Beer Appreciation Class

[Ray Grace]

In a few weeks, I've been asked to guide a beer appreciation class at a friend's house. I have some ideas about what I'm planning to do but without biasing others by sharing this right now, I'm curious what others would do? Keep in mind, the group I'll be doing this for are, from what I understand, fairly new to the craft beer scene but fairly open. So what styles would you present, and what representations of these styles? Thanks, I look forward to what others have to say.

[Scott E. Kingsbury]

Great question. My advice: "As wide of a variety as possible". Like the best "single-malt whisky appreciation presentations" that I've been to...the successful ones go from light to heavy, sweet to smoky - depending on how many you want to taste, of course. Lowland to Highland, Island to Speyside, Islay to Campbelltown. One of each. Now...the problem with beer styles, of course, is that they are so vast, you need to limit it - a representative of "each" major type....depending on the number you want to present, that could be mucho cerveza! Wow - think about the possibilities...Lagers, Red Ales, Belgians, Wheat, IPA's (I'd make this one a "Stone Ruination" just to see the faces!!), DIPA's, Stouts, Lambics (although I wouldn't...not a fan), maybe finish with a barleywine.

[Rob DeNunzio]

My first thought would be to host a tasting of craft beers that are a) not terribly hard to find, b) not terribly expensive, and c) representative of a good cross-section of tastes but with a unifying theme. A "beers of the American craft renaissance" tasting might succeed there. You could be historical and diverse while at the same time breaking some of the myths about craft beer (like how it's all really weird and all really expensive and the good stuff is really hard to find). Heck, you could even just base the tasting around how the first wave of American craft beer represented a frontier take on English style ales, and how that developed on the West Coast into what's now known as the San Diego style.*

* All this said knowing full well that Ray lives in SoCal with easy access to all that stuff.

[Tom Bedell]

Is it beer appreciation, or strictly craft beer appreciation? I started a beer-tasting series here in Brattleboro, Vermont by choosing seven beers that the late, great Michael Jackson considered world classics. They let me talk a little bit about beer history, about how the craft beer movement revved up, and they presented beers of all varieties, leading up to the Belgian oddities. The seven: Pilsner Urquell, Spaten Ur-Märzen (Oktoberfest), Anchor Steam Beer, Fuller's ESB, Duvel, Rodenbach Grand Cru, Boon Gueuze Lambic.

[Ray Grace]

It's been left up to me and it's going to be very informal also.