Tasting Ghost Whales: Vintage Collectors Gather to Drink Legendary Beer

I remember 8thyearsenior in this FBD thread several months back talking about a guy he knew in Denver with a mind-blowing beer cellar who had hosted an elite "ghost whale" tasting with a small number of select guests.

Well, apparently someone just published a professional write-up documenting it.

LINK

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They called it the Ghost Whale tasting. A gathering of the world’s foremost beer hunters. It was to be the tasting to end all tastings, the one that all others are judged against. Big words, big statements, but these guys had what it took to put it together: deep pockets, strong connections and an almost maniacal obsession with hunting rare beers.

Exceptionally rare beers have been nicknamed “Whales” (the whole, “biggest creature in the sea” thing), and the most exclusive of these whales are referred to as “White Whales.” Beers such as Rodenbach’s cherry-infused Alexander Rodenbach (last made in 2000) or Drie Fonteinen’s Millennium Geuze (one-off, limited Belgian distribution). But narrow this group down even further to the most elite of the white whales and you’ve got “Ghost Whales” (the moniker for the white beluga). For a beer to be deemed a ghost whale, it must not only come from a deeply respected producer, but also have a scarcity that limits remaining bottles to numbers you learned to count to in kindergarten. These extraordinary near-extinct beers, such as the original ’03 batch of Cantillon’s cloudberry masterpiece, Soleil de Minuit, or Lost Abbey’s for-friends-only Veritas 005, can fetch over $4,000 apiece among private collectors.

The idea for this super-tasting started when a Denver beer collector, Bill Young, got his hands on a bottle of Drie Fonteinen’s Driesjes Eerste Plasje. ...

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Pretty interesting article. I know some of y'all decry the glorification of rares and what-not. But as a "lambic head" myself, I found it to be a very interesting read and was quite intrigued by stuff like this.

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After that was Cantillon’s ’05 Bourgogne. Contrary to popular belief, there were no grapes used in this beer. It’s simply a lambic aged for two years in a Nuits-St-Georges Burgundy wine barrel (hence, the Bourgogne name). The legend goes that Van Roy was tasting barrels to blend into his Classic Gueuze. When he sampled the lambic from this particular barrel, he was so impressed by its balance and complexity that he pulled a few bottles directly off it to save for special occasions. A mere 24 bottles were filled and rest was blended into gueuze. Attendee Ryan Neas scored the bottle from a Danish beer collector who had a long-time connection with Cantillon.

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