Beer Club Volume Thirteen - Oktoberfests, Part II

***Editor's note - Yeah, I suck at keeping this thing up. I'll try to do better once I get caught up with the next three! ***

The anniversary event, a year in the making had finally arrived. As I stated in August's write up, I can't believe we made it this far. I can barely hold a fantasy football league together from year to year, let alone a monthly beer club.

Don't get me wrong, people love to drink beer. They just don't always like to have it structured and that's one thing this beer club's control freak leader requires, structure. I've had lots of ideas that I've had to politely (and sometimes not so politely) turn down because they don't fit my vision of the club. Yeah, I really do take it that seriously but it has worked so I'm not fixing what's not broke.

It was only fitting that we had record attendance to celebrate our anniversary. Initially we tied it with ten of us but Paul U decided he couldn't miss it so he showed up late to give us eleven people.

Since I'm playing catch up with the blog, this will be a shorter entry but here's the lineup (with stats) that we all enjoyed (not counting some extra credit beers!):

• • Samuel Adams Octoberfest (5.3% ABV, ~ $.122/oz)
• • Schell's Oktoberfest (5.5% ABV,~ $.11/oz)
• • Victory Festbier (5.6% ABV, ~ $.138/oz)
• • Spezial Rauchbier Märzen (5.3 % ABV, ~ $.296/oz)
• • Great Lakes Oktoberfest (6.5% ABV, ~ $.138/oz)
• • Coney Island Freaktoberfest (6.66% ABV, ~ $.27/oz)
• • Two Brothers Atom Smasher (7.7% ~ $.327/oz)
• • Odell Woodcut Number 4 (11%, $25/bottle, ~ $.98/oz)

The finale of the lineup was far and way the most expensive bottle we've ever cracked for Beer Club but considering how cheap most Oktoberfests are and that this was a special occasion, it was definitely in order.

It was also the first time that we had a beer on tap since I had just picked up a keg of the Schell's Oktoberfest. The keg went over very well not just at Beer Club but also at Isenberg Freedom Fest a couple weekends before.

It was another great month for me because none of the of the beers seemed to be an overwhelming favorite and most seemed to have different fans. I like to see that because it means that Beer Club is accomplishing its goals of exposing several different people to several different beers to find out what suits each person.

The Odell of course, blew everybody way. Thankfully it did because I'd have been pissed about dropping $25 on a bottle that nobody liked!

Well, with the way the time is flying by I think we'll be celebrating two years of Beer Club before we know it. That's not a bad thing at all...

Beer Club, Volume One - Oktoberfest

The first meeting of Beer Club kind of picked its own theme. Even if it seems a little weird, Oktoberfest beers all seem to come out in September and with a whole mess of them coming out the week or two before Beer Club met and Surlyfest occurring two days before it, the Oktoberfest theme seemed like a no-brainer.

My initial thought was to get a few of the brands that people knew (Schell's, Summit, Sam Adams, Leinie's) and then a few of the not-quite-so-known brands outside of beer geeks (Paulaner, Ayinger, etc). The lineup ended up also being on autopilot and picking itself for the most part and we ended up with the following beers:
Flying Dog Dogtoberfest
Bells Octoberfest Beer
Left Hand Oktoberfest
Schell Octoberfest
Paulaner Oktoberfest
Avery The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest
Boulevard Bobs 47 Oktoberfest
Ayinger Oktober Fest-Märzen
Capital Autumnal Fire
Surly SurlyFest

(and one more that I'll have to check my notes for)

Eleven beers in all, with Surlyfest being a last minute addition when a couple guys were able to procure some for the meeting. I knew that all of these should be pretty solid beers based off their scores on Rate Beer and off the word of mouth from friends and experts and my own personal experience with a few of them.

While the Oktoberfest theme was very timely for the calendar it may have not been the greatest style to showcase huge differences between the brands. I'm sure part of that is due to our inexperience with tasting and not being able to pick out the characteristics of the beer that seasoned beer tasters are capable of doing. We all seemed to notice that each brand was definitely different in aroma and flavor but it was hard to put a finger on most of them.

The one beer that stood out more than the rest of them was the Kaiser. Most of the club decided this wasn't their favorite one with Josh and I being the only ones who really liked it a lot. To me, it had some great characteristics that reminded me of what I love in IPA's (some citrus, some hops) and it also stood out in the crowd for me.

Overall, the Schell's and the Paulaner seemed to stand out (with the Paulaner being my second favorite) but there wasn't one that people didn't find very drinkable.

The beers aside, I think the meeting went very well. There were 7 of us total (with a guest as well) and everybody's comments and observations made us all notice things that we didn't notice on our own. A perfect example for me was the Ayinger. There was something to it that I couldn't put my finger, er, I mean taste buds on until Mike made me realize it was butter. Weird... I would have never been looking for a butter flavor in a beer but it was actually pretty good.

We have a very good core group of guys who seem to be coming for the right reasons and take this just the right amount of serious while still having a very fun time. I mean come on, we don't want to take the fun out of drinking beer. I'm already looking forward to next month which has already been pegged as IPA month (followed by November's Imperial Stouts).

The inaugural meeting with the charter members (L to R) Mike B, Bob, Pat, Kris, Paul U, Mike I and Josh. Not pictured, charter member not in attendance Paul L and Beer Club guest and picture taker Allison.

Gentlemen, welcome to Beer Club

As my beer hobby as spun out of control (or is it into tighter control?) the past few months, I've been finding myself wanting to talk beer more with people. I don't have a lot of friends who like to step outside their normal beer drinking boxes and those that do still don't try half of the new stuff that I do. I could hang out at the Four Firkins all night after work but I'm sure even a patient guy like Alvey would eventually kick me out.

I work with a guy who belongs to a brew club and he told me to check it out sometime, but when I looked into it more online, it seemed to have a heavy concentration on home brewing which I am not looking to get into (quite yet).

That left me with the same option that I always seem to face when I'm looking for something that doesn't exist - start it myself. I have a pretty decent home bar that seats around 10 people quite nicely. I do the research on beers and buy them anyway. Why not find some of those outside the beer box friends of mine and get something going?

Beer Club was born.

I've heard about the beer tasting parties where everybody shows up and brings a six pack and everybody tastes the different beers either blindly or otherwise and then either rate the beers or just rank them and it's a good old time. I like the concept, but my fear about doing something like that is you'd wind up with three people bringing a six pack of Summit, two bringing a four pack of Surly and then a couple random other beers.

I wanted to be able to come up with a theme, to put like beers against each other, to make sure there was a revolving style of beers so that we had variety every month. I figured the easiest way to do that would be to make myself quasi-dictator (I put quasi in front of that in case any Beer Club members are reading this). I decided that I'd pick the style of beer for the month and then do some research, talk to some of those in the know, get some input from the Beer Club members and go buy the lineup beers for everybody to try on the third Monday of every month (Monday being chosen so that we can watch some football during a third of the year).

I thought that this strategy would accomplish a few things. First, it would eliminate the "too many chefs" syndrome. Second, it would allow for some consistency as to what we're trying and hopefully set up a good variety of styles and avoid IPA month 7 months out of the year. Lastly, I wanted to make it as easy as possible since everybody is so busy and not everybody has the time nor the inclination that I do to set this up. My hope was that if all people had to do was show up once a month with a $10 bill to put in the Beer Club fund it would make it less tempting to skip than if they had to figure out what to bring and then go buy it.

I set up a Beer Club group on my Ning website, explained my intentions and baited the hook. I tried to spark a few debates and planned the first meeting to be in September. I got some nibbles and reeled some guys in and started planning. We tossed around some clever names for our group (I really liked the Arrogant Bastards after Stone's notorious beer but ended up going that route with this blog instead) but since none of them hashed out, I think Beer Club has just stuck. I figured with us guys getting together underground just like Tyler Durden to escape our normal lives it was a little fitting (OK, so my bar is only halfway underground, big deal).

I decided that with the first meeting taking place in September, it would be a perfect month to plan an Oktoberfest theme especially it would be only two days after Surlyfest. As the time towards beer club ticked down I realized it was a wise decision because website after website, email after email and Tweet after Tweet was pimping the new Oktoberfest that showed up in liquor stores across the Twin Cities.

My plan was to have roughly 6-8 different beers for everybody to try but with Oktoberfests being a bit cheaper than I expected and some last minute donations, the lineup was set at ten different brews as the first meeting approached. It was a little rough to get people mobilized but I had heard from enough people to decide that it was a go.

So the stage was set, the players were chosen and we were ready to go.

We'll find out in the next post if my plan worked out. Stay tuned....

(how can you go wrong with a lineup with this?)

A Renaissance Man

Saturday I went to the Renaissance Festival for the first time. It seems like something I should have been going to for years. At least I finally corrected the mistake. It turned out to be a good place for beer as well as there was plenty of it on tap and luckily for me there was some from my hometown of New Ulm. Not only did they have Premium and Premium Light, they had the new Oktoberfest so my choice was easy.

There's always something that makes me smile about having a beer before noon, ten in the morning in this case. I didn't bother to remember enough about it to give it an official rating but I do know that I liked it quite a bit, it especially paired well with a turkey leg.

After getting so many props from the State Fair crowd about my Surly shirt last weekend I thought I'd see how the Renaissance crowd would react. Same thing, different festival. Apparently there is always a handful of Surly fans around and this shirt is like my secret handshake with them.

I also bought a few beer drinking receptacles at the festival as well, starting with a viking horn that performs double duty as a beverage holder and a noise maker. I also bought a nice commemorative mug as something a little bit nicer to drink from. The big purchase however was the leather mug. The price was a little bit sky high and it took me quite awhile to say screw it, I'm splurging. I really like the idea of using it at Bock Fest and any other beer festivals that I go to. It's nice and light and durable and should see hopefully many years of service. Next year I'll bring it to the Renaissance and tell them to fill my barrel with beer.

Skol!

A weekend of supporting my local breweries

Last Friday I swung by Surly Brewing to pick up my tickets for Surlyfest. I'm hoping that Paul is able to go with me but either way, I wanted to make sure I had a couple tickets. I also picked up a Surlyfest Tshirt and a Darkness goblet and chatted with Omar for a few minutes about the Vikes, tailgating and the Surlywagon which will have a presence in Minneapolis this fall at football games.

Had a wedding to go in Bloomington and decided to hit the area early to avoid rush hour traffic and have a beer in the meantime. Since Majors was just a mile or two from the church, it seemed like a good place to go. I saw they had Firebrick from Schell's on tap and had been meaning to try that again for awhile so I ordered. It happened to be happy hour so I got a 2-for-1. Nice. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not too familiar with that style (Vienna-style lager) but I wasn't able to pick a whole lot of flavors out of it. It's a solid beer that I rated a 3.3 but it didn't really stand out in the crowd for me. Of course, in a lineup of macrobrews, I'd order this every time. Here's my RateBeer review:
Tap at Majors. Deep copper color and a faint malty aroma. Medium mouthfeel, with the malt again coming through as the main flavor for me. Decent beer, I'll drink it again.

Saturday I went to the State Fair and of course my mission was to see what this beer on a stick from Summit was all about. So I took off, wearing my black Surly shirt to represent and was surprised by how many comments I got on it ranging from "nice shirt" to have-to-stop-and-give-a-high-five. Even the guy in the Summit booth liked it.

Speaking of Summit, the beer on a stick isn't exactly what you might think. It's a small paddle with holes cut out for you to put three 7oz cups of Summit into, one EPA, one Oktoberfest and one Horizon Red. At $7.50 it's not a bad deal for the State Fair, especially if you haven't had them and want to sample some of each. If you brought your paddle back you could get a "refill" for $6.50. So I did and since they let you call audibles I got one Oktoberfest for Allison and two Horizon Reds for myself because that beer is really growing on me.

Also traded in a 27" TV (the gigantic kind) for two four packs of Surly Coffee Bender. The price for electronics has definitely changed quite a bit in the past 5 years or so.

Went bowling later that day and had a couple Surly Benders on tap for only $3.15 which is pretty much like stealing. Check it out if you can - http://www.newhopebowl.net/ Great pizza, good deals on bowling and did I mention $3.15 glasses of Surly Bender?

Sunday was quite uneventful for beer due to back to back fantasy football drafts followed by volleyball at 8:00 but I had to have some beer or it wouldn't have seemed like a draft. Had a couple Coffee Benders during the first draft and a tall Honeyweiss during the second one.

Last night was pretty much the same story, had dinner downtown and it was accompanied by a couple Surly Furious pints. Looking forward to life slowing down again so I can get caught up with all the good beers I have on deck.

Cheers!

Last Weekend

Went to Mankato for a nice relaxing guy's weekend of football watching, golf, Tarantino and of course beer.

Mankato's MGM stores seem to have a great selection of microbrews for a big liquor store so I stopped by the North Mankato location to see what they had for me to drink during the Vikes game Friday night.

It took awhile to get things narrowed down because of the selection but I eventually decided to try a six pack each of Goose Island India Pale Ale and Bell's Kalamazoo Stout and grabbed a four pack of Surly Coffee Bender (why is that stuff so expensive these days?). Official ratings to come but after 2 of the IPA's and a Stout I could safely say I chose wisely.

Saturday morning I rolled out of bed for to relax for awhile before golf and had myself a Coffee Bender.

Decided not to have any while golfing but did have another Goose Island at the house before James and I took off at the bar.

While there I asked what they had for darker beers on tap and when I heard that they had Oktoberfests from both Schell's and Leinie's, I decided to start with a Schell's to support my hometown brewery. I'm not real familiar with Oktoberfests but James and I both thought it looked pretty pale and yellow to be one. No worries though, it tasted good and went down nicely. Found out when I ordered my next round that the first waitress was mistaken and the Schell's that I drank was actually Zommerfest and that my next beer would indeed be an Oktoberfest from Leinie's. That made a lot more sense after we found that out. Both beers were pretty solid and I had a second Leinie's which went down slow since a good dinner and the first two tall glasses filled my belly. Looking forward to my exploration of more Oktoberfests (including Schell's which should be out around now).

Sunday was quite eventful, just had one of the 32 oz mugs filled with Honeyweiss after our very successful volleyball match. Another good weekend with beer in the books.