Beer Tasting: Super Bowl XLVI Party

A few weeks before the Super Bowl was to occur, I went on the Ari­zona Craft Beer Lovers (AZCBL) Face­book page ask­ing if any­one was will­ing to host a beer tast­ing party on Super Bowl Sun­day. Luck­ily, John Ziegler (part-time bar­tender at The Water­ing Hole in Chan­dler) stepped up to the chal­lenge. And from there on things just kept get­ting better.…

The next best thing to hap­pen in the quest for the best Super Bowl Party was when Ted Golden from Four Peaks Brew­ery donated two cases of Sun­bru cans, one case of 8^th Street Ale bot­tles, and a 5 gal­lon keg of Kiltlifter. A huge THANK YOU goes out to Ted for his unbe­liev­able gen­eros­ity to help make this Sun­day a mem­o­rable one.

To make this expe­ri­ence that much bet­ter, John was able to pro­cure a smoker for the day in which he smoked brats, chicken wings, and ribs. There was a ton of food avail­able at this party and was way more than enough for the 50+ peo­ple that showed up through­out the night.

As you can tell by the main pic­ture, there were a LOT of beers shared that night, includ­ing some home­brews not shown in the pic­ture. Since there were so many beers I am just going to go through them ran­domly. I will start off with the high­light of the evening:  All 12 Stone Col­lab­o­ra­tion beers (pic­tured to the left). A big Thank You to Bran­don Hurst for shar­ing this ver­ti­cal with every­one. In order from their release dates we have Bel­gian Style Tripel Ale 2008 (Stone/AleSmith/Mikkeller), Spe­cial Holdiay Ale 2008 (Stone/Jolly Pumpkin/Nogne O), Jux­ta­po­si­tion Black Pil­sner 2009 (Stone/BrewDog/Cambridge), Kona Cof­fee Macadamia Coconut Porter 2009 (Stone/Maui/Ken Schmidt), El Camino (Un)Real Black Ale 2010 (Stone/Firestone Walker/21^st Amend­ment), Sai­son du BUFF 2010 (Stone/Dogfish Head/Victory) San Diego County Ses­sion Ale 2010 (Stone/Ballast Point/Kelsey McNair), High­way 78 Scotch Ale 2011 (Stone/Green Flash/Pizza Port Carls­bad), Japan­ese Green Tea IPA 2011 (Stone/Baird/Ishii), Cherry Choco­late Stout 2011 (Stone/Troegs/Jason Fields & Kevin Shep­pard), La Cit­rueille Celeste de Cit­ra­cado 2011 (Stone/Bruery/Elysian), and finally More Brown Than Black IPA 2011 (Stone/Ninkasi/The Alchemist). Also mak­ing an appear­ance was the Stone/Brewdog Col­lab­o­ra­tion Bashah. Of all these col­lab­o­ra­tions my favorites were the Jux­ta­po­si­tion, Green Tea IPA, Coconut Porter, More Brown Than Black IPA, and Ses­sion Ale.

Prob­a­bly a “Before” picture

I know I keep repeat­ing myself when I say this, but yet another great part about this tast­ing party was the home­brew that peo­ple brought to share. Sean and Kat Mor­rill brought some of their home­brews with names, descrip­tions, and stats. Beers included a Dou­ble IPA, Black IPA, Cream Ale, Weizen­bock, and a Scotch Ale. All were very enjoy­able and the BIPA seemed to be a huge hit with every­one. Chris Soper also brought a growler of his Honey Amber Ale, also very deli­cious. A cou­ple more peo­ple were nice enough to share their hard work with every­one as well.

Now its time to list a few more beers from this tast­ing start­ing with some beers from Epic Brew­ery in Utah. Gal­loway Porter, Elder Brett, and Big Bad Bap­tist were brought by 3 dif­fer­ent peo­ple. The Porter was very nice for its style. The Elder Brett was a very inter­est­ing beer which had some funk and sour to it but in a very good way. Then there is the Big Bad Bap­tist, an Impe­r­ial Cof­fee Stout. If you really like cof­fee, this is the beer for you. I can also say I don’t drink cof­fee at all, but love it when its in a beer. The aroma and fla­vor is so amaz­ing. Find some if you get the chance. A few Dog­fish Head beers were rep­re­sented which included 120 Minute IPA (2011), Ta Hen­ket (newest Ancient Ale), and 90 Minute IPA. Another treat were some beers from Avery, which no longer dis­trib­utes to AZ for now. These beers were Bra­bant (a sour/wild ale), The Beast Grand Cru (2008), and Samael’s Oak-Aged Ale (2006). Holy crap those beers were fan­tas­tic after some aging.

And the “After” picture

Some other spe­cial beers that we got to try that are not dis­trib­uted to AZ were Victory’s Golden Mon­key, Philadel­phia Brewery’s Win­ter Wun­der and Shacka­max­i­mum, Surly Abra­sive, Hangar 24 Colum­bus IPA, and New Holland’s Dragon’s Milk (2011). Yet again, all of these beers were very enjoy­able, high­lighted by Surly’s Abra­sive DIPA, New Holland’s Dragon’s Milk, and Philadelphia’s Win­ter Wunder.

And finally the list of the remain­ing beers: Fire­stone Walker XV Anniver­sary; Bal­last Point Vic­tory At Sea; Deschutes Black Butte XXIII, Jube­lale (2011), The Abyss (2011), and Fresh Hop Mir­ror Pond; Sierra Nevada 30^th Anniver­sary Grand Cru and Ovila Quad; Sam Adams Infinium (2011) and Tas­man Red; North Coast Bar­rel Aged Old Rasputin XIV; Jolly Pump­kin La Parcela; Still­wa­ter Folk­lore; Nogne O Holy Smoke and Spe­cial Hol­i­day Ale; Sai­son du Pont; Evil Twin Disco Beer; Uinta Tilted Smile Impe­r­ial Pil­sner; Stone Ver­ti­cal Epic 08−08−08; 3 Fonteinen Schaer­beekse Kriek.

So obvi­ously it was a lot of fun at this party and the last thing left to do is my Thank You list, at least I won’t have music try­ing to hurry me up and cut me off. First off, thanks to John Ziegler for vol­un­teer­ing to host this event, you did a fan­tas­tic job. Next, another thank you to Ted Golden for pro­vid­ing us with some great local beers. And finally a thank you goes out to all the AZCBL and East Val­ley Beer Posse (EVBP) that showed up and con­tributed to this amaz­ing beer tast­ing such as Bryan Myron (Brew Bro), Sean and Kat Mor­rill, Chris Soper, Daniel Greener, Tim Weable, Ryan Durr, Heather Hur­ley, Debi Denice, Bran­don Hurst, James and Susana Swann, Matt Elliott, Krys­tal Bit­tner, Paul Hoerner, Christy Strohl, Ben Smith, and Scott Fleisher. If I missed you I apol­o­gize but a huge thank you to all of you as well. This was one of the best beer tast­ings and par­ties I have ever had the plea­sure being a part of and I can’t wait until next Super Bowl for another great event. Cheers!!!

Be Socia­ble, Share!

• 

Justin

I love craft beer, I know…understatement of the year. I live in Chan­dler, AZ and get the awe­some job of going to brew­eries, pubs, restau­rants, and stores to try their beers and write reviews, not too shabby. I’ve been drink­ing craft beer for 7 years now and love how the craft beer move­ment is evolv­ing so quickly. If you have any com­ments, ques­tions, or sug­ges­tions please con­tact me at justin@thebrewbros.com. You can also “Friend” me on Face­book (http://www.facebook.com/IMakeBeerSexy) and fol­low me on Twit­ter (@aircoleman). I’m also on Untappd (http://untappd.com/user/aircoleman). Look­ing for­ward to hear­ing from you. Cheers!!!

More Posts

Related posts: