Pale Ale blind taste test

Saturday night, my wife and I did a mostly for fun..non-scientific tasting for (13) Pale Ales. My wife is new to the PA style, and she was an eager participant in trying all these beers. I opened all the beers and put them back in the fridge.. and we tested half of each beer. We poured them into multiple 16 oz pint glasses, keeping each as chilled as possible.

Since it was just the 2 of us, I randomly selected the beer order for her out of a hat. She in turn would note what she liked and disliked for each. When it was my turn, she randomly selected my test order. The following beers were in attendance:

Long Trail - Stand Out PA
3RD Wave - ShoreBreak PA
Bear Republic - Grand Am PA
Devels Backbone - Striped Bass PA
Dales - Pale Ale
Heavy Seas - Powder Monkey PA
Sierra Nevada - Pale Ale
Flying Dog - Doggie Style PA
Evolution - Primal PA
Uinta - Pale Ale
Yards - Philadelphia Pale Ale
Peak Organic - Pale Ale
Union - Duckpin PA

The best brews voted by us are at the top of the list(s). The top 6 at the each of our lists were very very close. After that, the separation started. Her notes were not included as she felt since she was new to these beers, her notes weren't good enough. I had already had almost half of the beers in the past year, and my little notes are included.

Her ranking:
Devils Backbone
SNPA
Evo Primal
Heavy Seas
Uinta PA
3rd Wave

Long Trail
Flying Dog
Union Duckpin
Bear Republic
Dales PA
Yards
Peak Organic

My ranking:
Flying Dog (malt with mild hop)
Evo Primal (great hop aroma - well balanced)
Bear Republic (nice with slight malt taste - not bitter)
SNPA (mildly bitter with mild malt balance. flavors increased by the minute)**
Dales PA (mild hop and malt flavor. Very balanced)
Union Duckpin (hoppy flavor but good taste. no malt presence)

Yards (hoppy w-grapefruit influence.. very close to IPA)
Uinta (Very mild flavors - not much going on)
3rd Wave (slight grapefruit influence, little malt if any)
Long Trail (hopped, with mild bitterness and not much malt)
Devils Backbone (balanced - not bland, not flavorful)
Heavy Seas (my wife liked it. I thought it might be skunked. Horrible aftertaste)*
Peak Organic (WTH? Very bland.. BLAH!!)

* This was not my 1st time drinking HS Powder Monkey. and I never had this flavor prior to Saturday, and I thought it was bad from the 1st sip during the test.
** My 1st drink of SNPA was very off. The more I drank, the quicker it came on with even more aroma and flavors. After finishing and tabulating my scores, I realized it was the follow up beer to Heavy Seas Powder Monkey.

One thing I noticed in this blind test; there were a couple of beers that the smelled of, and the 1st taste caused me to think.. IPA? I didn't punish them for that, because I wanted some hoppiness. Also note that between beers, we ate a salted cracker. I figured out quickly that eating the cracker AFTER the 1st sip of each new beer seemed to cleanse my palate better. Also, both of us started getting buzzed after beers 8-9, so did that influence our tasting??

Final notes: For myself, I went into this thinking hops AND malts. Almost all were as advertised, which is why I'm glad they tasted so dissimilar. That's a win for me!! There is only 1 beer I would never buy again. It ranked last for both of us. Next week we are going with IPA's (if nothing comes up).

 

1. There were only a couple cans, so opening them all and sticking them in the fridge like that wouldn't give any hints away once we started. She was in the next room out of sight, but within earshot.
2. This was a very impromptu non-planned taste test. I'm not sure all beers were beyond the BB date (possibly 2 were over 6 months), however.. none were within the 30 day range.

We bought all 13 beers the day before, plus 12 different IPA' s for this coming weekend.. and a couple bombers.

 

I opened all of the beers 1 minute before starting and if there was to be any loss of carbonation, it would have been over the 2.5 hour period it took for both of us to do the test.

As for the difference in freshness.. this was an 'unscientific' blind test. No strict guidelines were planned, nor met. Let's just call it a fun taste test, nothing more. The entire thing was subjected to 2 people, fairly new to the craft beer scene.. and not a panel of beer connoisseurs.

 

I am going to my local store tomorrow, so I'll ask about the availability on your bolded beers (I have to try them now ). For both the PA and IPA testings, my wife and I are trying to keep everything on the straight and narrow, without flavoring of any sort (of the 13 PA's there was 1 English PA, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't like it that night).

Dales and Yards were the hoppiest tasting beers for sure. There were at least 5 of them that smelled pretty darn hoppy, but the flavors on a few were milder (outside the magic 30 day period?).

Sad fact about tonight: Heavy Seas brewery is doing a tap takeover at the liquor store where I purchase 98% of my beer. Unfortunately, a co-worker called out sick and I volunteered to take his 4-12 shift tonight, so I'll miss out on it. I was hoping to get a chance to speak to someone at the brewery, about what I considered a 'possibly' skunked PA. It wouldn't have been a gripe or in a negative tone, more of a question on the probability that the result was due to drinking a handful of APA's right before, causing my taste buds to be whacked. My wife tasted honey in the beer, but I didn't get that.