Online Beer Tastings - Idea Submission Thread (2016 - 2021)

Too often for me. ~Once a month is about as often as I can manage.

 

Fair enough... I haven't been active enough to know the guidelines. Carry on.

 

Are you looking at trying to get one in during February or waiting until March?

 

I second this nomination. Pick a date, and I’ll be there.

(If “prizes” are still allowed on the site, I’m also happy to put up a 0.5L Hofbrau Maibock Stoneware Stein if you wanted to gamify the tasting like the “Rock Out” threads of yesteryear.)

 

Hmmm.. I probably won’t post a pic if we go that route.

 

I like @psweendogg 's initiative! I believe we should consider posting one poll each season/quarter (up to ten poll style options are allowed), and the top 2 poll vote winners are the next BA Online tasting events offered in the upcoming season.This will help people prioritize upcoming purchases, especially with some of the rarer styles like Wee Heavys/Scotch Ales. It will also help gather more input beyond the few who consistently reply to this planning thread.

The styles in @psweendogg 's post would be a good starting point for the number of styles available for voting. Pick the early March style as we have in the past, but add a Spring Poll for the April and May/June tasting events with the several Spring styles proposed by @psweendogg, and the top two styles are the next two selected. If that process works, we can repeat in the Summer and beyond.

 

@ChicagoJ Thanks for giving it some consideration. Since I already did all of the cut and paste work, here's how I had the styles allocated throughout the year...

 

Very generous of you! And those were always a hell of a lot of fun, although they were on WBAYDN which is a more casual thread. But I'm sure we could always modify things for the tasting thread if TPTB allow; such as the winning post must include a review or impression of the beer.

My only other suggestion would be to push the Bock tasting to April and then maybe start doing the polls from there. I'm still not sure we'll see all that many maibocks before March 21st.

 

I may have missed this if it was done previously, but has there been a non-Barrel Agent/non-adjunct stout/IS tasting yet? If not I think that would be a worthwhile online tasting.

 

We did an Irish Dry Stout tasting around St Pats Day in 2018.

 

ฯฯSecret agent stout....secret agent stout....they've given you a barrel and they took away your fizzฯฯ

 

I agree ... the charm and creativity of the discussion is part of what makes it interesting.

Perhaps some combination of the two, where the poll winners are not necessarily the be-all end-all of what the next tasting is. Some kind of poll-guided consensus (or even executive decision)?

I also like that many of these tasting have been of some of the less popular or neglected styles.

 

The process has worked well. I thought considering adding the voting aspect after discussing nominees here would increase participation in nomination and selection process over time, and remove some of the ambiguity some may have regarding the selection process.

Current method: A few pages of nominees, a few options receive interest, one is selected.

Proposed method: Nomination process the same (in this thread), a poll is created in a separate thread for the next season and the top two vote winners are the next online events.

We can perhaps try it for the two Spring tasting events, and if it's well received can repeat in the future. I'd be happy to coordinate the Spring poll if we decide to try this method.

 

If we use a poll, I'd suggest one that allows people to change their votes. Might help reach a consensus.

 

I agree that posting a poll would be a very good way to narrow down the options. I’m a huge college basketball fan and I have followed the NCAA tournament selection process for years. Their process basically starts as a free-for-all and then the list of teams being considered gets narrowed down through a methodical series of votes and rankings. I will gladly volunteer to help curate a list using a similar format…

To get it started, everybody can blindly submit (to prevent groupthink) a private message to me with their top 3 “choices” ranked in order of preference (#1 is most preferred). We should set a deadline… say Friday, 2/5 at midnight PST. On Saturday morning, I will compile the results and share the outcome on this thread.

From there, a poll is created in a separate thread as @ChicagoJ suggested and everyone gets one vote. If we post 5 options in the poll, the top vote getter will be the next tasting. The styles with the second and third most votes are automatically moved onto the next poll along with 3 new candidates. We then repeat the blind voting process with everyone submitting their top 3 so we can identify those 3 new candidates. I think this will be a very good way to ensure that the votes stay seasonally appropriate as well (not that there is a problem with drinking barleywine in July).

In the meantime, people can continue to promote their preferred style here to plant the seed for others in the group. As far as I’m concerned, votes can be broad categories (Stouts), creative themes or adjuncts (chocolate), specific styles (Russian Imperial Stouts), specific beers (Old Rasputin), etc. I will maintain the integrity of the voting process by sharing a statistical breakdown of the final results and discussion can occur on this thread. I will also share routine updates regarding the number of submissions over the next few days.