On Friday evening I attended the 2012 Colorado Country Club Classic at Casselman’s in Denver.  This event was a fundraiser for the American Lung Association of Colorado, and this year’s theme was golf.  I’m really not a fan of golf; I don’t participate in it and think our country spends far too much clean water and energy for their upkeep.  However, this golf event was unlike anything I had seen before, and it was a lot of fun.

Fortunately for me, there was no actual golf involved.  There were 9 Colorado breweries (plus one CO winery) who were sponsors, and each one had a table set up (to represent a hole).  The object of the night was, just like in golf, to get the lowest score possible–not by getting the ball in the hole, but by sampling 3 different beers at each “hole” and marking your scorecard as to which was which.  Each brewery provided the names and descriptions of their 3 beers, and participants blindly tasted all 3 and then had to figure out what was what.  Some were far easier than others: for example, one hole had a brown ale, an IPA, and a pale ale.  And some were much more difficult: one featured 2 different lagers and one pilsner.  The highest possible score (for those who don’t know golf, “highest” score in this case means worst) was 30 with the lowest being zero, of course.  At the end of the night a handful of people ended up with a 5–pretty impressive, meaning they correctly identified 25 out of 30 beers (and wine).  Unfortunately for some of us, a couple of breweries ran out of one or even all of their beers, forcing us to randomly guess what might have been.  I wound up with a score of 8, but I can’t fully accept it since I missed out on 2 breweries who failed to plan ahead.  But, an 8 still isn’t too bad.

The participating breweries were:

• Twisted Pine
• Hops
• Del Norte
• Bristol
• Strange
• Upslope
• Rockyard
• AC Golden
• Elk Mountain
• The Vineyard Club (wine)

Here is a picture of some couple who wanted to be a part of my blog.  Sorry about the lighting; I forgot my camera and my phone doesn’t have a flash.

All in all, it was a great time.  I thought the theme was quite inventive, though there were some issues such as beer shortages and a somewhat annoying setup, but perhaps they will learn from these, as I’d love to go back and do it again next year, provided it’s slightly more organized.