Saturday, January 30, 2010

Michael Jackson Tutored Tasting is On for the 20th Year


I am more than a little beer geeked up over the news that the University of Pennsylvania is hosting the Michael Jackson Tutored Beer Tasting on March 13. This is the 20th year for the event and beer author Randy Mosher will conduct the tastings. I first read the good news on Mr. Sixpack's site and tripped across it again while perusing Mr. Curtin's Liquid Diet.

If you are a beer fan (being here I assume you are) and have not had the opportunity to attend in the past make it a point to go this year. This is not the overly packed, fight for your beer and then wait, wait, wait type of beer event. It's very well run. Three start times during the day and a limited amount of tickets help to lessen the crowds. The first hour is a tutored tasting which is followed by a 2 hour general tasting session of over 100 additional beers in the Chinese Rotunda. Even with the large number of people who attend there's not much of a wait when trying to get a beer. Since the event takes place in the University of Pennsylvania's Archaeology & Anthropology Museum there's sort of a grand feel to the whole affair. A good mix of beer culture and history.

I've made it to the tasting 4 times and it's one of my favorite beer events. The first time I attended was still the most memorable. I met Michael Jackson and amazingly I wasn't even aware of the general tasting. After the tutored tasting a friend and I were preparing to leave when they announced the start of the general tasting. To my surprise I had two more hours to sample more amazing beer and managed to have a few words with Michael Jackson. Picture telling a kid who has opened all his Christmas gifts that there is a second room of gifts and Santa is handing them out. That was my excitement level. Still one of my best beer days ever.

The details of this year's tasting are still hard to come by. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks ticket information will become available on the Penn Museum website or a sponsor's site. I'll post it when I get it.

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