and the blog posting schedule has suffered for it. There are big changes coming down the pipeline for B&N - I can’t reveal the details quite yet, but rest assured, it’ll be good times all around.
Speaking of changes, I got a new toy. It’s time to retire my old clunky Digital Rebel. It’s served me well, but it’s just time to move forward, and get a more modern piece of equipment, and one that can really shine at low light photography. After a lot of hand wringing and research I ended up with one of these:
It’s a Nikon D90. I decided my investment in Canon lenses wasn’t enough to justify staying with the EOS line, and my favorite lens is a $75 prime lens I was itching to replace anyway. Every generation Canon and Nikon seem to leapfrog each other – at this particular moment, it just seemed that Nikon was offering the better camera for my needs. The colors from this camera really pop, the focusing is lightening fast, and the screen on the back is frickin’ huge! I’m still learning to use it, and the learning curve is pretty steep. I’ve been spending a lot of time at Ken Rockwell’s excellent site and I’m waiting for my new prime lens to ship out from Amazon. If you have some hot tips on how to use this new toy, feel free to let me know.
So, back to discussing beer. This last weekend, I was invited out to Jay Brook‘s house to help him clean out his beer fridge. Some other local beer bloggers, brewers, and personalities were on-hand to help out with this mammoth undertaking. The stated goal was to go through more beer than last year, where they cracked 52 bottles. I’ll let Jay explain the rules himself. (Thanks for the video, Sean!)
Besides helping Jay make room for fresh brew in his garage, there were some special beers that needed drinking. Upstream Brewing in Omaha, Nebraska has sent a collection of beers for the Bill Brand Memorial – sadly, they arrived two days late. We had these special beers, meant for one purpose – toasting Bill. So each time a bottle from Upstream was opened, a special toast for bill was made. Hey, did I mention my new camera does hi-def video?
The tasting was great fun, with beers running the gamut from rare finds to stale and gross. Mario took copious notes of each beer. Jay took pictures of every beer as it went around the table. Pete shouted out suggested pairings from the table full of snacks for each beer as it cycled by. Rick fiddled with everyone’s cameras since he had not brought his own. I sat back, and enjoyed the beers as they went around. A good time was had by all.
So how does a group this size go through this many beers? The answer lies in ample use of the dump bucket, and only taking a very small taste of each bottle as it goes by. Responsible imbibing is key, especially at a family event like this one.
When I left Elianna, my DD finally dragged me home, we had just crossed the eighty bottle mark. Lordy that’s a lot of beer.
My favorite tastes from the day: Westy 8 ,10 & 12, anything sour from Upstream, Angel’s Share and few other very old bottles from Lost Abby, and Pete’s homemade chocolates, which were the perfect compliment to the darker beers on the table.
Update:
Mario’s Post, which includes tasting notes on the Upstream brews.
Tags: jay brooks
April 13th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
So Jealous!
I’m no stranger to multiple beer sampling, but would find large volumes of beer sampling kind of frustrating. I would want to “TASTE” every beer, but after about 14+beer samples my taste buds would start getting burned out and I wouldn’t be TASTING anything accurately. At that point, I would get frustrated and try to tell people to STOP opening new bottles because no one was going to appreciate those beers real nuances. Of course, as my friends know, we ALL went WAY over board with multiple samples, more often than not….. ;-}
I regret that more NOW, than I did then…. :-(
Sean will remember how anal I used to be with tastings….. Making sure we started with the lightest in palate and building up to the big rich and exotic. I guess, I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s palate….. ;-}
Maybe I’m just getting old….?
Still would have loved to been there… :-O
April 13th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
In this case, there was a lot of wild variation on the quality of the beer. When a beer was worth pausing over, everyone did. When the Westys came out, everything came to a pause to enjoy. But remember, the goals of the day were to taste, but also to clean out the space. We tried to balance both.
But I agree – my taste buds burned out after a while, and the more nuanced beers were harder to taste, especially since there was no style progression.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I feel left out. the picture of “The Crew” must have taken place after I left.
I left at the 35 beer mark or so and seeing that The Abyss and Jewbelation 12 made their way to the table after that make me sad.
Oh, and that dump bucket was pretty gross. I tossed it the first time through and it wasn’t pleasant.
Nice pictures, much better than the crap I put on my page. Then again, I use a pocket sized point and shoot.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
@Mario – But you’re in the video toast!
April 14th, 2009 at 5:16 am
[...] of PFIFF! will be contributing as well, and if they’re anything like the homebrew of his I tasted this past weekend, Bi-Rite better be kicking in some big blue cheeses to stand up to this abuse. The event is open [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 4:38 am
And I did not take copious notes. I have a Bill brand inspired note pad, but I only wrote down the names of each beer and poor notes on the ones that struck me as special. Hell, I didn’t even have a note written for the West 8 and 12, except the “yuck” someone wrote on my pad after I drunkenly left it at the table.