Philly Beer Week - Tasting with Randy Mosher

[pbts]

Oh man.

I just got two tickets to a tutored tasting with Randy Mosher this Saturday. And I couldn't be more excited.

Just wanted to share. And gloat. Maybe see some of you somewhere in Philly!

PBTS

[TravelinJones]

he comes to our semi-private campout every year near Cinci (he helped start one of the clubs here years ago).
so there! hows that for gloating?
seriously though he is a wealth of brewing knowledge; have fun.

[livefreebrewfree]

Hey, I was there on Thursday with my wife. It was a good time and that Barrel-Aged Quadfather was insanely delicious! Hope you had as good a time as we did. I love that Iron Hill and was thrilled that they had it in North Wales instead of one of the other major locations.

[pbts]

@TravelinJones: OK. You win.
@livefreebrewfree: we went to Iron Hill in Wilmington for the BBQ, blues and beers from Dogfish Head, Iron Hill and Stewart's. I don't like Iron Hill's house beers very much, but they were pouring some of their special beers which were very enjoyable. Unfortunately they didn't have bottles of either their Imperial Stout or their English Barleywine Stewart's had a fucking *amazing* Smoked Dark Weissbier. I've never even imagined such a thing, and now I'm happy I can dream about it.

The tutored tasting was not at Iron Hill; it was at the HeadHouse in Philly. Problem number 1: I can't read. I paid only $1.50 for parking, misreading the meter. So I got a ticket and now have to pay $36. Oops! Problem number 2: apparently everyone else in the tasting had been drinking all day, and were much more interested in hearing themselves talk! Randy was using a microphone, I was sitting right the fuck up front and /still/ I could barely hear him. Every once in a while, he said, "hey, are you guys here to listen to me?" and the folks would shut up for a few seconds. Sigh. It was an informative session, despite the problems. I wish the tasting had been a bit less rushed and a bit more structured.

@livefreebrewfree: the Quad absolutely kicked ass.

Perhaps the best part happened right after the session. My wife and I walked up to Randy to meet him personally. The first thing he said was, "so, when are you opening your brewery?"

[livefreebrewfree]

@pbts: i didn't even realize that you went to one on Saturday. The idea of more than one tasting on different days never occurred to me. The one @ Iron Hill was pretty fun but kinda quiet. Good time though. I just heard about the Headhouse yesterday. It's nice to know that something decent took Zot's place. Although, the exotic game meat at Zot was amazing. I had kangaroo there my first time. Awesome mussels too.

I'm slowly getting back into smoked beers. My first experience was extremely harsh. It was wayyy too smokey for my first one and actually tasted like i was drinking pureed fire logs after they burned til charred.'

That sucks that it was loud where you were. Towards the end it started to get kinda loud and people were chatty, but overall everyone listened intently.