Beer Bloggers Event Southstreet Seaport

Photo courtesy of Juren David.

July, being "Good Beer Month", has seen a great number of different craft beer events take place throughout New York. On Wednesday July 25, a number of beer bloggers, podcasters, writers and film makers assembled on the 5th floor gallery of the South Street Seaport Museum to show their stuff.

Beer Hear mugshot.

 Jimmy Carbone of Jimmy's No. 43 and Beer Sessions Radio™the organizing force behind the event, and his bistro had a table offering pork sandwiches, buttery button biscuits and rich, dense chocolate fudge. Also on hand to feed and water the attendees was Sigmunds Pretzel Shop and Long Trail Brewing.

After party at Jimmy's No. 43.

At our table we conducted two beer tasting challenges for participants. One was "Can You Guess Which Kölsch Is From Köln?" in which challengers were given two unmarked cups of Kölsch-style beer, one containing Gaffel (from Germany) and the other with Captain Lawrence. Out of about 10 challengers, all but one got it right! Some people were pretty certain about their choice, but many others were clearly not so sure.

Jim's new friend.

The other challenge was pretty straight forward. For those willing to play, a cup of beer was poured from a hidden stash under the table and the challenger was asked to either guess the beer style or the main flavor-defining ingredient of the beer. Styles included Rauchbier, Berliner Weisse, Pilsner, Saison, Hefeweizen, Chocolate Stout, British Bitter, and others. Many folks who had never tasted a smoked beer were shocked and mind-blown by the Spezial Rauchbier when tasting it blindly. But, by far, the one beer that stumped everyone was the Bourganel Nougat Beer!

It was the biggest taste tease we could come up with, and, in fact, was the inspiration for the entire idea of a blind taste challenge! But people were further pleasantly tongue-baffled when their Nougat beer was augmented with a splash of Young's Double Chocolate Stout! People seemed to really enjoy the beer tasting games, and Jimmy insisted that we reprise the concept and expand on it during Craft Beer Week!