We had a special guest at the club on Friday evening:
Randy Mosher!
He was vacationing in the south of France at a client's house and was in Paris to do some sightseeing, and was kind enough to give a talk about Radical Brewing to our club. He also did a beer and cheese pairing, and managed the considerable feat of convincing some of our French club members that perhaps beer and cheese go better together than wine and cheese. The New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red and Burrata, and the (some smokey beer, I can't find my notes) and Beaufort pairings really won a lot of us over.
All in all, a great time! Plus we went out to dinner afterwards, which was fun! The best quote of the night, in re the lack of good categorizations for beer styles in France, Randy said, "If you think five categories are enough for beer, how can you justify over 400 different types of cheese?" Which is a great way to push for BJCP-style categories at the contests here. Someone on the French forum had a good point, though, which is that the contest categories are designed for the huge breweries - 1664, Kro, Leffe, etc. So they have to be broad.
Anyway it was fantastic to see Randy in person, and he donated signed copies of Radical Brewing and Tasting Beer to our club library.
