Tuesday Night Tasting

Another night of fun and great beer. We gathered at about 6PM at The Panama City Beach Wine World and I sincerely apologize for not mentioning that on the FaceBook invite, for those who saw it. I did not think of the people in Destin that might be coming.

We started the night with a little pale ale action and wasted no time getting into some beers not from this area. Interestingly, one of the sales reps from Lazy Magnolia sat in with us and we thank Patrick for coming. He promises to come more. He brought with him a bottle of Lazy Magnolia 'Reb Ale'. This is one of their newest creations and I really liked it. As we started tasting, Patrick noticed another familiar bottle on the table. It was the Back Forty Brewing 'Naked Pig' that I brought. He recognized it because Lazy Magnolia brews it. Yes, they are the contracted brewer of Back Forty Beer Co. It is a common practice for small breweries to start up with someone else brewing their beer for them, just ask Sam Adams.

After the 'Naked Pig' was tasted, we tried the New Belgium '2 Below'. This is basically their winter ale.Next we tasted 'Racer 5' and 'Blind Pig', both California beers, and Saint Arnold's 'Divine Reserve 6'. Saint Arnold releases the Divine once a year, but it is not always the same beer. The 6 was a barleywine and a very good one I must say.

After tasting some of the lighter beers we move onto the darker and heavier stuff. We tasted a couple of bottles Matt brought back from Indiana. Both were brewed by Three Floyds. One of the beers was called 'Fantabulous Resplendence' and we had no idea what kind of beer it was going to be. Michael looked it up on BeerAdvocate and it called the beer an American Strong Ale, which means whatever. The other beer by Three Floyds was called 'Black Sun' and it had a slight smoke texture to it, not bad though.

Now that we are into the heavier stuff, Jeremy suggest we open the Terrapin 'Gamma Ray'. He pours everyone around him a taste, but not himself. Everyone looks at him with a little confused almost a look of disbelief. Jeremy holds his hands up and says, " I don't want any, that stuff is gross!", so we drank without him. I personally didn't think it was terrible, but was more of an sweet beer. Matt and Patrick loved it and got a couple extra samples from people who thought it was gross.

Last, we opened up the richest, most robust, blackest, thickest beer on the table. Michael brought a bottle of Avery 'Mephistopheles' Stout. Weighing in at 15.1% and 107 IBUs, this one will make you cough. Not a lot of people were going back for seconds of this one and for a reason.

Well, I said the Avery was last, but then Dan brought over to us a couple of Founders beers. 'Dirty Bastard' and 'KBS' were our nightcaps. The 'Dirty Bastard is good, but it is way too Bourbon flavored. Might be a problem if you age your beer in Bourbon barrels, huh? And The 'KBS' was as delicious as always.

Well, that concludes our Tuesday Night Tasting and if you were not there, come next time. The point of this tasting is for people who want to drink good to actually get to drink good beer. We will be at the PANAMA CITY BEACH Wine World next week with whole new line of beer. Will you be there?