FOOLCiRCLE

Pictures from the 2005 Tasting

Well, it’s that time of the year again when the Annual Fool Circle Beer Tasting goes down. This year all of the players were able to bat: Dave, Todd, Richard, Karen, Robert and myself. Things got started roughly around 6:00 at the Ol’ Tupelo Pub. Todd was a little early and Dave was a little late, but otherwise we started right on time.

This year I decided to change the order a little bit. In previous years it appears as if people either came unprepared, hadn’t eaten all day and became “drunk” during the tasting; or overprepared, ate right before we started and couldn’t enjoy all the hard work of the food. So this year we grilled and then tasted, and relayed this bit of information early enough so people could plan accordingly. We had birds and brauts again this year. I cooked two traditional Beer-Can Chickens and 12 grilled and beer-bathed brauts. There was also coleslaw, potato salad, garlic green beans, lamb testicals, a green salad with homemade dressing, homemade pasta salad and brownies with fudgie icing and fresh berries. Basically, we all had to pace ourselves as to not over eat all the delicious food to try and save room for the beer during the tasting.

The tasting went well. This year I poured while the other 5 guessed which beer was which. We only had 10 beers this year. The first beer was the Summer Ale from 2004 and the last was the Honey Pale Ale from 2005. In the group were one specialty ale, one wedding ale, three beers that had previosly been brewed and three multi-award winning beers. It was actually a pretty good number of beers to try and taste fairly. This year the placing went like this: Todd with 0, Richard with 3, Robert with 3, Karen with 4 and Dave with 6! Watch out Dave, I think Karen and Robert both had fire in their eyes and want that fez! So, with Dave being the one who guessed the most, he won this years trophy. We had a new trophy this year, a perpetual trophy that will cover until 2014. The trophy is a little wooded square base with 3 small brass plates on each side. Sitting on top of the base is a sturdy 20oz. pub glass with the Fool Circle logo sand blasted into it. Under the logo it says, “Anuual Fool Circle Beer Tasting Grand Pooh-Bah.” And, on top of the logo rests a fez with the words “Grand Pooh-Bah” on it. So, for the next year Dave will have the “honor” of using the Grand Pooh-Bah glass whenever he so chooses.

After the grillin’ and the tastin’ came the chillin’! I gathered 42 bottles of homebrew for the evening so people could drink whatever and how many ever they so chose. Richard had given me an R2-D2 cooler maybe a month before hand so I finally got to put him to use. He held all the beer and about 60 pounds of ice with room to spare, this cooler is BIG. We hung a little in the dining room, a lot in the basement playing darts, pool and bullshitting and a little on the golf course. Around 12:30ish Dave took Karen up on her offer to “shuttle” people home if they needed a ride. Fortunetly he was going to Newark and not Landsdale! As people started to leave, I suggested that they would be more than welcome to take mixed Fool Circle six pack with them, Dave, Richard and Robert happily accepted. When Dave and Karen left so did Robert, he had his hands full with poker equipment that we unfortunetly never got around to playing. That sounds like the perfect opportunity for a Fool Circle (Strip) Poker Night! Richard and Todd both decided to crash. Richard was up-and-at-them before I even knew he was gone, and Todd chilled a little longer in the morning but had to head back home to see the family.

Also, as always, here are a few select quotes from the evening:

• 
  
  “Wait . . . Bitch . . . NO!”
  
  
• 
  
  “… It’s like three monkeys trying to fuck a football.”
  
  
• 
  
  “I thought we already established that; boobs.”
  
  
• 
  
  “I’m about to crap out my lungs.”
  
  
• 
  
  “This beer has tongue-coating action.”
  
  
• 
  
  “It is sweet and sour and fuck you all at once.”
  
  
• 
  
  “That was a drive by breading.”
  
  
• 
  
  “Can I reference your notes for number four?”
  
  
• 
  
  “Hey, Fuck-Ass, get me a beer.”

On the whole I would say that the 3rd Annual Fool Circle Beer Tasting was probably the best so far, hopefully it will only get better. I can’t wait for next year!

The Village Idiot – June 2005 edition is now available for your bathroom reading material pleasure.

Check it out here at the Village Idiot archives if you haven’t recieved it already. If you like what you read, feel free to sign-up for the next newsletter at the top of that page.

Last night was an awesome night! Back in February I entered a homebrew competition called War of the Worts X. One of the categories was HopDevil Clone – the objective being you were suppose to brew a beer that cloned Victory’s HopDevil, and the winner was awarded a personal brewery tour with one of the two owners of Victory Bill Covaleski. Well I had an IPA in bottles at the time, though it was not made to clone the HopDevil nor did it taste a lot like it, it was worth the chance to try and win the prize. Fortunetly, I did win – check out the full story from february here.

Basically, here’s a shorted version of how my evening went, if you want more juicy details give my ass a call or fire off an email. Anyway, Todd & I got up to Victory in Downingtown, PA just before 6PM. We met Bill Covaleski at the bar. We came armed with ECPA II (HopDevil Clone) and an empty growler. Of course Bill was very curtious and welcoming which was a relief, and taller than I expected. But anyway, he offered to get us beers. Bill was drinking Prima Pils, I had a DTown Brown (which was like a cross between a mild and a porter, so maybe like a light porter or strong mild), and Todd had the HopDevil on cask condition (cask whore).

After another beer, Bill & Todd had the same thing, I had the DTown Brown on cask, we headed into the brewing area for the tour. First, he showed us this little area, maybe 20×50 feet and he said that all of there brewing equipment use to fit in that space (which Weyerbacher is now in possession of). Then we headed to the new brewing area and I almost shit my pants!

It was one of the most beautiful, well kept pieces of German engineering I had every seen. As Todd later said to me, “It felt like I was in a dream.” Bill explained everything, answered all of our questions, and actually made us feel comfortable and included, how cool. We passed through the brewers office on our way to the hops freezer. This room smelt like heaven! There were thousands of pounds of compressed hops everywhere, stacked from floor to ceiling, I loved that room. As Bill said, “You probably haven’t seen anything like this since the pages of High Times.” Wow! From the hop freezer we went to the where the fermentation and serving vessels are. The coolest part was seeing the costum made tanks for the Golden Monkey, these guy’s balls must hang low, I give them mad credit. From there we breezed by the quality control lab on our way to check out the cleaning system and then off to the packaging house. The packaging house totally had a Lavern & Shirley thing going on. The best part of the packaging house were the two cooler rooms. They had these two giant walk in coolers that were packed full of different Victory brews ready to be drunk. I literally think I saw an alleulia light shining out while a choir of angels sang, I definetly zoned-out until the door closed to say the least. I think Todd heard something more along the lines of Homer Simpson, “…ummmm beer.”

After the tour, Todd & I grabbed another beer. This time he had Prima Pils a la Bill-style and I had a HopDevil on cask. Unfortunetly at that time Bill had to leave, he had other obligations with his family that I am afraid that I may have made him miss. So we grabbed a seat and grubbed. We split hot wings, then Todd got the brat sandwich and I had a burger. I was happily surprised when the waitress told us our dinner was taken care off, I hadn’t realized that Bill was going to pick up the tab as part of the prize, which of course made everything taste even better. So we threw down a nice tip and headed on our way. Todd went to the gift shop and bought Cali his daughter a HopDevil onesy and a T-shirt for himeself. I filled my growler on the way out with the V-12. It was really a great, great time. I only have one complaint, which I know will sound lame, I was hoping to be able to try the Throwback Lager or the St. Boisterous – both of which were on the beer menu, but were no longer on tap. Just one more reason to go to Victory more often. Thanks again, Bill!