Yes, We Are Tapped

This past weekend while the girls were away,  I was invited to my parents house for dinner. That was not an unusual occurence, but what we did after dinner was pretty special. We taste tested 10-12 beers for the royal wedding.

That's right. When we talk about the royal wedding in our family, it more often refers to my brother's wedding in June. He and Jenn, his fiance, brought a bunch of beers with them for us to taste because they don't want the regular Bud/Bud Light on tap at their (royal) wedding. So there we were, Mom, Dad, groom, bride, my sister Karen, her husband Dave and me "testing" beers. The amusing thing was that the only real beer drinkers were my Dad, brother and Dave. The rest of us like wine, vodka or anything fruity with a high alcohol content.

(We split one beer amongst the 7 of us BTW. We are not that crazy to drink that many beers with a 7 month old intently watching us).

Anyhoo, we were able to vote on a 1-5 scale, but had to include adjectives. Thankfully my brother was writing this stuff down, because it got pretty funny right before he passed out. Just kidding, he didn't pass out, just started giggling like a girl.

Bride to be's language became increasingly wordy as the night wore on. I believe she started talking about the integrity of the beer. My sister came up with the description "ass-tastic" which was a good thing and "ass-ter-taste"* which was a bad thing.

Perhaps you would like to do your own taste test. Here is a chart my brother wrote about the beers and one of the better comments for each.

Berkshire Brewing Steel Rail EPA - Tom Sr "Didn't do it for me, 3 1/2"
Allagash White - Sal "It tasted like lemonade, 3"
Smuttynose Summer - Tom Sr "Words do not describe, 2"
Harpoon IPA - Karen "Too Dark. Ass-ter-taste, 2"
Smuttynose IPA - W2b "That will not be at the wedding, 0"
Wachusett Country Ale - Sue "Bland and not enthusiastic, 2"
Long Trail Pollinator - Dave "4, Just because"
Harpoon Summer - Karen "Bleh, 1"
Magic Hat #9 - W2b "It has integrity, 4"
Wachusett Summer - Dave "too weak, ass-less, 2"

This is a purely unscientific survey and although we had tons of laughs, I am not sure we ever decided on which beer they should use for the tap. Feel free to list your favorite beer and I will pass it along to the royals.

*Definition of asstertaste: When the beers aftertaste tastes like ass.