My boss organises a charity craft beer night. Its to raise funds for refugees. Craft beer. Helping Refugees. Organised by my boss. It’d be rude not to!

Except that this is the third one he’s organised, but the first one I’ve actually made it to. The format is simple. You give them money, they give you tasters of many beers which they have sourced from all over the place. There’s also a beer related talk and some other fun stuffs. This time round it was a talk from beer legend Des De Moor. Entertainment was a game that was a combination of crazy golf, pool and beer bottles. My mate Deej won a crate of beer by getting a ‘hole in one’.

The beer theme of the evening was “Duuuuuurty DIPAs”, because charming. This posed me with a slight problem in that I’m not actually that big a fan of DIPAs,. They are too sweet for me. They are also too strong for me. Which is why I won’t be reviewing most of the beers in a one by one way. The ‘tasters’ were generous and all the beers came in at 8-10%. Despite the DIPA theme to the beers I went in with an open mind, because drinking for charity. I was pleasantly surprised!

Some of the beers were definitely exactly what I don’t like about DIPAs (Very boozy syrup). Others were tasty and I liked them a lot! The Verdant Brewing Co – Pulp (8.0%), was the only draft beer of the night. It was also the first, and thus the easiest to remember! I enjoyed it a lot – while it was still pretty sweet there was enough other stuff there to balance it. Nom. I also enjoyed the Siren – Pompelmocello IPA (a mere 6.0%, what was it even doing there??). Cheating as I knew that already because it’s one of my favourites. They use grapefruit to balance the sweetness so it’s (unsurprisingly!) got a nice sourness to it. Siren are my favourite craft brewery. The final one that I like/remember enough to get a mention was the Renaissance Brewing – Boom! (8.3%) which was the closest to a standard DIPA that I liked. The rest were a mixed bag of generally very good beers which I enjoyed (on the whole) but weren’t so much my thing. I also came away with the only bottle of a 2014 vintage limited edition Jolly Pumpkin beer in the UK. Prizes!

Drinking for charity is a very good idea. I approve and will definitely be continuing to do so. My only real issue with it was that it was on a Wednesday night and I had to be on a very early train on Thursday morning. Weekend events in future!

boozers without borders give all their profits to Help Refugees. You can donate to them here.