Beer Tasting 2015

We've been doing an annual beer tasting/Oktoberfest for quite a few years now and I'm sure I've blogged about it before.  I remember when I first met Lindsay she told me that my family had more traditions than anyone else she knew, and this is just one of those traditions.

I can't even remember how many years back my parents and the Ware's were together in Galena and read about a beer tasting.  They were excited to go until they read that it was $35 per person.  Being thrifty they thought, we can do that ourselves for cheaper and so Beer Fest was born.

Over the years the format has changed slightly and the people involved have changed, but there is a core group that keeps it going and we get excited to include others when possible.  This year we made some changes to the voting process and we think we've finally found a process that works well for us.

Here's how it works.  Each participant brings a 6 pack of their "entry" beer. Each beer is given a number and entered into a bracket.  We've gone to a blind tasting to try and take care of beer and owner bias :O)  Beers are covered with paper bags so nobody knows what beer is being tasted or who entered it.  Beers go head to head in a traditional bracket style.  Each participant is given a blue and red poker chips.  The chips are used to vote to eliminate double voting/confusion.

Jamie and I ran the show this year.  We did all the pouring/organizing/vote counting etc.  You know me...I love to organize events and it was fun to have a co-organizer!!

Nobody should be surprised to hear that after tasting 12+ beers things get a little fuzzy.  At one point my Dad was so confident about his vote that he grabbed his blue chip and tossed it into the voting cup.  But....that red solo cup he's holding was actually the "dump cup" for beers that people just really didn't enjoy.

This year's winner was Andy with a beer from Triptych Brewery in Southern Illinois.  Andy and Bart have been involved in beer tasting for two years now.  Last year Bart won the paddle so we scheduled this years tasting for a weekend they could come. It looks like the paddle is headed back to Southern Illinois for another year.  That means us northerners are going to have to step it up next year to get our paddle back!!!