Beer Tasting and Lecture in Hickory

Beer tasting at the Fireman's Kitchen. Pretty good event from about 7:30 till 9 p.m. Three lecturers pointed out some of the finer aspects of beer as the audience sampled some 7 or 8 different types. We began with a sweet light clear beer from the Caribbean, Then we went right into a brown ale, followed by an bitter beer, and on to an "export" Indian pale ale, then to stout followed by an Old Hickory Taproom stout, finally a Hefeweizen. At the end, they sprang a gluten-free mess on us that NO one drank but everyone acknowledged to be awful with wry faces.

The hors d'ouevs were smashing. All the way from roasted peanuts to pizza, including kielbasa, Italian sausage, chicken pieces, meatballs, cheese cubes, and little sausages cooked in drippy, salty, sumptuous sauce. And there was a LOT more including chocolate which went (I am told) extremely well with the last two stouts.

Lots of friendly people were present and conversations ran strongly all night long. I might point out that the beer samples were on the order or the two-ounce sizes, so there wasn't any singing or lampshade wearing - actually, it turned more toward an intellectual bent as indicated by many of the questions that were asked. We discussed things such as "original gravity", "•Plato", "apparent extract", IBUs, EBCs and EBCs.

Good evening, everybody learned a lot, and we all enjoyed the drinks, food, lectures, discussions and ambience.