Beer Tasting - Need some input

Everyone else has already covered order, palate cleansers, and so forth, and much better than I could, especially given that beer lineup. I'd just like to throw in a tidbit about something to watch out for, as you mention these are friends who are just venturing out of their beer comfort zone.

There's a subset of the population, estimated at up to 25% of people, who taste bitter really, really, REALLY freakin' intensely, courtesy of the genetic lottery gifting them with an excessive amount of tastebuds that can detect compounds that most other folks either can't, or register as pleasant. I'm one of these people, and I'm from Cincinnati, so the genetic stock is definitely around here. This condition is called being a "supertaster", and for the craft beer world (as well as a lot of other worlds, like coffee), it's a curse - and one that may not be possible to overcome. I've tried everything from easing in via low-IBU hoppy wheat beers to having an IPA a day for weeks on end to grinding through an entire growler of Arctic Panzer Wolf in one sitting, to no avail. Every sip of hoppy beer is exactly as intensely horrible in taste as the one preceding - it doesn't fade, and there is no adjustment.

With that in mind, if you open with something like Cougar, and one of your friends reacts like you literally punched them in the mouth, and/or mentions the beer tasting like a mouthful of perfume, Pine-Sol, paint thinner, or something similar, you may want to offer them to pass on everything else except perhaps Eddie Fitz, the Nut Brown, and maybe FBS.

Best of luck with your tasting!

 

I like your IBU order. It allows people who are new to really hoppy beers a warm up!

 

If it were me I would group them as follows.

The order I would serve them would be based on the foods you selected. If you have selected coffee based deserts, move the porter and the stout to the end, for example.


Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter - 37, 6.0%
Founders Breakfast Stout - 60, 8.3%

Rhinegeist Cougar Blonde Ale - 20 IBU, 4.8%
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - 37, 5.6%

Mt. Carmel Nut Brown Ale- 38, 6.0%
Troegs Nugget Nectar - 93, 7.5%

Lagunitas A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' - 65, 7.5%
Fat Head's Head Hunter IPA - 87, 7.5%

Enjoy!! Sounds like fun.

Note - I have not had the porter or the brown in this mix. Assuming the Carmel Brown will go with the amber, but hoppy, Nugget Nectar & the porter will compliment the stout.