We CAN-JAM

After more than a decade in the craft beer environment, I’ll admit that I tend to shy away from beer “events.” More often than not, I stand in long, hot lines for smaller than normal portions in plastic cups of the same beer that I can get in a nice cool glass sitting at the brewery. True, there are advantages at beer events like more breweries in one place or rarer kegs that I may not have seen before, but that rarely outweighs the calm, cool, buzz of a brewery bar where there are virtually no lines and full pours of my favorites.

Triple Crossing Beer’s Can Jam (held on August 17th) , however, is a noteworthy exception. Yes, there was a bit of a line at one point. It was hot that day (outside) and there were plastic cups. But...the CANS make such a difference. I love Can Jam, and I hope that the rest of RVA likes it as much as I do so it can happen over and over again.

Beer tasting is a social experience, or should be. A few minutes in any craft beer bar will reveal that people like to taste and share and talk about what they are drinking. This is somewhat of a challenge at many beer events, because you are standing and waiting and juggling personal plastic cups or small commemorative glasses. Not all friendly strangers want to sip from your cup or have you sip from theirs. You walk around, sampling your own choices from your own cup, and sometimes are able to have a quick chat with people nearby about what you just sampled, if you both sampled the same thing at the same time.

Can Jam changes all that. The feeling of camaraderie that flows from a 16 oz can that can be passed easily to anyone interested just seems to break down sharing barriers and make for a more collaborative experience. Here’s how it works:

You stand in a (short) line and purchase three tickets – when we got there at 4 there was no line at all. You then move to another short line (where they have a list of the beers) and choose your three cans, which are fished out of ice-filled buckets and opened for you. This is a somewhat frazzling experience, because you are confronted with a long menu full of breweries you may have heard of but may not have tried (Aslin Beer Company, Dancing Gnome Beer, Industrial arts, Narrow Gauge Brewing Company, and Magnify Brewing Company, to name a few ) and you have people waiting and an immediate 15 beers you want to try. Not to worry! You can shyly grab your three, sit down, and chug them, but there are much more fun methods.

One is to find a seat at a large round table upon arriving and see what people have and what they wish they had. People who want to try beer are typically very accommodating, and if you say, I was thinking of getting THIS one, they may have a small pour from their can for you to taste first, or they may be able to tell you about it. They also may say something like, “Hey, we want that one, too – go get it, come back and we will give you sips of THESE for sips of yours.” You have just joined a tasting circle, have a new group of friends, and will likely get samples of each of the beers they have in front of them.

Another method is sitting with a few close friends and making an action plan. They do run out of the best ones quickly, so have back-ups, but a marked menu where you end up with 12 or 15 cans in your group makes for a lovely tasting, and you will still get a great variety. What I have found is that if there is one you really wanted on the list, you can walk around, make conversation with other stockpilers, and typically find some left of the one you were dying to try.

This time around, I made some fun tasting notes with my tablemates. I think the agreed upon favorite was Shelter from Outer Range Brewing Co. in Colorado. A 9% DIPA with Citra, Mosaic, and Topaz hops, it was dry for 9%, lemongrassy, and two of us thought “ocean” right away as we sipped. While I’d had it before, I also really enjoyed Charles Towne Fermentory ’s (Charleston, SC) Double Dry-Hopped Sungazer. Maybe this was an exceptionally fresh batch of the American IPA, but it screamed “Vermont!” when I first put it in my mouth, and it then fragmented beautifully into creamy notes of orange, grapefruit and even a twinge of coconut. We did add a few unusual descriptors, as us aspiring super-tasters like to do, which included corn, tin, and sandalwood, but they were all very faint and unassuming; they made it interesting. The least favorite (although still drinkable) of those we tried was a five-brewery collaboration out of Rockland County, NY – Industrial Arts, District 96, Defiant, Kuka, and Gentle Giant all worked on this 6.7% NEIPA. While it has very strong reviews, multiple brewery collaborations I think can get messy, and this one tasted to me like what could have been a pretty nice IPA muddled with some rose-flavored department store perfume and slightly rotten cantaloupe. We followed our guest cans with the IPA releases from Triple Crossing Beer - Fulton, Night Call and Battle Creek (they had them on draft, but we got cans just to stick, with the spirit of the event, you know, keep “jamming,”) and they, as always, rivaled any of the other breweries we tasted.

To me, Can-Jam takes a beer event to a new level. 16-oz cans just beg to be poured and shared, and the ease of pouring an ounce or two into your cup and finding a new one to taste makes for a much more varied and exciting experience. I have had no trouble at all walking around the brewery, making friends, and sharing tastes – one group even handed us an entire can simply because someone in their group had already gotten that one and they didn’t need it. Beer makes spirits so generous!

I had a grand time at Can Jam – really, more than any other recent Richmond beer event. Keep it up, Triple Crossing!