3 Months, 10 Beers, 1 Goal
Last week I had a wonderful tasting of my Homebrew at Elizabeth Street Brewery, It was a small and very personal tasting because of the limited amount of beer I could afford to ship. At the Tasting hosted by Richard Brewer-Hay, proprietor of Elizabeth Street Brewery were about 15 local craft beer lovers and supporters of Elizabeth Street Brewery, including Shaun O’Sullivan, owner of 21st Amendment. After I introduced my wife, Dani, to the crowd, she announced “… and I hate Beer”. If you know me and my wife, it actually made me smile, because she is my biggest fan.
Lets just say that quieted the crowd. Everyone looked shocked and rightfully so. A guy like me, a huge craftbeer advocate, long time homebrewer, and big time connoisseur of all things alcoholic you’d think my significant other would be right there with me? Well, actually she is. She bought me my first homebrewing kit, has encouraged and supported my obsession with beer and brewing. But the one thing, she generally doesn’t like the taste of beer. We have found a couple beers that she liked the smell and others she has liked the taste. A couple that she has enjoyed were Dogfish Head 120min IPA and 21st Admendment’s Monks Blood.
A couple days after the tasting at dinner, Dani said, “Lets try to find some beers I like and we can document the journey on Simply Beer.” That sounded like an excellent idea to me! So, we are on a quest to find Dani 10 beers she likes over the next 3 months.
We’d love to hear your suggestions!
What a cool project. I wonder if the following would be hits: Celebrator Doppelbock, Hitachino Nest Ginger, Cascade Apricot, Rodenbach Vintage 2007, Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier, St Bernardus 8 or Rochefort 6, Bell’s Two-Hearted (creamy and malty for an IPA), Ballast Point Calico Amber, Bruery Saison Rue…
Thanks Maggie. That is a nice selection of beer. We did have the cascade Apricot while on vacation. I thought Dani might like it since it reminded me of a Mimosa, but it didn’t fly.
Southern Tier Creme Brûlée! All of my girlfriends that aren’t into beer love this one.
This sounds like a great read. I look forward to see which beers you try!
@Cat, I have a bottle. I’ll have to give the Creme Brulee a try.
Thanks @Lee, Not sure what we are going to start with and I’m not sure it is going to fall into a type of style; it may be more of individual beers.
The Allagash Victor & the Victoria are both made with chardonnay grapes – as a wine lover I thought they were awesome (as a beer lover they were also exceptional!) so that might be a road to go down?
Sounds exactly like my wife. There are always the easy ones, fruit wheat beers. Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat, 21A’s. Or High Watermelon, etc. Lost Coast’s Raspberry Brown is usually a hit as well. Or try a Belgian styled fruit beer, Lindeman’s Framboise goes well, as do New Glarus Red and Tart if you can get them.
For a more beer geeky selection, my wife loves sours. This is helped by living in Santa Rosa but Supplication and Temptation are two of her favorites.
On hops, she likes to go big, but not bitter. Pliny the Elder/Younger, Hop Stoopid are her favorites. Lagunitas Lil Sumpin Sumpin also is a hit.
Good Luck!
I have some experience with just this goal of yours. I think sours might be key to your quest. Any Russian River sour and Rodenbach Grand Cru are great starts. Then move her towards some of The Bruery beers like Autumn Maple and Orchard White. She will be on the road to beer-loving in no time! Good luck!
@Vanessa, good thought. The Victoria is an exceptional beer, just wish it wasn’t so expensive.
@Mario We were actually at Russian River Brewpub last sunday (were back in NJ now), I got a Flight of all the draft beer. I think she liked sanctification and the Russian River IPA (not Pliney or Hopfather)
@Brett Actually she really hasn’t been a fan of many of the sour I like which are very acidic and tart, but Rodenbach or Duchess du Borgiogne(sp?) might be ones to try. It is going to be an interesting road.
Is she a red or white wine drinker? That would be my jumping off point for any other ideas 🙂
Red, particularly Malbec and Merlot
I like reds and whites. I like champagne. I like shots.
Beer…not so much which is why this will be a fun project! I will be posting my thoughts along side Peter which will make it even more interesting.
~ D.
Try New Glarus Enigma. Jim brought me a bottle of that recently from Wisconsin, and it was amazing. I didn’t know beer could be like that, and I drink a lot of beer. Give that a try. If I had another I would give some to my wife, because she too doesn’t like beer!
Grab Allagash Curieux if you can find it; IMO it tastes very little like a beer and is aged in burbon barrels.
Other suggestions: Something like Sanctification might be an interesting choice, since it also doesn’t have as many “beer” flavors. A berliner weisse might be a good choice, if you can find one. I know Sudwerk Davis has one on tap, but it tasted like a wheat to me. Need to sample it again.
It is an awesome beer. probably my favorite non-sour from Allagash. I’m going to include it in my list for Dani.
Creme Brulee is a crazy beer; VERY interested to see what a non-beer drinker thinks of it.
Lambics seem like an obvious choice. Not my favorite, but I know a lot of wine drinkers that love them.
@lee, the vanilla may be a good flavor for Dani, we’ll see! 🙂
@chad, I’m sure we will try one or two!
Uhhh so not a vanilla person so I won’t be going there.
We have 24 craft beers on tap, all chosen by our staff after rigorous testing. Dani seems partial to the IPAs; we have one from Founders and another from Lagunitas, both of which are popular. One that is not in our rotation now, but that can be found around NYC, is Captain Lawrence Imperial IPA; it’s fabulous.
Two new beers that we recently added and seem to be pouring continuously are Blue Point Toasted Lager and Sixpoint Oatmeal Stout. For our customers new to craft beers, there are always our top suggestions, and we’ve yet to have a customer ask for something else instead.
http://brickyardnyc.com/beer_list.php
Try Sweetwater Blue or Abita Purple Haze. Both are fruit beers that my wife drinks while scowling at my beers of choice….