Beer - the elusive post

I've been a bit slower in posting things about beer, but that's mostly bad timing and planning.

My compulsion to have things neat and orderly means that I want to post in drinking order, and couple of things got in the way.

(1) What was I supposed to to do to mark 500 beers?

(2) Wasn't timing everything?

[caption id="attachment_10050" align="alignright" width="224"] Spiegelau stout[/caption]

Couple of things happened. Christmas came a wandering up and so some of the the #500 was about having the right tools. And I'd peaked too early, I was way too soon to #500 and not being able to pair it to another  arbitrary significant day seems to have stopped me in a stupor.

So timing, I wanted to be some kind of pretentious self-important blogger that made it more significant than it was I guess, I don't like odd numbers and I like balance and in Pdubyah-world everyone is waiting on #500, yes they are.

Anyway. A significant part then became the wait and gap  in having the right tools, in this case the  Spiegelau stout  glasses. These are wider in the bowl and foot then the IPA glasses and having these was/is important to the timeline and planning.

I love the IPA glasses and really would recommend you get some because drinking out of fine glass is a bit of a thrill.

Let me tell you that I brought these in NZ as a pair for NZ$30. I've seen them singularly for $20 each, and I've seen them at as much as NZ$55.00 a pair.  Madness.

But I got my desire and christmas for NZ$30 seems like a bit of a score.

Secondly, it was important for me to me #500 and for it to be a bit of a thing, in and of itself, and I wanted to get there with a hiss and a roar and do something that was a bit off the wall, even for me.

[caption id="attachment_10051" align="alignleft" width="224"] One of these is not like the other[/caption]

At the risk of being a bit pratish and wanky I've chosen to do something that even for me is a bit naff. Group eye-roll and sigh.

I have two bottles, 750ml of a beer from Epic - their Epic Epicurean Coffee & Fig Oatmeal Stout, an  annual beer.

Annual beer.

I've had the 2013.

I have the 2014.

It's not a guessing game as to what the plan might be, a side by side tasting,

What could possibly go wrong, what might I have not factored in, what was I thinking, just what?

This is a lot of beer for one night in and so I might even have to plan the music accordingly.

Of course I could always phone a friend and make it big night in.

Stand by,

As a spoiler I can tell you that in the background if you've been following me in untappd you might have notice that I'm up to about beer #512, and I have beer from Tahiti to drink, I don't even know where Tahiti is!, and a Rogue and Moa Festive beer, so I've kept busy and am being busy.  But OCD me wants to do this in sequence and logical, and what you'll see next is the 12 (or more)  days of christmas beers, except it's not strictly chronologically correct, in sense, although numerically they are, it's just that I might have had them last week, but it'll all work out.