The Simply Beer Tastings have become a huge success. We tasted through a dozen+ Holiday beers and had a blast discussing the beer in a fun and very educational forum in our December tasting.

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We are proud to announce the start of the Simply Beer Club in conjunction with Amanti Vino in Montclair NJ.  Our inaugural tasting will be on Nov 7th.  These tasting are going to be a great way to experience some unique beer.  We will be selecting a style of Beer or Brewery and 4-6 beers that fit the genre and discussing them. For our first tasting on Nov 7th, we will be sampling 6 stouts that cover the gamut of the style.  We will also have John Hoyos of Hunterdon Brewing Co. as a special guest to give us some industry insight on these beers. (more…)

This Beer Brawl™ comes courtesy of John Hoyos of Hunterdon Brewing.  John selected out 6 Esoteric Italian Beers from his portfolio and brought them for us to sample at Montclair New Jersey’s Amanti Vino.  Having only had Peroni before, I was looking forward to seeing and tasting some unique Italian beers and hopefully bring a couple of new names for listeners of Simply Beer to try out.

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On June 23rd my wife and I had the pleasure of attending a Beer & Dinner pairing featuring some off centered Dogfish Head Beer and the cuisine of Chef Michael Carrino of Passionné and first season winner of the food network’s Chopped series.  The event was put together by Travis Glohs of Amanti Vino, Chef Carrino, and Wendy Domurat of Dogfish Head Brewery.  If you have listened to the Simply Beer podcasts or have read my reviews, I have a great respect for the Dogfish Head beers and especially their brewing process.  With the depth of their beer portfolio, I could only image which beers could be on this tasting.  Introducing the lineup for the dinner, Travis brought the whole Dogfish head line to Chef Carrino to sample and he came up with a complementary menu not only to the beer, but the image of Dogfish head, who’s motto is “Off centered ales for off centered people”.

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First off I must thank my wife, this tasting plus the upcoming Dogfish Head Dinner was a fathers day gift.  Do I have the best wife or what!? The Extreme Beer & Extreme Cheese pairing was at Amanti Vino in Montclair, New Jersey.  To quite honest, I was a bit skeptical at first not knowing much about the store, except they carry a hand selected wines.  When I got to the store and saw the selection of beer they had, I was encouraged.  It was a very small selection of beer, but it was a section of top notch imported and craftbeer.  I was shocked when I saw they had the Dogfish head Sah’Tea.  I had not seen it anywhere and just that morning I had heard stores complaining on twitter that they hadn’t received it.  Now I was excited.

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