a taste of the past

Written on February 5, 2010 – 3:52 pm | by Bob |

Crazy crazy. Life has been a wonderful crazy ride of late as I’ve said goodbye to Atlanta and as I make my plans to move to Prague. I have every intention of continuing my barely begun series on “Words”, but today a vintage ale has inspired me to look back instead of inward. Take what you can get…

So this week I’m taking a little road trip across the southeast to visit friends and family before my move to Prague in a few weeks. Charlotte is the stop for this evening and I’m treating my friends Laura, Michael and Ryan here to a little beer tasting – Aventinus 2004 Vintage (German), Tripel Karmeliet (Belgian), and Duchesse de Bourgogne (Flemish). While reviewing my notes, I came across this posting that I did a few years ago when I still worked at Octane. Since I’m celebrating the past as I look into my future, I’m going to repost.

These samplers never actually got used (though they are ©Cat Norman), but I had a lot of fun making them. And, who knows? Maybe I’ll readapt them down the road someday?

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When I was a kid, I got great pleasure out of organizing things. (Note: I am not “neat” or “clean”, I just like organization.) I would spend hours pouring through the garden and bush in our compound to find just the right flowers for a flower arrangement to put on the table. Then, when I was a little older, I spent my time arranging my earring collection (amassed over a hundred pairs of large dangly earrings!). With the help of a rack my grandpa built, I could organize by size, color, emotional attachment, or current mood, and reorganize at will! Now my sense of “beautiful” arrangement displays itself in the beer fridge at Octane Coffee.

I’ve been working at Octane for almost a year now. The best part about the group is that everyone who works there is passionate about something – for M’lissa, it’s coffee education; for Aly, it’s community service and aid; for Matt, it’s recycling and the environment; etc. I like organizing and educating about our beer. Passions are encouraged and everyone brings Octane up to their own high standards in each area. Octane tries to be great at whatever it does, and limits the food and drinks to aim at quality over quantity.

I spend a lot of time at Octane stocking the beer fridge, rearranging it by country, alphabetical order, style, etc. It’s my earring rack on a whole new level! I learn more and more about each beer and style as I am ordering new stock, and talking to customers about them. I’ve noticed that a lot of our customers know that we serve great coffee, but don’t know a lot about the quality of our beer. M’lissa does weekly coffee cuppings on Mondays that educate anyone willing to learn about the differences in coffee styles, processing methods, etc. Inspired by that, I’ve been working on a DIY beer sampler pack that will allow anyone interested to sample 3 or 5 beers, as an introduction to Belgian beer.

You’ll see below the Five Beer and Three Beer samplers I designed, wrote text for, and did a little photoshoot or two for. I learned a lot of interesting tidbits of information – like that the proceeds from Trappist ales go to charity or the work of the monastery they were brewed in, no profit kept.

Thanks to Janet for text editing, all the Octaners who posed for the pictures, and Wikipedia, Beer Advocate, and RateBeer for the education.



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