Rob Fink offers a few basic guidelines to help maximize your beer tasting or beer dinner adventures.

Organizing a beer tasting or beer dinner is a great way to bring together a great group of friends over a collection of craft beers and varying food combinations. Courtesy Brian Stanton Beer tastings can be as simple as gathering friends for a few beers, or as complex as a staggered tasting with snacks and water acting as palate cleansers between beers. Courtesy Brian Stanton It's been said many times before: Craft beer is all about community. Courtesy Brian Stanton Some of my the poignant beer experiences are at a table surrounded by a group of like-minded folks, relishing the immense comfort of good food and good beer. Courtesy Brian Stanton ( 1 /4) Share This Gallery: Share on Facebook. Share on Twitter. Share via email. Print.

Rob Fink

WTOP Beer Contributor

WASHINGTON – It’s been said many times before, but the sentiment is well worth repeating: Craft beer is all about community.

On the commercial level, this sense of community is evident in collaborations with fellow breweries. And on a consumer level, it’s often rooted in beer tastings and beer dinners.

Some of my most poignant beer experiences have been at a table surrounded by a group of like-minded folks, relishing the immense comfort of good food and good beer.

Across several years of coordinating beer tastings and beer dinners, I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes, but I’ve also made a few good choices. When something clicks, it becomes immediately apparent.

Below are a few basic guidelines to help maximize your beer tasting and beer dinner adventures:

Beer Tastings

Beer tastings can be as simple as gathering friends for a few beers, or as complex as a staggered tasting with snacks and water acting as palate cleansers between beers.

It can take the shape of a tasting where a few beers from a particular brewery are featured, or a tasting can be premised upon a specific style, such as a collection of American IPAs.

The colloquial phrase in the craft beer community for these types of events is “bottle share.”

Beer Dinners

Beer dinners are ideal to highlight flavor details of craft beer and beer’s inextricable agricultural link to food.

Both beer and food possess the capability to enhance one another in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere. However you choose to orchestrate your beer dinner, below are some general guidelines that can help you achieve true beer enlightenment.

Basic conceptual frameworks for pairing: