Glasses raised at Olympians 160th official tasting
Olympians was started in the old Toti Athletics Club pub in 1998.
Amanzimtoti’s 18-year-old beer tasting club, the Olympians, recently held its 160th official tasting.
The tasting was held on the site of the old River Garden Hotel among the huge Natal mahogany trees.
The hotel was an iconic, frontier-type establishment that would have been ideal for an Ernest Hemingway or Joseph Conrad novel.
“The meeting remembered our late founding members, Keith Waterson, Keith Ward, Robbie Butler, Hugh Loney and George Oosthuizen on a site they frequented,” said chairman, Ron Dunwoodie.
Olympians was started in the old Toti Athletics Club pub in 1998 after a time trial run. The original eight members decided that a male version of the ‘women’s book club’ was needed and the most appropriate common denominator was beer.
Meetings are held monthly on rotation, so that the host has time to find three to four new beers, preferably not craft, and select a venue.
There is no discussion during individual tasting, and scores are submitted by ballot. Once recorded, the selected beer’s merits or demerits are discussed.
Membership is restricted to eight and when a vacancy does arise, a candidate is proposed from within the group. To date the group has tasted, scored and rated over 500 international beers from as far afield as Peru and Nepal.
The best rated lager is the Danish Faxe, while Guinness remains the king of stout and an amber ale from Julain in France tops that category. “But the quest continues to find the holy grail of ale,” said Ron.
https://gph.is/1RiHI46
