Zwanze Day 2014 at Bier Station - Win Tickets Here!

Zwanze Day is this Saturday--huzzah! What the hell is Zwanze Day, you ask? Well, if you like sour beers (which, who doesn't these days?), then Zwanze Day is your new favorite holiday. The Cantillon Brewery is the premier sour beer brewer in the world. Since 1900, they have been one of the few surviving lambic breweries that has continued to brew in the traditional way. They are arguably the single most influential brewery in the sour beer movement.

Every year since 2011, Cantillon has brewed a super special one-off beer and released it simultaneously all over the world. This is Zwanze Day. This year, 56 locations around the world get to serve the beer on September 20, and our very own Bier Station is one of those locations.

The Zwanze Beer this year is named Cuvée Florian, and was brewed as an 18th birthday present for brewery owner and head brewer Jean-Pierre van Roy's son, Florian. There's a great explanation of the beer over on Cantillon's website. And while you're there, read all of their stories about their beer. If you ever wanted a bedtime story from the greatest sour beer brewer of our time, you'll appreciate them.

The Event

In a bid to make the Zwanze Day tasting a little bit more equitable and manageable, Bier Station has made it a ticketed event. There will be two VIP tasting sessions, one at 2pm and one at 3pm, and a GA tasting session at 4pm. Everything will be served in 4 oz. pours so that everyone has a chance at a sample. The event will be held indoors and outdoors at Bier Station. And don't fear the weather forecast--there will be tents set up in case of rain.

The Zwanze Beer is not the only amazing beer available at these tasting sessions either. There will be six (SIX!!) different Cantillon beers available, along with a handful of other great rare beers.

Here is a list of the beers that will be tapped for the 2pm and 3pm VIP tasting sessions:

Cantillon Cuvée De Florian (2014 Zwanze Beer)
Cantillon Mamouche
Cantillon Gueuze
Cantillon Iris
Prairie Cherry Funk
Prairie Funky Gold Mosaic
Jolly Pumpkin Maracaibo Especial
Ritterguts Gose
Blaugies La Moneuse Saison
Mikkeller Årh Hvad?! Aged St. Émilion

In addition to these, three more kegs will be tapped specially for the 4pm GA tasting session, including:

Cantillon Cuvée Saint-Gilloise
Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinus
One surprise keg!

Tickets

Here's the good news--you can buy tickets for the GA tasting session online, and they're only $4 (plus fees). And the bad news? All of the VIP tasting session tickets are already sold out. But wait! Because you're one of our amazing readers, and because Bier Station loves you all so much, they're going to allow us to give away 1 pair of 3pm VIP tasting tickets and 2 pairs of 4pm GA tickets!

You're not going to get off easy though. If you want to win the tickets, go over to our Facebook page and post your best haiku about sour beers as a comment on the link to this post. The sour beer haiku with the most likes from your fellow beer geeks at Noon on Thursday will win the pair of VIP tickets, and the two runners up will get the pairs of GA tickets.* So go get yourself some lambic and get your poetry on!

*The fine print--you've got to be 21 to enter and you can't enter if you or your guest already have VIP tickets. No purchase or payment is necessary to enter or win.

Post by Bier Station.