The Bar Towel

I hope Chris doesn't mind me linking to his blog, but in the face of all that's happened today he's written something pretty great and he might be too modest to share it...

It puts all of this into some perspective.

http://www.torontobeerblog.com/miscella ... mment-5550

There's a comment space on the bottom for you to share what your best beer was. I thought it would be cool to do that here as well.

Rather than divert "comment traffic" away from Chris' site, I've copied and pasted my own comment which follows. It'd be great to hear other's responses.

Thanks again for writing this Chris.

Jeff

For me it was a bottle of Cantillon about five years ago at Beer Bistro. I can’t even remember which one. No, not because it’s Cantillon, but because I was on one of my first dates with my wife. I was still pretty newbish, and was trying to impress my then date. We split one at the bar after eating our meal. It was the first Lambic, and even the first sour I had ever had! I was finding it really difficult to drink, but wanted to keep up the illusion that I knew my stuff. She started laughing that it smelled like a horse, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Jeff

I'm sure this isn't meant to be a topic about great beers shared with loved ones, but my Best Beer was split with my wife this year on our anniversary - Goose Island Rare. We thought it was just fantastic.

We followed it up with a KBS, but it was left in the distance after the Rare.

Thanks Jeff, sometimes I do share links here, but I hadn't intended to share this one. But I'm glad you did. Also, maybe I'm a romantic sucker, but I think your best beer story is just great.

Soods, I would say that, in fact, for most people their best beer is one shared with a loved one. Certainly, most of mine centre around the people I was with.

I have one more that I'll actually share a little later after I get the baby lunch...but it actually happened last night, of all things.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for that stuff too.l

JeffPorter wrote:For me it was a bottle of Cantillon about five years ago at Beer Bistro. I can’t even remember which one. No, not because it’s Cantillon, but because I was on one of my first dates with my wife. I was still pretty newbish, and was trying to impress my then date. We split one at the bar after eating our meal. It was the first Lambic, and even the first sour I had ever had! I was finding it really difficult to drink, but wanted to keep up the illusion that I knew my stuff. She started laughing that it smelled like a horse, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Awesome story. This kind of thing is totally why I don't try to do written reviews of the beers I drink. I have tons of respect for people who can do it, but there is no way if I were to review a beer I could be anything close to subjective. I mean the best beer I probably ever had was the pint of Cask London Pride the first night I was in London on my honeymoon in 2009. Now logically I know I have tried better made beers but the who atmosphere and the fact that it was my honeymoon and the fact that I was in london, and the crazy day of travel I had had the previous night and day before made it taste even better than it probably was.

Hell a few months before my daughter was born in 2010 we went to Utica NY to do a bunch of shopping for baby stuff, and I remember one night sitting in the hotel room with my wife and I was drinking Ice Cold Utica club (which was like $3 for a six pack) and watching an edited for TV version of Superbad, and the beer tasted way better than my brain knows it actually is.

I was in Germany for the first time on a three-month exchange program when I was in grade 11 (in 2001) as a 17-year-old. Prior to that, I'd only had what I now know as being uninspired mass-produced Canadian lagers (Kokanee, Labatt Blue) or my dad's not-so-great homebrew. Staying just outside of Bremen, however, I was bombarded by Beck's (or my host father's Haake-Beck) everywhere I went for the first few days and weeks overseas. But, again, another lager. I thought that's how all beers were supposed to taste. But then, one evening, at the local kneipe in the town centre, I had a "weizen" ordered for me. It was a Paulaner. It came in the tall glass, was cloudy and deeply yellow, and had great aromas of spice, banana, and citrus. It was fantastic, and I came away from that evening having both found a new favourite beer and while expanding my idea of what beer could taste like exponentially.

I've since had many, many beers that I've liked more, but that initial aroma of a good Paulaner still instantly brings me back to a place of discovery and new things of not just beer, but so many other things in life.

Fuller's Extra Special Bitter at Star Tavern, Belgrave Mews, Belgravia, London in the late-80's. It was never as good after IMO and I heard the hop rate was increased some time in the 90's, which gave it a slight extra bitterness it didn't need. Still a good beer though. In its original incarnation it was fruity (cherry-like) and malty with a complex but understated hop character.

That was the best.

Gary

It's hard to narrow down to just one experience. I've had so many great beer moments and all were special in there own way.
That being said...
The most fun was probably having a Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss some drunk German guy had given me at 5 in the morning while drinking with my friends some Germans and a really drunk English guy at Wacken open air 2007.

I'm going to be the ass who says Westy 12 on the patio at the Abbey cafe in Belgium

Warm June sunshine, great beer and cheese, sitting there with my wife, it was a just perfect slice of life for me. I've had many other great beers, but never one as good before or since.

This one:

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/de-dolle-s ... ag/185780/

And here is a picture of me drinking it after being cellared for 28 years(!) at the Kulminator in Antwerp:

I've listed my three there under "Brian". None of them particularly special beers (with the exception of Fantome Chocolat). He's 100% right, it's all about the where and the who.

Great discussion...hard to think of one off the top of my head.
Warming up a bottle of Quelque Chose over a campfire during May 2-4 weekend manys years back was a great time...

It probably has as much to do with time and circumstances as the beer, but drinking fresh Hill Farmstead Ephram and Heady Topper with my wife while we were on our honeymoon is certainly my best beer drinking memory.

Snapshots of great beer memory:
- my last aged bottle of batch # 67 HOTD ADAM I shared at Sammy's tasting,
- my first bottle of Westy 12 at Volo the time Radek and everybody were hanging out,
- the bottle of Goose Island Bourbon County I split with my dad at a NYC hotel,
- any time I've had Aphrodisiaque on tap at the DDC brew pub, and
- probably every DeDolle or Fantome beer I had for the first time.

It's undeniable Bavarian beer while traveling in the 1990's made a huge early impression on my interest in beer but that's a whole book.