So the event took place last night at 6pm. We tasted 10 beers. For snack food, they had fresh (but not hot) Bavarian pretzels with sweet mustard. All very tasty.

1) Reissdorf Kölsch

• Draft
• 1st Impression: Refreshing
• A Cologne style beer. Actually an ale, but lager-like in that the fruit is muted. There are many varieties that all vary by brewpub (in the Cologne region).
• In the region, generally served in 200ml cylinder glasses. Don’t worry if that doesn’t seem like a lot because the wait staff is constantly carrying trays of these glasses. They mark your beer coaster per beer and that becomes your bill.

2) König Pils

• Can
• 1st Impression: Tastes just like PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon)
• Lagers are the typical German beer and this is a typical example of a lager. After several sips, the beer was better than PBR (which doesn’t say much), but I thought it wasn’t nearly as good as the first beer.
• Other classic pilsners are Bitburger and Warsteiner.

3) Schneider Edel-Weisse

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Bananas
• This beer was the best so far. The freshness of the bananas/cloves really makes the beer quite yummy.
• Typically served in a bottle so that it can be highly carbonated. (which I think helps with the freshness quality)

4) 1809 Berliner Weisse

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Sour!
• He used fancy words like ‘citrusy’, but this beer really smelled terrible. We were given some red or green syrup to sweeten the experience. Though the color changed and it tasted better, I couldn’t really get over that horrible smell.
• I personally had the red syrup which was dubbed “Himbeer”.

5) Spaten Oktoberfest

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Boring
• I wish I liked this style more (given how much the host waxed lyrical), but at the end of the day, it reminded me of a Brown ale. And I really don’t like Brown ales (with the notable exception of any beer that is aged in a bourbon barrel).
• Fun fact: Only 5 companies are allowed to make an Oktoberfest beer at the festival
• Fun fact: The dark color that Americans associate with this style only occurs here. In Germany, the beer has a much lighter color. The hosts theory is that they can sell more of it to Australians (who as we all know love Fosters).

6) Uerige Sticke Dusseldorf Altbier

• Bottle (w/ resealable cap)
• 1st Impression: Amazing Flavor (pepper/spice)
• Sticke means secret which apparently means in beer terms that this beer was a special treat. I thought this beer was pretty special too. Really awesome.
• Dusseldorf is right next to Kolsch, but they have entirely different beer styles. Apparently, they don’t like each other very much either. Wouldn’t be uncommon for a person of one region to have never tried the beer of the other region.
• Fun fact: Up until 5 years ago, you had to actually go to Dusseldorf in order to get this beer.

7) Kostritzer Schwarzbier

• Bottle? Draft? (we saw a bottle, but not sure)
• 1st Impression: Light stout, roasted
• Schwarz means black and (surprise, surprise) the beer is very dark/black in color.  It really isn’t like a stout at all.  The black color gives that impression but that’s where all of the similarities end.  It is very light and lager-like.  Probably because it uses lager yeast.
• It was very drinkable.

Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Malty/Smoky
• At first, he cited this beer as being 7-8% ABV, but we later determined it was only 6.7%. That is funny because it tasted very alcohol-y. Or it could just be that I’ve had one too many high alcohol Belgian beers and my taste buds are biased.
• Fun fact: Bock = Goat. So lots of goat pictures/paraphenalia on the bottle.

9) Schneider Aventinus

• Bottle
• 1st Impression: Bananas
• It was our second Schneider beer of the night.  So perhaps not really surprising that they both tasted like bananas.
• This is considered a “holiday” beer probably because of the 8.2% ABV.
• Delicious beer.  Would have been good to end the class with this one, but I wasn’t the host.

10) Schlenkerla Fastenbier

• Draft
• 1st Impression: Nose: Smoky/Bacon Flavor: Tar/Bitter
• It’s safe to say that the majority of the class didn’t like this beer.  If you’ve never had a smoky beer, this would be a rough introduction.
• I’ve had a lot of smoky beers, but the best probably has to be the Goose Island Bourbon County Stout.  This wasn’t close to that (and not because it wasn’t barrel aged in bourbon).  It really just was too bitter to be good.

In technology, once you have bad programmers, you’re doomed. I can’t think of an instance where a company has sunk into technical mediocrity and recovered. Good programmers want to work with other good programmers. So once the quality of programmers at your company starts to drop, you enter a death spiral from which there is no recovery.

Unfortunately, there are many contests of this type that are just plain stupid.

In 1850, the Germans who settled in the Wilmette area named their township New Trier after the German city of Trier. That city was settled by a Gaulish people called the Treveri and was also known as Treves — which is why New Trier High School athletes are called Trevians. Little did the Illinois settlers know that Trier would soon be known as the birthplace of communist icon Karl Marx.

I’m not going to give a big list about everything I wish my mac/iPhone/iDevice should do. It really doesn’t matter. Products will come and go and there will always be critics. As a critic, it is your responsibility to be critical. Just don’t be a dick.