FOOLCiRCLE

Yesterday, 07.09.10, was the 8th Annual Fool Circle Beer Tasting, and it was an amazing time!

You can view all of the pictures here, just CLICK.

Tradition stands strong. For the 8th year in a row I was able to host and participate in the annual Fool Circle beer tasting. This is a rare occasion when great friends get an opportunity to come together and sample a small eclectic variety of homebrewed beer. In attendance this year was Todd, Richard, Dave, Robert, Erik, and myself. This was Erik’s first year so he was the rookie. I had decided this year that I was still going to participate in the guessing, but was pulling myself out of the competition aspect, as in I couldn’t win regardless of the outcome.

The tasting itself was streamlined in comparison to last year. Last year we had 24 beers to sample which we determined was too many. So this year we had 12 beers which was just the beer since the last tasting. Well, actually there were 14 beers since the last tasting, but I forgot to bottle 2 of them, oh well. In the tasting this year were the following beers: Cluster Wheat, Sum Bra Pale Ale, Roby’s Red Rye, Kitchen Sink Amber, Kitchen Sink Dark, FCX Sticky-Icky IIPA 10th Anniversary Ale, Dubbel, Dubbel Dragon – Chinese 5 Spice, Anxious Amber, Perle Wheat, Grilled Pineapple Wheat, and the California Red. The two that missed the cut were the Harvest Ale – Freshy Fresh and the Twenty Pound Pale Ale. The highest number of beer guessed correctly out of the 12 was 8 and the lowest was 1. The 8 was guessed by myself so it didn’t count towards the competition and the winning of the the status of Grand Poo-Bah for the next year, and to be fair the 1 was guessed by Random Robert, which was just us filling in Roberts guesses at random since he was going to be late, but he still got 1 right!

In the end it turns out that Dave and Erik both guessed 5 correctly so we had to go into a tie breaker round. I had previously put 24 different vintage Fool Circle beers in the fridge, so for the tie breaker I was going to pick a beer and pour them off a sample, and who ever guessed correctly first would win. I chose the Scottish 70/- beer because it was distinctive, yet could be slightly confusing because of the two varietal Scottish beers also included in the vintage list. They BOTH guessed it correctly on the first guess, I was amazed. So now we had to go into double over time tie breaker style. I had to decide was I going to try and go obvious, or difficult, I think I went slightly down the middle maybe towards the more difficult side and chose the Simcoe Brown. After some deliberation the guys turned in their guesses and one of them guessed it right on the first try, again I was impressed. It turns out the rookie rocked the vets and walked away with the title of Grand Poo-Bah for the next year, that being one Mr. Erik. Congratulations, good job.

After that things went smoothly and I think we all had a blast. Some awesome dinner was had: great homemade guacamole with some snacky food, grilled chicken, tomato and cucumber salad, cheesy orzo, and black bean and corn salad. Then we jumped on some new beers to try, the Perle Wheat, Pineapple Wheat, and CA Red were all on tap, and Richard had brought some of Garrett’s ESB with him to share, Erik brought some old school Roxy Rolles he found, plus there were all the vintage Fool Circle’s to share. Todd wound up leaving first because he had work the next day and had to get up early, but everyone else hung until about 12:30AM or so and either rolled with a driver or crashed, most responsible year yet.

Overall it was once again a great time. If you’re interested in previous years activities you can check them all out here, all but the first year: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004. Also, per usual, here’s some more than flavorful quotes from the night to keep you smiling, or cringing:

• I heard they put a needle in your nut.
• I think one of’em’s three of’em.
• I don’t want you guys to think I’m weird or anything, but I got an AK-47 this year.
• You will shit your spleen!
• They make it in the radiators.
• You’re like the Blackadder bitch.
• They’ve gone plaid.
• Were you smelling his fingers? – I was measuring his head.
• Apparently my right ball is called “Columbo”.
• I wanna see what my balls are called.
• Give me a camera, I gotta snake coming out of my crotch.
  
• Hey look, Erik and Dave had a sword fight in Robert’s mouth.
• Rape him in the face holes.
• Deuce Poose Grand Poo-Boose.
• Simmer down Rookie!
• If you took a 70’s porn star chick and her homeless Vietnam vet husband and mixed them together, that was your face.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 10th, 2010 at 10:51 am and is filed under Homebrew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.