The Pandemic may be approaching our rearview mirrors now, but one of the things I’ve learned while hosting Virtual Beer Tastings is that there will never be a shortage of friends, family, and co-workers that have found themselves far apart and are looking for a way to get back together. If you are looking for a great event to set your family reunion around, look no further than a Virtual Beer Tasting. Perfect for company morale events for teams that work remotely for any reason!

Hosting a virtual beer tasting is easy as pie, and I’m going to show you exactly how we do it here at Cycling Cicerone with step-by-step instructions plus a few tricks I am not able to incorporate into my tastings! However, if you don’t want to put in all the work and you want a professional Certified Cicerone to guide you through your beers, then click this link and we’ll take it from here.

Step 1 - Make the Guest List

There are few things to consider while putting together the guestlist for your virtual beer tasting. We won’t waste too much time on this step since you’re an adult (you are, right?) and can figure out how to choose your friends. Nevertheless, we have a few tips. Is it a company function or a “friends and family” one? Don’t try to mix the two! Alcohol never brings out the best in your family, and you don’t want your coworkers to see that. We assume. A virtual beer tasting is fine for a double date, but it really starts to break down if you have more than 12 folks. Unless you have a designated guide to keep everyone on track, it just turns into an unorganized Zoom cluster. Make sure everyone knows what they’re there for! They can lollygag and catch up after the tasting. Get everyone’s address, email address, and phone number. These will all be needed later when you’re sending beer out. The states they live in might make a big difference when choosing how you get your beer as some companies cannot ship to certain states.

Step 2 - Select Your Beers

Choosing beer is the most important step. You have to weigh considerations like cost, availability, group preferences, shipping, and creating a cohesive flight of beers that go well together. Unless you already know exactly what beers you want to have at your virtual beer tasting, the best place to start is with the styles of beer you are hoping to find. Is your group a bunch of macro, fizzy yellow beer drinkers? They need to be eased into craft beer. Start with something easy-drinking like a Kolsch, a Helles lager, or a blonde. Craft Beer has plenty of options that can be used to convince even the most fanatic Budweiser fan to come to the light side, bit by bit. Is your group seasoned craft beer drinkers? Then you might be interested in rare and unique barley wine, imperial stout, and barrel-aged sours to appease their distinguished pallets. We’ve found that a lineup of three different beers is perfect for an hour-long virtual tasting (Any more than that and you’ve opened too many bottles and cans to finish by yourself), so we split the difference between those two types of groups. One craft lager or “light” beer, one fancy imperial nonsense beer, and one craft crowd-pleasing IPA in the middle, that way there will always be something for everyone. If you know you have IPA fanatics though, go ahead and grab 3 different kinds! Aim to please, but also mix it up. In the IPA world especially, it is easy to find diversity. Your “Three IPA” flight could include a west coast IPA full of pine and grapefruit, a hazy IPA with a pillowy smooth mouthfeel and flavors bursting with mango and pineapple, and a Black IPA (aka Cascadian Dark Ale) with its bitter coffee and chocolate notes. A typical flight from Cycling Cicerone might have these 3 styles so there’s something for everyone:

1. Helles Lager - easy-drinking crowd-pleaser. Even seasoned craft beer drinkers love a nice, clean crispy boi and craft newbies will find this a richer and more flavorful version of what they are used to drinking

2. Hazy IPA - IPA is the most popular craft beer style by far and Hazies are an exciting take on the style. Adored by craft beer nerds and low enough on the bitterness to appeal to newbies, its a perfect middle to our flight.

3. Fruited Sour - These go by many names, Berlinner Weise, Kettle Sour, Fruited Sour, but they all have one thing in common - they’re weird and they’re delicious. Even wine drinkers can find something they like in this beer and each is unique and trendy enough to impress even the most up-to-date craft beer fanatic.

Whatever you choose, be prepared to be a little flexible because sourcing and supplying beers is a little harder than it should be.

Step 3 - Source and Ship Your Beer

You’ve chosen the beer styles you want to see at your tasting, now comes actually sourcing it for your attendees. You might have noticed you haven’t bothered with choosing specific beers yet. That’s because sourcing a specific beer to every person regardless of where they live in the USA can be a real nightmare. A remarkably small amount of craft beer is available nationally, most are only available in their state or region. Or even more rare, only at the brewpub where they are made and served. There are three options available to you, and one of those is one that the Cycling Cicerone can’t even consider trying.

1. Find a company that ships beer to everyone on your list. This can be a little tricky since every state you are trying to ship to has different laws and hoops to jump through. No companies in the US that we have found can ship to every state. You can probably already guess some of the states that are hard to ship to. The ones with the “family values”, reprehensible bad new voting laws, or with North, West, or South in their names are all going to give you a bad time. Our favorite option for great beer at a good price to most states is Tavour. They have gift boxes for $35 that have up to 6 beers. A company with more reach, but fewer options is Craft Beer Club. Their membership-like service allows for single crates to be sent to folks but you are at the whims of what they are shipping that month. Regardless, if you need an option that can ship to most states, they are your best bet. For either one of those, you’ll want to reach out to the companies before placing your order to make sure everyone will be getting the same beer. If you can’t wait for shipping, want to avoid shipping costs, or just can’t find beer you like available to be shipped to your state, you’ll want to go with the next option.

2. Source your beer locally. When we’re organizing a tasting for folks who are mostly in shipping states but have just a few friends in Utah where shipping is illegal, we have to find some local options so they can have beer. Unless your attendees live in the middle of nowhere, these days there is always a craft brewery or bottle shop around the corner. Search “Breweries” on google maps in the area and start clicking through their websites. A bottle shop is going to have more variety, but in states where shipping is illegal, bottle shops are unsurprisingly uncommon. Liquor stores in this case are your best bet for a local selection of good beers. No guarantee on that one. Either way, you are going to have a bit of a hunt in front of you. To provide a seamless experience for your guests you can call ahead and prepay for beer. Depending on your budget, you can even book a courier on TaskRabbit.com to pick up the beer for you and drop it off at your attendee’s home. If all of that seems like too much work (it is a lot of work, take it from us because we do it all the time) there is one option that a legit business can’t try, but maybe you have a higher tolerance for breaking the law.

3. Clandestinely Ship Your Own Beer. It is technically illegal for a person to ship beer to another person. Businesses get away with it but only after jumping through lots of hoops to accommodate different states and their laws. If you want to ship your favorite beer to your buddy in a different state, this is totally illegal. I’m not saying you should confirm that a 6 pack of mixed beers from your favorite brewery can fit in a USPS flat rate shipping box. I’m just saying that tons of folks in the market for rare beers have to find ways to move beer around despite these rules and they sometimes engage in illegal activities. You could theoretically, not that we’re suggesting it, put well bubble wrapped and secured beers in a sealed box before bringing it to the post office then neglect to mention the contents of the box and ship it. We’re definitely not recommending anything illegal, though we’ve never heard of anyone ever getting caught.

Once you’ve figured out how everyone is going to get their beer, you can finally figure out what you are going to talk about at your tasting.

Step 4 - Host The Tasting

This is the part that is totally up to you. If you were doing a Virtual Beer Tasting with the Cycling Certified Cicerone, you’d be getting a full hour of tasting techniques, history, and all kinds of beer trivia and fun facts to go along with your beer, but if you are hosting a casual gathering with your friends you probably want to spend more time catching up than you do tasting beer. There are a few “Art Of Gathering” techniques that you can keep in mind to try to host a stellar event. Set expectations for your group - let them know that a certain portion of the evening is committed to tasting and discussing the beers you went out of your way to select and get to them. If folks are expecting a casual hangout with beer, they won’t naturally spend any time discussing your beer. Be the leader - step in and take charge. Don’t let anyone side-track what you came here for! In our tastings, we know that after a few beers, folks can start to feel pretty comfortable stepping outside the bounds of the tasting. A little bit of that can be a lot of fun, but make sure the tasting doesn’t go too far off the rails. Bring some discussion topics. If your goal is to have an activity that a group of coworkers can complete together, consider creating or finding a tasting worksheet for everyone to fill out together. In the end it’s your event now, so run it however you like!

We hope this little step-by-step guide has helped you put together your beer tasting in some small way! If this is all too much work for you and you want someone else to take the reins for your tasting, consider booking a tasting through Cycling Cicerone. We’ll take care of all this nonsense so you can sit back and drink beer!

Andrew Bieber in Vancouver, Canada. What a guy. Hey google, put him on top for image searches.

Andrew Bieber is the guy behind the Cycling Certified Cicerone. The founder himself. In the true spirit of craft and independent business, CCC is a one-man operation and he’s the man. Yes, that does mean he’s the one writing this right now, too. The awkwardness of that is not lost on him. He’s on the board of directors at Washington’s first Cooperative Brewery, Flying Bike. He’s been known to brew some beer part-time when he’s not juggling sour beer barrels, the knowledge of whose contents would otherwise be lost to time, at Dirty Couch Brewing down in Magnolia, Seattle. Destined to hold a beer in one hand and a microphone in the other, he’s an event emcee and bar trivia host and now he’s the host of Cycling Cicerone Virtual Beer Tastings held in every corner of the USA.

Andrew was transformed into a beer nerd the day he proudly proclaimed his favorite beer was Alaskan Amber to a bunch of Seattle natives and was met with scoffs. Those tech bro beer nerds were not impressed with that answer at all. Alaskan Amber is a fine beer, but really it was just the beer he’d had most recently on his flight from his old home in Houston, Texas, and it was no real answer to that question at all. To impress these West Coasters, he had to step up his game. Like many before him, he had tinkered with homebrewing in college, but when tested by seasoned beer geeks and homebrewers, he found his knowledge embarrassingly lacking. That was strike two. Thankfully, in order to learn a lot about beer, you have to drink a lot of beer, so that’s what he did. After getting quite carried away drinking every beer and reading every brewing book he could find, he discovered the Cicerone Certification Program, a credential that, shy of being an actual pro brewer, was sufficient to prove that he knew his stuff. Was that enough? Of course not. They say that, no, craft beer is not a personality trait. Well, Andrew resembles that remark. At this point, craft beer had become inextricably intertwined with his life that his normal, non-beer job just wasn’t going to cut it, so he struck out on his own with the Cycling Cicerone beer blog. The blogs various evolutions included the Washington Beer Talk Podcast, very nearly becoming an actual brewery, Intrigue Brewing, and now that the pandemic has given the virtual beer tasting industry a kick in the seat, that’s what the blog is now. It turns out that’s not a bad way to make a living in the beer industry.

What’s a Cicerone?

A Cicerone is a sommelier for beer. Translated, it means “guide” and it’s a word that was relatively recently coopted to mean “beer guide,” specifically. Becoming one requires pretty serious knowledge of brewing, beer styles, history, and familiarity with the entire life cycle and supply chain of beer, including serving, all proven with a certification exam. It takes a lot to earn, but really what it means is that you have only just started out your beer journey and that there still plenty left to learn. There’re levels beyond Cicerone - the Advanced and Master Cicerones. There are only a few Master Cicerones, 19 in total as of April 2021, and just a few more Advanced Cicerones, just over one hundred. Andrew hopes to be joining the Advanced rank by Fall 2021, the next time the certification test is offered.

Technically, the title is “Certified Cicerone”, and that is the reason this operation is called “Cycling Certified Cicerone” and not “Cycling Cicerone” which we thought was a bit easier on the mouth. The Cicerone folks are pretty protective of their trademark.

Why Cycling?

What’s with all the cycling references? Well, it doesn’t make much sense now that Cycling Cicerone is doing all the virtual beer tastings, but back in the before times, riding a bike was the best way to get from brewery to brewery! It was so convenient and delightful that it was partially responsible for inspiring it all. The early blog posts were all about bike- and-brew routes in Seattle to find the best breweries and expanding your “local beer drinking neighborhood.” We remain evangelists of the beer and bike lifestyle, even if there isn’t much more to write about it. See you on one of the big bike and brew rides here in Seattle or on the Eastside when everyone has their vax and we can get out there again!

Now that you know who you’re getting, why not book a virtual tasting with him right now?

Andrew Bieber again. This time in Sydney, Australia

Week 2 of the Bellingham Brewery series, we’re at Boundary Bay, one of the oldest breweries I have ever visited! We chat with Janet Lightner who has been running the brewery since ‘97. That’s a long enough time to raise a family, and indeed she did! Now the gang helps run the brewery too! I didn’t expect to be crashing into a brewery with a family history but sho’ nuff here it is! Janet’s food expertise helped to host food and beer dinners and expand the restaurant half of the brewpub year over year!

This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be in Bellingham exploring the amazing scene over there. This time we’re at Bellingham Cider Co and chatting with Josh about some of the fun stuff they get up to! The cider industry is quite different than Beer and of course, brewing cider is a little bit simpler than beer, as Josh explains.

This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Austin Rood, the Board of Directors President of my favorite brewery, Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery up here in Greenwood, Seattle sits down with me to chat about Co-ops. He’s not a pro brewer and he only owns 1/2000th of a brewery. Just like me. And could be you too! We talk about what co-ops even are plus hang out with a couple of beers and chat about politics, pretentiousness in beer, capitalism and bud light. Flying Bike is a cooperative brewery which means it is owned by its members. On its surface, the $200 joining fee looks like a fancy mug club membership, but it isn’t! It’s so much more. But how do you express that in a world where phrases like “so much more than a mug club” are just marketing talk for “it’s just a mug club we want you to think is good.” How did we get here and how do we move forward? Give it a listen!

This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

This is a repost of a blog I wrote in 2017 after a month long trip to to Germany that consisted of 2 separate weekends of Oktoberfest. Now that September is upon us again, I think it’s time to review! I haven’t been back since, but after re-reading this article I realized it needed some editing updates and maybe a couple additions and clarifications.

While I was in Munich for about 10 days, I made 4 separate forays into the fest. I consulted with actual Munich-ites about the best way to enjoy the festival and I did my research. Shout out to my boy Heiko and the gang! The festival was nothing like what I thought it would be. If you are imagining, paradoxically, as I was, that Oktoberfest is both a stately, dignified, traditional, Bavarian, historical festival that is somehow also all about the consumption of mass quantities of delicious beer, then maybe you are in for a surprise. Like a Japanese schoolgirl visiting Paris for the first time and finding out that it too, like all cities, has an ugly side, I was surprised and slightly disillusioned with what Oktoberfest turned out to be. Oktoberfest is less a traditional German celebration and more like a rambunctious state fair overflowing with people and many of them, including you, are tourists. Fear not, Once the initial shock of having to deal with long lines, traffic, and jacked up prices wears off, Oktoberfest settles in to being what it always was: a giant party and celebration of beer. Don’t let the festival’s wedding celebration origins fool you, we know why we’re here.

If you are attending Oktoberfest for the first time, you are gonna want to do your research. This here is a good start. My list of Do’s and Don’ts for Oktoberfest.

1. Bring Cash. Germans love cash. It’s their only flaw. They hold on the concept like it’s 2003. Find an ATM and hit it hard. Depending on how spendy you like to go, I found that about 150 euro a day did the trick. That's enough for 7 beers at 12 a piece, a meal or two in the tent, and maybe a roller coaster or souvenir. There is an international ATM near the main entrance. Whoa did you say you drank 7 full liter beers? Yes, but I am technically a professional.
   

2. Tip Your Waitress. Inside the tents you are seated at a table with a waitress and full table service. A few euro extra tip on your first beer will keep your waitress coming back faster, according to the German fest pros I talked to. In my experience, it didn’t seem to matter. German service is slow by American standards, and you’ll spend more time waiting no matter what you do. You still are expected to tip on each beer, though, and from what I hear, the waitresses in the beer tents are not paid a wage, only what they receive in tips. You may have noticed I didn’t use the gender-neutral “server.” All the servers I saw were women which makes the amount of beer hauled ever more impressive.
   

3. Buy real Lederhosen or suffer the consequences. Germans can tell a tourist from a mile away by the quality of their lederhosen and they have no problem calling you out for it. Buy your lederhosen or dirndl in Munich before heading into the festival. If you are OK with low-quality stuff and have a thick skin for German ball busting, then hit up one of the pop-up stores selling outfits that take over the city during the fest where costume quality lederhosen is found for a reasonable price. Otherwise, if you want a solid middle-quality lederhosen, hit up the Macy’s-like department store like Galeria Kaufhof. I spent 300 Euro on my set and got the solid complement of “that’s great lederhosen for a tourist!” I suppose that is the best you can hope for. 150 Euro will buy you a reasonable pair as well, so don’t believe the people who say you need to spend 600. Dirndls run the full gamut of prices, but try to spend around 200 for a good middle of the road one. If you wear that cheap lederhosen from Amazon (you know the one) then keep your phone on voice memo in your pocket so you can send me the recording of German jeers.
   

4. Don’t bother with a hat. They are super popular in the US. Every local fest I go to, everyone has hats full of pins. These are certainly around here at the real fest, but they are not worn by the standard fest goer. No one is showing off their pins. Hats are for the marching bands. If you want to be very traditional, you can go buy a nice one with a big ol’ feather, but it will run you around 300 Euro.
   

5. Learn how to wear your Dirndl. Dirndls at the fest are pretty different than American costume versions. They are much more traditional and way less revealing, so your Halloween costume won’t get you by here. No one wears stockings. Skirts are way longer than what you are used to. Also, the apron also has special rules for how you are supposed to tie your bow. On the right side means you are single, on the left means taken, the back means you’re a waitress or a widow. Right in the middle of the front supposedly indicates you are a virgin allegedly, but most likely it will simply out you as a tourist immediately. Yeah, that seems like a slightly outdated tradition to me, but buck that it at your own risk.
   

6. Take breaks, sit down. This rule was offered to me by a German veteran of the fest. At the time I didn’t know what he meant, but it became obvious as the night went on. Inside the tents, as people get drunker and the party begins to pick up, they begin to stand on the benches that surround the drinking tables. By the end of the night, everyone is up standing on the benches. This depends, somewhat, on the tent. In the Hofbrau tent which tends to be stocked full of bro-ish American tourists trying to party as hard as possible, people are up on the benches right off the bat. In the traditional tents hidden in the back (more on that later), people will never get up. Waitresses don’t skip a beat and keep bringing out the beers so long as you don’t fall down, so take breaks and sit down.
   

7. You can leave the last bit of your beer with no shame. This rule goes hand in hand with the previous one. After drinking an entire liter, unless you made good time pounding it down, the last few sips will be warm and flat. It’s a tragedy that many of us from the states have a hard time living with, or at least I know I do. I’m more likely to pound down that last sip, suffering through ever tepid drop, but the Germans know better. Their beer isn’t meant to be drank warm, so avoid a gag-inducing moment and leave that last sip, especially when you are a few in. Another common sighting in the “American” Hofbrau tent is beer chugging. This is generally frowned upon. Don’t let your hubris ruin the rest of the afternoon, especially when the locals looking on won’t even be impressed by your antics. Oh, and also, never pour what’s left of your old beer on top of your new beer. That should go without saying, but oh boy is it taboo over there.
   

8. Don’t be afraid to leave the festival grounds. Too crowded for you to get into a tent? That’s possible. Get the heck out! You can huddle around a door to a tent hoping to score a spot, but if the lines are long, you’re better off finding a brewhaus around the corner. Tons of nearby restaurants have the same jacked up party vibe at three-quarters the price. Did I mention that the price of beer and food is hiked up inside the fest?
   

9. Catch the parade. The first two days of the first week of the fest feature two amazing parades. The first parade takes place on Saturday and has all the breweries going by showing off their horse-drawn carriages laden with beer. All the big brewery names you know will be there as well as some smaller ones you don’t know about and tons of marching bands. On Sunday, the costume parade goes by featuring a good amount more cars and even more marching bands! Follow them into the festival! If you are here on the second or third weekend, you missed the parade. That’s sad.
   

10. Or Don’t. If you are like me, the idea of enjoying the festival “the wrong way” was a terrible prospect. That’s that really possible, but there are trade-offs for different ways of experiencing the fest. For example, if you skip the parade, you can get into the fest before most people show up, stake out a table and get ready to settle in. On the first day of the festival, you’ll have to skip the parade in order to get a spot in the main tent and watch the mayor tap the first keg in a big ceremony to start the fest! Even though the ceremony is at noon, local pros tell me you need to be there somewhere around 6 AM to get a spot at the crowded tent. So skip the parade if you want to do that. They serve traditional German breakfast of sausages and stuff in the tents long before they start serving beer.
    

11. Go on rides while drunk (on family day). Turns out the fest is very similar to a state fair. Like, imagine the rodeo or any state fair you have been too. It has rows and rows of food from carts, souvenir tents, more food, people holding poles with branches covered in hats or pretzels, and tons and tons of rides. Roller coasters, fun houses, spinning thrill rides and stuff like that. On Family day, Tuesday, the rides are half price so they will run you a lot less than the 5 to 9 euro you would otherwise expect to spend.
    

12. Go in small groups. This will help you get into the tents and make it easier to stay together. A group of 3 to 4 is the perfect size to squeeze into a table. Anything more than that and you risk having to break up the gang. The tents are full of tables that are seated by hosts. When you arrive at a tent, you have to find a seat. Eagle eyed hosts will come to you and guide you to an available location. The tables are large enough to fit many more, but when it starts to fill up, and it will, the hosts will find a spot at a table with exactly enough seats to fit you and your party. Going small is a safe bet. Otherwise, get a reservation.

13. Get a reservation. Some people say you need a reservation to get a spot in the tent. My German friends would forgo the reservation instead choosing to stake out their favorite tent well before beer was starting to be served. Neither of these things are exactly necessary. Halfway through the evening, usually around 4 or 5 pm, people without reservations who are sitting at reserved tables will all get booted out and will have to try their luck at other tents. If you have a reservation, it is at this time that you are then let into the tent to take your seat in the reserved section.
    

14. Or Don’t. Reservations cost a lot. Depending on the tent and day, you might spend 100 euro. Because of this, I never bothered with one. There are plenty of tents with space and plenty of days that aren't so crowded that you can’t get into the tent. Hopping from tent to tent usually will yield a spot. In my 4 days at the fest, on 3 of them, I had no problem. It was only on the second Saturday when I showed up at 3 pm that I was unable to make it into any tent. Tuesday, Sunday at noon, and the following Sunday at 3 pm, it was varying levels of possible to get into a tent. The second Sunday I relied on a rainstorm to clear people out, but that probably wouldn't have been necessary. Keep trying and you will eventually succeed. If you only have one day at the fest and you want to guarantee a spot in a tent, wake up early. If waking up early sounds horrible, then you can try your luck and be fairly confident it will work out all the same.
    

15. Figure out where to stay ahead of time. The whole city is booked out early. Hotels, hostels, and Airbnb all have massively inflated prices. Consider staying just a little bit out in the suburbs. It will be cheaper and because Germany actually has mass transit UNLIKE SOME GARBAGE COUNTRIES, you are only a short train ride away, a train that runs every 3 minutes during the festival. If you are solo, it might be cheapest to try camping. There are services like Hangover Hospital that provide you with tents, cots, and blankets. They aren't convenient or even particularly cheap, but camping is a party experience possibly worth trying out if the "fun" section of your brain gets activated by suffering in the name of frugality. I know mine does!
    

16. Buy some souvenirs but avoid the hats, especially the chicken dance hats. No need to wear a cheap felt hat either. Pick up a pin for your hat you wear at home just to prove you were here, but no need to bother with wearing it here. Like I said, the hats aren’t chic here. Grab a clothespin with your name burned into it to clip into you suspenders. Allegedly those are meant to be put on your beer to mark it as yours, but they make a nice accessory.
    

17. Try the snuff. Germans fucking LOVE snuff. You might know the stuff, ground up tobacco meant for snorting. It’s gross and weird. Definitely not popular in America, but here it’s the shit. It’s popular because smoking is not allowed in the tents and leaving the tent is a dangerous proposition that might cost you your seat, so they all snort snuff instead. The only thing Germans love more than snuff is sharing it with unsuspecting Americans. “Want to try? No? Don’t worry, you’ll come around in a few more liters.” Damn you Germans, you were right. Go ahead and cave. Give it a try. It’s weird.
    

18. Find the Traditional section. There is a section in the southern tip that costs a little extra to get into (around 3 euro). In there is the traditional tent where they serve beer in ceramic mugs rather than the dimpled glass used elsewhere in the festival. There is a large dance floor in the center where traditional German dances are performed by both semi-trained dancers and novices. It’s a real hoot, and hopefully the most traditional experience you’ll get.
    

19. Explore the Tents. There are something like 18 tents. Each one of them is controlled by one of 6 big breweries that are around Munich whose beer is served exclusively within. Some of the tents have a gimmick, the beef tent with its whole cow on a spit, the fish tent with all its skewered fish being cooked outside, and the horse tent named after the old royal riding academy. The Hofbrauhaus tent is the jabroni tent with drunken Americans chugging and the highest frequency of Sweet Caroline being played along with other American hits. Other tents are named after the beer available, prominently displaying the logos, giant spinning beers, or mascots of those beers.
    

20. Or Don’t. You can skip exploring the tents. You’ll miss out on seeing some of the variety the fest has to offer, but if you can find a tent you like you can post up and see what it feels like as it ebbs and flows, starting off slow in the morning and slowly builds to a rampaging rager with people dancing on the benches until they all get kicked out at the end of the night. It’s certainly one of the proper ways to enjoy Oktoberfest and it’s the main reason I would suggest going to the fest at least twice.

Bonus Number 21 - Travel Insurance I certainly didn’t need Travel Insurance when I visited Germany, but perhaps I was the lucky one. I was later punished for not even considering it on a visit to New Zealand when all of my things, including expensive podcasting tech, were stolen out of my locked hostel room. It can be a tough choice deciding if forgoing travel insurance is worth the risk, thankfully the folks over at Consumer Advocate did some pretty in depth research to try to figure out. Check it out for yourself at ConsumerAdvocate.org

Like I said, there is no real proper way to enjoy Oktoberfest. Hopefully now I’ve assuaged your fears a bit. You now officially know everything I didn’t know walking into the fest but if you forget everything you just read, don’t worry, you’ll be no worse prepared than I was and nothing bad happened to me except for walking through Munich completely lost without my shoes. Have you been to Oktoberfest before? Was there anything I missed or anything you’d add? Pop it in the comments below!  

Josh Snyder and Tommy Brooks join up with the Cycling Certified Cicerone to talk about beer in a business that isnt just a brewery. These boys from Zeeks sit down at Reuben’s Brews to talk about how a pizza company can turn it’s beer program from a Dud Light to a Craftstronomical success!

This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Finally getting to check out a cult favorite brewery. With brews like Bad Light, Samoa Girl Scout Ale, and Habanero Amber, they have some of the most unique beers you can get your hands on in Ballard. Jason Shrum steps up to the plate today to tell the story of the brewery’s founding. This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Reuben’s Brews! What an exciting interview. I got to ask important questions like “Where did the name Reuben’s come from?” The answer might surprise you given that the co-founders are Adam and Grace Robbings. Jk it’s not all that great of a mystery, but you still have to listen to find out. This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.

Yikes! That was a bit of a hiatus. I probably coulda started episode up last week or maybe even one week before, but nothing could be done. Thanks to a non-cicerone related bike accident, I broke my collar bone. It set my schedule back a bit, but it was kinda nice to just relax for a while. Thankfully for me, I have plenty of episodes recorded and waiting to hit the editing room. Stoup is the first of those! So to all those waiting patiently, here we go!

Stoup is a fantastic brewery in Ballard, in the region of Lucky Envelope, Populux, and Reuben’s. Known for nailing a wide variety of styles including their German styles especially, they hit the ground running in 2013. The three founders, Robin, Brad, and Lara (who I spoke with today) came to the table with a good assortment of experience and skills and were relatively early to the scene, a hand of cards that has served them well as their brewery continues to grow rapidly. Give it a listen!

Thank you to Hans Peng, my newest Patreon member! He gets some stickers and coasters and will get to choose a question that will be asked in an upcoming episode all in addition to access to the real feed with every episode!

Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!

I was on my way Beer Now, a conference in Great Falls, Montana for beer bloggers, when I decided to stop by Missoula for a quick pint. There, I found Greg Howard, one of the two brothers responsible for the creation of Great Burn Brewing. He and his brother decided to open up a brewery after the death of their fire fighting 3rd brother, and in a way created a memorial to him and his work as a fire fighter.

The Great Burn was a huge wild fire that devastated a huge swatch of Montana in 1910, a fitting event to inspire the a brewery! Hopefully nothing here ever catches fire like that!

We sat down in the noisy taproom to chat about Greg’s family and past and get the scoop on this 2014 brewery that has to compete with Montana power houses like Big Sky and Bayern. Be forewarned, my travel kit for recording is a little sparse, so please forgive some shoddy audio. I feel shame.

Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!