Beer Thirstday: The Tellening

Brethern in beer

Every Thursday a tasteting of at least 6 special brews.

No pish allowed

It all began years ago. On Thursday evening my Broah, also a Hive member, @rodino and I started a beer tasteting tradition. We'd already would meet up every week and also have a couple of drinks. Mostly pilsner of the Amstel brand. And I cannot remember who came up with the idea to take some special beers with. But ever since then Thursday evenings became known as Beer Thirstday. Where we would be hosting in turn. And the one hosting would get at least 6 special brews. Which then would be split in half and we would taste and judge them. Starting off with the lowest alcohol one and building it up to a final heavy on the spirit one.

Pretty soon we came to understand that the 5 percent ones and lower were not that special. And also IPAs were often way too bitter for us to enjoy. There were exceptions of course, like the 'Mosaic' from Finland, named after the same Hop type. A little bitter was okay, as long as it would not shrink our tongue and the bitter taste needed to be flushed out with water, for hours. Some beer we did pour down the drain though. There were those that were supposed to have used roasted malt, but tasted like it had been just burned. Like some with chocolate in them. Many of those found their way to the sewage right away.

High on alcohol

Most of the ones we actually do like have a pretty high alcohol percentage. One of the highest in percentage tasted so far is the Danish 'Mine is bigger than yours', the one with the purple-blue label kicks in at a bottom whooping 15.5 percent. And it is my personal favorite of all time, so far. If memory serves me well it costs about 11 €uro a bottle. Luckily the bottles of the Danish Øl brewery are indeed bigger in size. They produce some awesome Barley Wines, the one with the yellow label also tastes great. It hits the spot at 12.5 percent. That one is my Broah's all time favorite. At about 6 €uro it still is quite expensive, but worth every cent. If you can get your hands on one of these, then go for it, it'll be worth it!

Before 'The mine is bigger than yours' my all time favorite was one that made me think of Haggis. A Scottish pleasure food, or so I heard, as I have never tasted any. The name of the beer is Hagger, brewed in Austria. And it is a barrel aged Barley Wine with a percentage of 12.2 percent. Going over the counter for about 14 €uro, not really cheap either, but absolutely worth the price. It is a well balanced brew that you will know to appreciate if you like Barley Wine type of beers. There are a lot of different flavors to be experienced. Same goes for both Danish ones. And I am going to let you have the pleasure of tasting these sensations for yourselves. If you are into the bitter the better, then the Beer Thirstday choices wont be to your liking though.

Joe's Garage

Recently we were invited to a friend's house for a beer tasteting evening. And to our surprise he had his shed turned into a tiny pub! Mancave next level. He had owned his own store where he sold special beer, whisky and more. And some of that he still had available. His knowledge about beer and whisky was excellent. A story attached to every drink we had in his tiny pub. Besides a splendid Porter from the year 2012, we also had a Belgian Kasteel Barista with Nitro gas in it. Now that sure was an awesome sensation. We tasted both 11 percent Barista versions, with and without Nitro gas. The Chocolate Quad with Nitro was smooth creamy sweetness. And I could have gone for more of those. It is in my personal top 3.

A few weeks later I suggested to do a live beer tasteting on air. "Grumpy men drinking beer, so you don't have to." That was the title of the show. And we had a great time at Oldambt FM. We had quite a few more brews than we normally would try. But as we were now the three beerketeers that made sense. We had to split all of them amongst us three. And our mate with all the knowledge and stories also brought a little bit of the Scottish Bowmore Whisky. Which was also used in one of the beers known as Heaven and Hell. The winner of that tasteting was the 2012 'Pannepot'. Blind testing that one compared to its 2018 version was tricky. As it turned out the 2012 tasted much smoother, with some hint of red wine it is quite special. Also an expensive one at 9 €uro but absolutely worth it!

Mo Beer

Making radio this way was awesome, we had a great time doing so. And apparently so did the listeners who gave us feedback. We've got plans for the Grumpy beer drinking men to go on tour. Doing some live radio beer tasting again, should be fun. For the first on tour we're planning to go to the tiny pub "Joe's Garage" again. The opening song? Well, that would be the Frank Zappa song with the same title. Unfortunately it will be presented in our native tongue: Nederish.

There have been many beers that have been tasted on Beer Thirstday and hopefully a lot more will follow. Just a very small selection I did present to you in this Beer Saturday publication, but if you can get your hands even on one of them then go for it! As I do think you will be in for some mind blowing taste experience.

Thanks to @detlev for inviting me to share my story with you.

Have a great one!

All photos are made by me.

Kind regards from Winschoten, in the North-east of the Netherlands , near the border with Germany.
[//]:# (!pinmapple 53.142742 lat 7.032592 long Winschoten d3scr)