Commercial Vertical Tastings

[Brewsmith]

I've been going through my cellar (my spare fridge in the garage) and it's getting to be pretty full. I basically have a fridge full of bombers. It's time to start going through some of these beers, some of which are many years old now. I'm considering doing some vertical tastings, but have a few questions.

Most of the beers I have are:
Stone Special Releases
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
Alaskan Smoked Porter
Anchor Christmas Ale

Many of these I have back to 2006. Here's my questions:

How many people to have? If I'm going to open six bombers of Old Guardian, how far should that go?

Anybody local that would like to join in?

Would it even be kosher to ask people to chip in a little for it? I wouldn't be looking to make a ton of money, really just enough to pay for the beer or so. If so what would seem reasonable?

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I think it's reasonable to ask people to pay a few bucks or bring food. Personally I think it makes sense to only do one vertical in a night. Let people remember the different flavors of a particular beer. Otherwise people may not remember each as well and get less out of the experience.

If you're opening six bombers -- I assume that's one for each year -- then 6-8 people probably makes sense. You can give out about 3oz pours of each which means each person gets a little over a pint. So you could ask for whatever the cost of a good pint is in your area so you can buy some new bottles or ask them to pitch in for food or other beer afterwards.

 

[Brewsmith]

That's about what I was thinking.

Yes, not all flights at once. And 2-4 oz pours seems reasonable.

So here's what I can do flights of:
Stone Old Guardian Barleywine 2006-2012
Stone Imperial Russian Stout 2007-2012
Stone Double Bastard 2006-2011
Stone Vertical Epic 2006-2011 (I'm waiting till the last one comes out for this)
Stone Anniversary Beers X-XV (Even though they are big hoppy beers it's interesting to see how they change over time)
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine 2006-2012
Alaskan Smoked Porter 2006-2011
Anchor Christmas Ale - A couple between 2007 and 2011
Trader Joe's Vintage Ale 2006-2011 (Belgian beers bade by Unibroue)

Anyone interested? I'm thinking on planning the Stone beers when each special release comes out so we could compare to the fresh version. I'll post more details later. The Anniversary beer would be the next one, although the RIS is out right now.

I'm in Torrance, for all the local LA/OC people