Hosting Beer Club at the Buffalo Wing Factory
Friday I got to do one of the great things in life — teach people about beer. I hosted this month’s Beer Club at the Buffalo Wing Factory in Chantilly for the second time.
Beer Club typically consists of 5 4oz samples (usually refilled once) each paired with a course. After the dinner you get to select a full beer of your choice. This time I wanted to shake things up a bit and make it into a game.
The restaurant gave me 15 beers to choose from to make the dinner. Then I thought, why 5? Why not 15? That’s when it hit me — blind taste test. Let’s test everyone and see if they can guess what they’re drinking!
The answer sheet (made by Mrs. Short on Beer)
I broke up the beers into 3 rounds trying to keep the beers relatively the same in terms of style. I gave a brief introduction into why and how we taste beer. Then each beer was presented in blind fashion, poured into glasses behind the scenes then brought to the table. After each round I tallied up the scores and gave out the results.
The best score was 9/15. First, second and third all got prizes — a BWF sweatshirt, $15 gift card or a BWF t-shirt.
Overall it was a huge success. My crowd of eight eager drinkers seemed to have one of the best times I’ve seen at Beer Club.
What I learned was that 15 beers is a lot to sample and having 5+ answer choices is pretty difficult to choose from. Next time I think I’ll narrow it down to 10-12 beers and make the rounds into something like 4 options.
Getting to talk about and share my love of beer is indescribably fulfilling. I’m hoping to host another one in November. Message me if you’re interested in joining in on the good times.
If you’d like to receive emails about upcoming beer clubs at BWF, please email chantillybeerclub@buffalowingfactory.com and tell them Josh sent you.
I’d like to say thanks to Dan, Ben, Emma and my wife for helping make the night possible. Cheers!
Short On Beer 
Dude that is awesome! I need to find a bar around here to let me do that.
Financially it’s a break even for the establishment. The cost ($25/person) offsets the food and beer. BUT if you feature beers that the bar has, it’s much more likely a customer will return to the bar to order a beer they wouldn’t have otherwise tried. You can’t put a price on that. It’s essentially free publicity for their beer menu and for breweries. Next step is to have local breweries donate their beer once it gets more popular but I think I’m a ways from that.
Just keep plugging at it. You’ll gain a following and, hopefully, the brewers will come to you 🙂
But I’d still like to co-host with you, assuming we can find a mutually open time slot. I have some idea for a “Beer Jeopardy” game too, but we can talk more once we’ve secured a date.
Absolutely. I’d much rather you co-host than spectate and pepper me with questions about original gravity and boiling temperatures.
Congrats on a successful night. That looks like a lot of fun. Was it held in Fairfax? That’s not toooooo far of a drive for me. I might have to make it down to one of these in the future.
Yes, in Fairfax. It’s pretty easy to get to — 66W to 50W go a few miles and hang a left then you’re there. There’s also a Dogfish Head in the same shopping center for an after party…
I’m hoping to do one Friday November 15th (very tentative date. I haven’t even asked yet).
Doug, we should try to plan a local event to get all the DC/VA/DE/MD beer bloggers together. I’m pretty sure there are enough of us now to make a nice evening out of it!
The other Cinci beer bloggers and I have done this a few times now. Great camaraderie and collaboration.
Count me in.
I think that would be a great idea.
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