"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin
Stouts And Porters Tasting 2008
The stalwart souls that showed up on Wednesday March 27, 2008 confronted the dark forces of beer, naming names without the comfort of a label in a "blind" tasting of international stouts and porters. All of the tickets were sold and the tasters were under the spotlight of the TAPS Media cameras while sweating over the quality and identity of the fifteen brews. It was a marathon session, with Brenda and George pouring and serving 750 samples in about two and one half hours (one every twelve seconds).
When the foam had settled, the extreme degree of difficulty of the task became apparent as the best effort at identifying the brews was nine correct by beer writer Mirella Amato. Black seems to always be in fashion; those assembled seemed to enjoy just about all of the products with the spread of median scores ranging from thirty-three to thirty-eight out of fifty. The top finisher was C'est What's own Coffee Porter which was two points ahead of Durham's Blak Katt Stout. Third place went to Church-Key Chocolate Porter with a score of 35.5.