2015 Blind I/IPA Taste Testing

Last year I helped to set up a blind I/IPA taste testing for myself and a couple of friends (2014 thread). A few people enjoyed the thread, others just appreciated the opportunity to slam another thread. Either way, 2015 has rolled around and I'm happy to set up another blind taste testing!
With the gracious help of a few other BA traders, I've managed to put together another crazy line up!
Some of the bottles/cans still come in later this week, so not all the "bottled on" info is populated yet, but thus far, this is what we're in for on Saturday. The other two guys have no idea what beers will be included.

Seeding:

*Gray cells indicate cells that didn't impact seeding.

Round 1:


Last year a bunch of BA's commented about pallet wrecking, freshness, etc.. We're not worried about it. We'll have snacks available throughout. We're BBQ'ing ribs for dinner and we're doing small tasting pours until it's all said and done. Regardless... It's going to be a great time!
With that... HUGE PROPS to the following BA traders!
@MilesM123, @OleGee, @Beerandboards, @Pulltabs_only, @chipawayboy, @JCDenver, @YoungLad, @tamingthebrett, @therackman, @JohnnyHopps.
Every one of these traders are class acts, spreading the BA love!

I'll update this thread again later this weekend with the results. There are three rounds, narrowing from 12, to 8, and finally to a single round of the top 4 from each class. We're in for a great weekend!
Cheers!

 

The results are in!
All of the flight results are shown below. I've included a few observations that were interesting to us. Granted, this whole experience was more about enjoying some great beers and having fun than about statistical validity. The fact that head-to-head voting swapped from round to round doesn't bother us in the least. We're just all happy to have had the opportunity to enjoy so many impressive beers. The differences really become apparent when you're drinking them side by side!










A couple of statistical insights...

1. Apex went up against Shape of Hops to Come in all three rounds. We all scored Shape of Hops higher in the first and third round, but Apex higher in round two.

2. The first and the last IPA flights both had Yellow Rose, Batch 138 and Odell IPA. Of those three, Alan had 138 as the best in the first round, but worst in the last round. John had Yellow Rose best in the first round, but worst in the last round.

3. In total, there were 21 incidents of two beers going up against each other in multiple flights. Including the Apex vs. Shape of Hops voting swaps, the swap counts for each of us were:
Rob: 4 swapped scores
John: 9 swapped scores
Alan: 10 swapped scores

4. The 12th seed and lowest "rated" beer in the entire tasting, Rampage, took 2nd place in the IIPA tasting. The highest rated IPA, Yellow Rose, (rated as the 131st in the top 250 beers list) finished in 8th place.

5. All of the top 4 IPA's were from somewhere other than California. 3 of the top 4 IIPA's were all from CA. There were a total of 7 CA beers in the tasting. All 7 finished in the top 8.

6. Last year, when Batch 138 went up against Racer 5, I had scored Racer 5 higher and Alan had scored Batch 138 higher. This year, I had Batch 138 beating Racer 5, and Alan had Racer 5 beating 138. We both swapped from last year to this year.
The only other two beers from last year were Apex and Pliny. They never went against each other this year.

Thanks again to all you BA traders who've helped to make these two tasting events possible! They're truly a wonderful time!

Cheers

 

Ya, 1/31 was our target date, but with our work schedules there was a chance that we were going to need to postpone it. I was trying to stick to bottles and cans just so I wouldn't be either sitting on a 3 week old growler or needing to change the line up if we ended up postponing.
I am looking forward to trying Boneyard though!