Spring fling ... and hot chili

The Hard Times Cafe in Bethesda Maryland hosted its annual Spring Beer Tasting Monday evening to a full house, of say 70+ participants.

I and four other brewery and wholesaler representatives were there to describe the flavor and appearance of ten spring seasonal beers. (Some of the beers were year-round offerings but yet appropriate for spring tasting.)

I presented Clipper City's Red Sky at Night Saison.

Once we had given our talks, only then were all the beers served, one at a time. Now, everyone, reps and participants, was to attempt to correctly identify the beers ... based upon our earlier oral descriptions!

At prior such events, the beer reps have done notoriously poorly at this test. But, this evening, most of the table did very well. From the left, they were:

• Katie and Robyn of Anheuser-Busch.
• Mike, who used to be a rep and now is successfully in the mortgage business. He still likes to hang out with us beer folk.
• Annemarie Dalba of Boston Beer Company.
• I was there too, but someone had to snap the picture!

Montgomery County can be such a difficult place in which to sell beer - or to operate a beer bar - that Hard Times owner Greg Hourigan had never been able to secure Victory Prima Pils or Stoudts Scarlet Lady ESB in several years of attempts. Until tonight.

Just over a year ago, Gary Heurich was there at the tasting. It was a bittersweet evening. Gary bade us DC beer folk adieu; he had just ceased operations at his Olde Heurich Brewing Company.

Tonight, in a serendipitous moment, Bob and Ellie Tupper walked into Hard Times simply to have dinner, not knowing that the tasting was being conducted and that their Tupper Hop Pocket Pils was one of the beers being tasted! Bob was happy to speak on his beer.

More photos.