Beer Bloggers Conference – Day 2

Hello from Day 2 of the Beer Bloggers Conference 2012. Hit the jump for the days events including a Leinenkugel lunch and an incredible comparative glass tasting with beer courtesy of Brooklyn Brewery!

The morning started off with a panel on the three tier system. I feel this topic deserves a lot more attention than what I can provide in this post. So expect to see a post from me in the future containing what was discussed here as well as it’s history and other things.

Jacob Leinenkugel Lunch

• Hefeweizen – As we walked in to lunch we were handed a glass of Leinenkugel’s Hefeweizen. Now you may be thinking that Leinenkugel doesn’t make a Hefeweizen, well they haven’t for years but it’s back and tasty.
• Summer Shandy – Leinenkugel’s summer beer was paired with a delicious salad. I’ve had the Summer shandy a few times before and it holds its own against most other summer styles.
• Big Eddy Imperial IPA – Woot! This is a mammy jammy beautiful beer. Great color and great flavor, I scored a bottle of this to take home so expect a full review in a few days.
• Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale – This deliciously warm beer was served with some tasty desert. I’m not a food guy so I’m not even gonna get into how awesome this dish was. But the beer went great with it and packs a nice warming alcohol flavor. Again, I scored a bottle to take home so expect a full review soon.

Comparative Beer and Glass Tasting with Spiegelau

On retrospect the following is highly chaotic and perhaps not as informational as I would prefer. So I’m just going to polish it up a bit and then in a few days post a nice long article on glassware.

• “The same beer in a different glass” experience
• HDTV vs. old school TV – This is the best possible analogy that I can come up with. It’s surround sound vs. apple head phones. An IMAX vs. a 13 inch black and white TV!
• Garrett Oliver hooked it up with a MAD lineup!
• Wheat Beer glass
  • Brooklyner Wheat Beer
  • Frosting on edge of glass shows that its insulating and keeping our beer cold! Science is amazing!
  • Like the Tall Pilsner glass the smell is FAR more aromatic in the Wheat beer glass then in the pint. It’s really crazy, I never thought there would be such a difference.
  • So I poured these 2 glasses myself back-to-back and the Wheat Beer glass is still far colder than the pint glass.
• Tall Pilsner Glass
  • Sorachi Ace
  • The tall pilsner glass is much cloudier than the pint glass
  • Lots more carbonation for the tall pilsner glass
  • The weight of this glass in the hand is also much less
  • The pint glass smells much worse. This really creates an incredible impression of the importance of the correct glassware
  • Tall Pilsner glass has much better head retention
  • Pint glass taste is far bitterer and hits you with a lot more head while the Tall Pilsner glass keeps the head on top of the liquid and out of your mouth somewhat. It also allows more direct contact with the tongue creating a much fuller flavor… fucking incredible difference. It is really like drinking 2 different beers
• Lager glass
  • East India Pale Ale
  • The color is much nicer and richer in the Lager glass than in the pint
  • Again, the Spiegelau glass is much more aromatic. Honestly the pint glass hardly has any smell here
  • Malt flavor is much more present than in the pint glass
• Beer Tulip
  • Local 2
  • The Tulip has some serious flexibility and strength to it which you can fell when you clink glasses for a toast
  • Again, the smell is the most notable difference and is an astounding level of difference.
  • This is a great beer BTW!