Do you open them all at the start and pour them all? Letting them warm up at the same rate... Or Do you go one at a time? If so, oldest to newest or vice versa?
The couple of times I've done one I opened one at a time from newest to oldest. Kept them cold before opening. But whatever floats your particular boat, just my experience.
Thank you. That's what I've done in the past. I was wanting to hear what others thought or have done. Cheers!
If you let them warm up at the same rate, you have to remember you aren't drinking them at the same rate. Each beer had would be warmer than the one before so you'd possibly lose out on experiencing that transition (if you're into tasting it at different temperature intervals between colder and warmer). Not a rule of thumb per se but I would pop the first while keeping the next few chilled and progressively open them up as we went along vs opening up the whole batch. (a lot of beers have gone flatter in the past due to being prematurely opened at various shares I've been to.) But as others have said ultimately its whatever you want to do with your vert that matters. No rules, no laws, your beer.
I open them all up and pour them at the same time (depending on the amount of beers)... and have them together blind. This highlights the contrast and removes some bias, thereby providing the potential for more discovery (which is a good part of the rational behind a vertical to begin with). Having said that, I rarely do verticals so feel free to ignore my comments.
Depends on; How many beers in the vert How high the ABV is How many ounces per bottle Whether you are drinking alone or a group Whether you plan to get wasted If I'm doing a mini-vert of two strong ones or three weak ones then all at once so you can compare them side-by-side at the same temperature. If you have more people, then can crack more at once. I don't care what order, just want to keep them straight. YMMV.
Haven’t done many but the few I have done have been shared by a small group (2-4 total drinkers) and we opened them all at the same time and went back and forth comparing in a loose sort of way. My sense memory isn’t that great, especially after getting a little buzzed, and (oh not taking the whole endeavor terribly seriously), so it was useful to have, for instance, four 4 oz bourbon county pours of various vintages to sip on and compare, with all of them warming and opening up collectively.
Here's an example of a tasting some friends and I once had. Some years ago Weyerbacher made and bottled the Old Heathen Stout. They also barrel aged it in Bourbon barrels and called the result Heresy. (They still do Heresy but have discontinued Old Heathen.) I set up a tasting with a few friends. We had the most recent three years of Old Heathen and the same three most recent years of Heresy. We started with the most recently bottled of Old Heathen then the same year's bottling of Heresy. There was no discussion while sampling but people took notes for the discussion later. We then moved on to the next year and did a repeat. The same with the third year. Between each beer we took a break for some spring water and unsalted crackers. (Other things are not palate cleansers but palate changers, especially salt.) It was very helpful at learning to sort out the effects of the barrel aging on the base beer. It was also very helpful at sorting out the effects of bottle aging. One of the things that the six people involved pretty much all agreed upon was that time in bottle softened and integrated the flavors so that the flavor profile seemed more complex with age.
