This month I decided to change things up a bit and host a share at my house. Dan and I made a Facebook event and invited about 15 of our closest beer friends. We asked everyone to bring at least one beer to share and if they wanted to, a snack to also share. Dan and I bought pizza for everyone to munch on during the share.
To have a successful share at your house I suggest you have everything ready to go before you guest show up.
We found and cleaned all of our tasting glasses and had them set up on the counter for our guest. If you don’t have enough glasses make sure you asks your guests to bring their own. Or buy small plastic glasses.
It’s a good idea to have “pace beers” for your guests. This is usually just an easy drinking beer people can sip on throughout the night in between opening the share beers. We went with Bell’s Oberon and New Belgium Fat Tire.
Also make sure you have somewhere to keep all the beer cold during the share. More than likely your fridge will be full and not able to hold everything everyone brings. We filled our cooler up with ice and placed the beers in there. Most of our friends brought their beer in their own cooler, so that’s an option as well if cold space is limited.
Remember to provide food throughout the night. You don’t want anyone leaving your share with an empty stomach filled with just beer. We also told our guests that we had an extra bedroom available if anyone needed to crash and not drive home.
Finally, make sure you set up an area for your “beer graveyard” the bottles and cans will start to add up quickly. Have a spot where you can easily store them. At the end of your share you will want to get a “kill shot”. This is a picture of all your empty bottles. This comes in handy if you want to refer back to your favorite beer, or if you forget to check beers in on Untappd.
At our share we just had people open their bottle after they noticed the previous one was empty. This system doesn’t always work because you’ll have an IPA followed by an Imperial Stout then maybe to a Saison. If your taste buds can’t handle all the change, make sure you have a system on how you want to open them.
Shares are a great time to connect with friends, try new beer, and in our case, clear out our beer fridge to make room for new beer!
What are some of your favorite at home share tips? Anything that I forgot to mention?