Private beer tastings the subject of C-J article.

Free lancer Marty Rosen, who is a regular contributor to the Louisville Courier-Journal and writes about many topics, among them food and drink, was the guest of longtime Public House regular Terry Cummins during a private beer tasting in early November.

Terry had purchased the beer tasting at a silent auction. It has long been my custom to donate such private tastings, usually for a party of eight, in lieu of cash, ordinary gift certificates or other items (t-shirts, etc.) It costs my business the same in terms of beer samples and my time, but it generates more money for the charity or service club if it’s auctioned. Everyone wins.

I’m happy that Marty enjoyed it, because he followed up with this article in Saturday’s newspaper: Tastings brew beer fans' curiosity.

Give the beer-lover in your life a 12 pack of exotic brews, and he or she will drink happily for a few days (more or less).

Give that same beer-lover an informative beer tasting and he or she will remember it for years to come.

Concurrent with the tasting that Marty attended, I was in the process of deciding to make a limited number of such private beer tastings available for purchase as gifts during the holiday season. Coincidentally, Marty asked me if I ever did such a thing, and with the answer being tentatively affirmative, the offer made it into the article. Consequently, we've made the transition from tentative to actual.

Obviously, with the single biggest component being my time, and the second most important factor being availability of space to conduct the tasting, I need two weeks advance notice, and recommend that tastings occur Monday through Thursday at the Public House. Weekends simply are too busy. The idea as always is to begin with a sample of familiar beer (read: golden), then riff on seven or eight variations, accompanied by what I hope is entertaining and educational commentary.

As of today, I’ve fielded three inquiries. We’ll see how the experiment works out.