3 Months 10 Beers – A Grand Slam ~ 4 Beers, 1 Night ALL WINNERS
My wife and I are on a quest to find her 10 beers over the next 3 months that she can enjoy! We have found very few beers that she has enjoyed. But on this one fun filled night, I hit a grand slam or at least figured out how to introduce new beer to my wife. Granted there will still be beer she doesn’t like, but with some good food and in this case good family I have a leg up. With my beer adventurous in-laws, good food, and some great beer, I think I might have figured it out.
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| Well either Peter finally figured out what I liked or he just decided to let me have beers he already knew I would like. Either way they were awesome and I can easily enjoy 5 beers (5 more to go). The beers that I tried were Russian River Damnation, Brewery Ommegang Cup of Kindness, Dogfish Head Red and White and Bryggeriet Djaevlbryg Gudelos,. The first were really crisp, tangy and fun. I had these with dinner but really could drink them all night.
The Gudelos, was served while eating my favorite ice cream — coffee chip. It was really GREAT with the dessert and Peter says it’s a beer that goes well with chocolate. I’m a girl that goes well with chocolate so it was a match made in (beer) heaven. BTW, besides being able to go to a bar and not be the only one without a beer I wonder what else I will get for being the guinea pig for this experiment? |
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| I thought some of the beers tonight would be winners, but I all four??? A couple weeks ago Dani and I were at Russian River in Santa Rosa CA. and I remembered she liked a couple, but after a 20 beer sampler, I couldn’t recall which ones. My recollection was the Damnation was one of the more tame Russian River Beers, but still a solid flavorful beer. With Dani seeming to prefer slightly less fragrant, but flavorful beers I thought this would right up her alley. Not to mention it tasted pretty darn good with the roasted chicken. Score! 1 for 1 tonight.
As this impromptu night of tasting continued, we had coffee chocolate chip ice cream for desert. After looking in the fridge to see what would compliment the ice cream and Dani might like, I went out on a limb and grabbed a beer that my Buddy from Hunterdon Distributing gave me, Bryggeriet Daevlebryg Gudelos Imperial Stout. By golly, it was a perfect match with the ice cream and Dani loved it. It had nice roasted coffee flavor with a good dark chocolate bitterness. WooHoo! 2 for 2! It usually happens when my In-Laws come over, I keep pulling out beer for us to try. After desert I wanted to have another beer, but where do you go after an imperial stout? I figured go big and malty, just so happens I had a bottle of Brewery Ommegang Cup O Kindness in the fridge. Almost sounds like I had a plan! 🙂 Either way, I was very impressed with this “Belgian Style” Scotch Ale. Great well balanced flavor and the perfect amount of heather, put this over the top in my book. It’s not my book that matters here, it’s Dani’s and she really liked this one! Hot Damn, 3 for 3! Intermission for a bottle of wine… (it was a decent ’08 Mendoza Cabernet) So, 3 for 3, I was on a roll and had to push it, one more beer. I had the odds on my side, 3 good beers and 2 bottles of wine in; lets just say our palettes were probably a bit more liberal at this point. From one of my favorite breweries, Dogfish Head, I introduced my family to one of my favorite beers from them, Red & White. I love this beer, a wit aged on Pinot Noir barrels and thankfully so did the rest of the clan at the dinner table. And there you have it folks a Perfect night, 4 for 4! |
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I think I said in an earlier post that she would probably like Dogfish Red & White or was it a Framboise. Either way not surprised she liked the Red & White, its a truly great beer.
Wow, out of the ball park as they say! 🙂 Seems you’re getting quite the education on matching palates to beers, Peter!
Seth, it was a good call. It was pushing the envelope a bit, but she did enjoy it. We are up to 5 beers now, well actually 6. There was a brewpub in Princeton NJ, Triumph, that had a Rye Amber. That beer tasted exactly like rye bread which dani loves, hence he liked that beer. Funny thing is that beer paired perfectly with kosher pickles! Pickles and Beer, beer ceases to amaze me!:-)
Vanessa, it is becoming quite fun, but I’m still picking a lot of beers I’ve never had before and just guessing. We had a couple of flops in between #7 and this Batch, 2008 Pannapot, Cigar City 100k+OT, and Lagunitas little sumpin Wild. All of these I enjoyed but each had something that Dani wasn’t a fan of, either the abv or the aroma.
Ahh I know that beer at Triumph it is definitely a very interesting beer and I agree with the pairing. Also a good cornbeef sandwich works well, heck you can have the cornbeef minus the bread since, you are drinking the Rye Bread 🙂
This is awesome. It sounds to me like you’ve made a proper beer convert of Dani… WIN! I have to try that Gudelos – been meaning to order some.
Ahh. What a good man. Can I go on your next beer quest?
do we need to find you 10 beers too 😉
I love this experiment. So many craft beer blogs (mine included) stick with the tired and true method of, drink-rate-review-blog-etc. It’s unquie posts and themes such as this that I actually look forward to and seek out amongst the rest.
Don’t get me wrong, I love ANYONE who spreads the good word of craft beer and shares their excitement with the rest of us, but it’s posts like these that stand out from the rest.
And these seem like an odd combo that resulted in a grandslam. Way to go!
Thanks James! that means a lot. I’ve gotten sick of writing the traditional reviews as well as reading many of them. You can see how I’ve changed over the last 2 years from formatted reviews with a rating system, to no rating system, to less structured reviews and now into a series. It’s been a lot more fun! Stay tuned for more 3months10beers, but you wont see one on Bitches Brew or Smuttynose Big A. She’s like me and would prefer not to write anything on beer she doesn’t like and keep this positive on beers she does enjoy.