Earlier I posted about Short On Beer‘s “Beer Mission” series. This is a series of beer challenges that he will post to the blog. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go out and accomplish his challenge, then report back the results. You and your friends should end up with some great new experiences.

As for The Beer Spy, I accept.

Beer Mission #1 is to give a friend a beer that they have never tried before. This challenge came about at the perfect time because my buddy Alex is in Annapolis this week. It has been over six months since I last saw him, and I’ve found plenty of new beers for him to try in that time.

Alex and I were in Guam together for nearly two years, and we found and tried every beer that made it to the island in those 24 months. Alex watched my apartment when I headed back to the States to get married, and when I came back I didn’t find some silly kitchen appliance or linens as a wedding gift. I came back to Guam to find my refrigerator crammed so full of Rogue beer that the shelves were about to collapse from the weight of all the bottles. That is the mark of a true friend and a deserving recipient/victim for Beer Mission #1.

The beer I gave Alex was La Fin Du Monde, a spiced Belgian style Tripel crafted by the Canadian brewery Unibroue. This beer has a beautiful cloudy gold color with a big foamy white head that hits you in the face with peppery clove and sweet light fruit as the bubbly foam falls away. The flavor of this beer along with the high carbonation is like a tango on your tongue. You get fruit flavors like pear and cider apples, along with a sweet malt graininess, pepper, and clove. Why did I choose it? Because I had it on tap in my living room when Alex arrived.

So how did it go? Alex kept asking me questions about the beer. Where did all that flavor come from? What’s the name? Where can he get it? Why is there an entire keg in your living room? All in all I would say it went well. He came back and had another the next night, and talked about it on a third night while we were enjoying happy hour at Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge.

This was a fun beer mission. Yes, I give people new beers all the time, but I’ve never tried to actively document the experience. Approaching it this way made it more memorable and more fun. I hope to do this again in the future. Thanks Short On Beer!