3rd Annual Fool Circle Beer Tasting
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!