Rare beers aren't often new beers. This works just fine in the case of a year old bomber of Imperial Stout Trooper, or the '08 Schneider Weisse Aventinus I had at a recent beer festival. It's not so fine when I walk into a bar in February and they're trying to pass off a fall seasonal that came out in August as a craft offering because the distributor gave them a skinny deal on the keg.
Events like the monthly Rare Beer Night at Half Full Brewery in Stamford are thus somewhat of an exception: rare beer, in this case, is also fresh beer. The fact that forty ticketed guests were met with fruit and charcuterie from Fairway, and cheese plates from Fairfield Cheese Company to pair with the beer, was an added bonus.
The entire staff of Half Full pitches in after work on the third Wednesday of every month to set up tables and seating in the brewery's tasting room for this event, which pairs extremely limited edition Half Full beers with various foods. The event's cheeses were selected by Fairfield Cheese Co. co-owner Chris Palumbo, who was on hand to speak on each of the pairings he made with beers made by Half Full brewers... pardon, "Chief Beer Artist and Chief Beer Scientist,"