Friday night Brian, Seth and I got together like we normally do, but not to brew or plan or fill out paperwork. We got together as friends to drink beer, have fun and nerd out hard core!

Let’s quickly rewind to November/December when my mother in law was trying to figure out what to get me for Christmas. Many of you may already know that I am not a glassware snob and really I’m a major skeptic when it comes to glassware changing the flavor and aroma of a beer. That said, I asked my mother in law to get me a set of IPA glasses to put them to the blind smell test, finally putting this blatant craft beer lie to rest while raising the trusty old shaker glass from the ashes and put it back on its throne as the king of all glassware! Imagine Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger playing right now.

We used Avery’s India Pale Ale for this battle of epic proportions. We performed this blind smell test on the honor system, no blindfold, just close your eyes and don’t be a douche and peek. Seth held the glass up to Brian’s nose so he couldn’t feel the difference in the glass and Brian did the same for Seth. They got to choose which would be glass “A” and which would be glass “B”. Let’s see what happened, shall we?

Seth chose the IPA glass as glass A.

And now the trusty shaker is glass B.

Then it was Seth’s turn.

Brian also chose the IPA glass as glass A.

And now glass B.

What was the outcome of this little experiment? It was unanimous, the IPA glass was the undisputed winner in that it yielded a much stronger hop aroma. The taste test was more subjective as the differences in the glasses would make it practically impossible to conduct an impartial test. The taste test went the same way. The IPA glass yielded a stronger hop bitterness and actually had a smoother mouth feel than the shaker glass provided. Bizarre. We are proud men, but too proud to admit that we were wrong. We really wanted there to be no difference between the shaker glass and the IPA glass. We were pulling for the shaker glass and honestly, that makes this experiment even more valid.

SCIENCE!

Now to something even more nerdy. After the taste test, this happened…

Yes that’s Magic. Brian and I have never played, Seth showed us how, he’s really good at it and I have to admit, it’s actually pretty fun!

Then the warning level on the nerd-o-meter went from red to yellow when this happened…

Guitar Hero fools! We don’t care if you think we’re nerdy, we had a blast and had this line up to accompany our Night of Nerd!

The unlabeled bottle in the middle is our Red Rye IPA. Just thought I’d put that out there.

Until next time!