Event: Beer Blending at Whole Foods

Blend night at the water­ing hole in Whole Foods Chan­dler was a huge suc­cess. While there were cer­tainly aspects of the event that were crit­i­cized (sorry folks, you can’t please every­one all the time) the gen­eral con­sen­sus was that peo­ple were hav­ing a good time and enjoy­ing some good beer. And isn’t that what a Fri­day night is for?

For those who weren’t able to make it out to the event, (and for those who were there but can’t quite recall what was poured) here is the list of the blends that were pre­sented along with their pour­ing ratios and the names that we Brew Bros have devised for them:

White Choco­late w/ Ine­bri­a­tor (25÷75) = Druken Brownie

Ine­bri­a­tor w/ Crispin (25÷75) = Crispinator

Deviant Dales w/ Ine­bri­a­tor (75÷25) = Devil Dog

Peche w/White Choco­late (60÷40) = Deca­dent Peach

Apri­cot w/Old Rasputin (60÷40) = Great Ape

Alt w/ Wookey Jack (50÷50) = Chewbaca

Obvi­ously palates dif­fer so it is tough to say which blend was the favorite amongst the crowd but I noticed a lot of pos­i­tive feed­back on the Drunken Brownie blend and the attached “Unof­fi­cial Poll” con­firms that was one of the favorites. We were very much aware dur­ing the pro­gres­sion of cre­at­ing this event that blend­ing beers is a con­tro­ver­sial sub­ject amongst craft beer enthu­si­asts. The main argu­ment against the con­cept of blend­ing craft beer is that it is not what the brew­ers intended, so why mess with a good thing? We try to con­cen­trate on pos­i­tiv­ity and cre­ativ­ity. Because like any sub­ject of con­tro­versy, there exists two sides to the argu­ment. Here’s a bit of insight into the pos­i­tive side… some beers like Yin and Yang were specif­i­cally designed by the brew­ers to be blended. Fur­ther­more, most pro­fes­sional brew­ers I’ve spo­ken with just want folks to buy and enjoy their beer. So long as you aren’t in Ore­gon (no offense intended toward those who don’t fit into this cat­e­gory, but some beer drinkers/servers up there can be a bit uppity), you shouldn’t come across much hate and dis­con­tent for try­ing out some blends of your own design. While I’ve per­son­ally enjoyed blends like Black/Tan and Snakebite in the past, blend­ing craft beer is rel­a­tively new to me. The first time I dis­cov­ered that this was hap­pen­ing, I was at the Phoenix Ale Brew­ery. One of the brew­ers (that’s right, I said one of the brew­ers) asked George to pour their water­melon wheat with their impe­r­ial porter. I tried it. And the con­coc­tion was quite deli­cious. The atten­dees at Whole Foods seemed to have the same open-mindedness and it made for quite an enjoy­able atmosphere.

We would like to thank James Swann and Jon Ziegler from the water­ing hole for their col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts (see­ing them behind their bar on a busy night is like an orches­tra of awe­some), and we would also like to thank all of the peo­ple who made it to the event, for mak­ing it so spe­cial for us. I’d be remiss if I didn’t wel­come back fel­low Brew Bro, Justin (so there you go buddy). Welp, that’s enough paren­the­sis for one arti­cle. We will have plenty more pic­tures posted on Face­book as well.

Sem­per Fi. Prost! Cheers mate. And what­ever other shenani­gans glasses can be charged by.

Be Socia­ble, Share!

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Jonathan

Jonathan Jame­son writes for the same rea­son that he brews – to share free­dom. A San Die­gan born, for­mer Marine who has moved more times than a trav­el­ing cir­cus, Jonathan’s appre­ci­a­tion for craft beer began in 2004 while rid­ing the Pacific Sur­fliner train up the South­ern Cal­i­forn­ian coast. Stone’s Arro­gant Bas­tard Strong Ale quickly became his bev­er­age of choice on the café car and opened his mind to the empow­er­ment that vari­ety pro­vides. Since then, to put the big pic­ture in small words, Jonathan has con­tin­ued to find new ways to share his pas­sion for beer and his love affair with expression.

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