You can’t have a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.
– Frank Zappa
I know you. You’ve always wanted to jump into the world of beer, figure out what all those different kinds are about… But you’re put off by not knowing your way around. You look at the domestic micros and you’re bedeviled by clever names you don’t get (St. Lupulus’ Gut-Bustin’ Alphatastic Ale) and mutant styles (Bourbon-barrel-aged Imperial Pineapple-Ginger Leicht Hefe-Rauchbier). When you cruise the Imports, it’s worse: you find all these beers with hard-to-remember (and harder-to-pronounce) Dutch, French, or German names, bottles of all shapes and sizes and alcohol contents from 4.5% to 14% or higher… not to mention the prices! Where to begin?
Answer: Beer Tasting: Brinks on Thursday, 9th Feb, starting at 8:00 pm.
You’ll need to use your senses of olfaction and gustation.
That’s smell’n’taste, ya’betcha.
And just how’s this sort of thing work, I suppose you wonder. Well… there’s any number of ways to do it, but here’s the skinny on this one: Buffalo Rising, in conjunction with Brinks and Try-It Distributing, will be throwing down for the goodies–sample beers and some food–so, your cost is a big, fat goose-egg. Signup is covered below.
We’ll have a formal tasting from 8-9 pm, swiggin’ samples of some 10-12 beers and discussing the breweries and the styles, as well as how to taste and evaluate beers to some degree. (Prepare yourself for the hot new “! x t” scale.) Afterwards, whatever is left will be available in sample servings for folks to just check out on their own–an open-sample tasting–until about 10:00. In addition, Belgian taps and European bottles will be specially priced all night- $3.00 draughts and $1.00-off bottles.
At present, the beer selection for the tasting isn’t totally set, but check back here for an update; we’re expecting some Samuel Smith from England and Ayinger from Germany, potentially. What we do know is this: Although the selection will center mainly on European small breweries, we have at least two American micros on deck as well: One is a rare Magic Hat offering with a very select distribution; the other is the flagship offering from the Three Floyds brewery in Munster, Indiana (and they don’t skimp on the hops in this one!)
Special guest taster will be Linda Rader, the 2005 Queen of Beers. You might have seen her featured in the First Sunday magazine last December, but if you didn’t, here’s the scoop: Linda is a WNY resident who began brewing about 10 years ago. Last year, she entered a national homebrewing competition for women brewers, and won Best In Show with her Russian Imperial Stout, which was also her 100th brew. For this, she was awarded the title Queen of Beers- and, I’ve heard, been given a spiffy tiara as well. C’mon down and congratulate Linda- she’ll be lending her taste buds to the cause.
As mentioned above, the formal tasting will be free but limited to 50 participants, so signing up beforehand is imperative. There are three ways to do so:
1) Email me, ecox@buffalorising.com; make sure the subject line is “BR Tasting” or it might not get to me in time.
2) There will be a signup sheet at Brinks starting on Wed, 1st Feb.
3) You can also email Brinks at Tuf1961@aol.com, also with subject line “BR Tasting”
Critical Info
When: Thursday, 9th Feb, 2006
Formal tasting 8-9
Open sample tasting 9-10
Belgian/European beer specials all night
Where: Brinks, 51 W. Chippewa St.
855-1330
www.brinksrestaurant.com