Blind Flight

Not too humbling. Those beer camp beers are pretty underwhelming.

 

I like this idea. I'd take it a step further and not even know what beers are being put in front of me. It takes away any expectations of style or quality, and allows you to judge the beer without any preconceived notions of how it should taste.

 

I love blind tasting, but don't feel the urge to do it too often. I did the PtE/HT/DS once (Double Sunshine stole the show). Also did the battle of the session beers (Easy Jack surprisingly beat GoTo, Daytime was a distant 3rd).

When this golden coffee stout from Stone finally comes out, I'm looking forward to trying a blindy with something like FBS, TenFIDY, and/or Narwhal.

 

We do this at my place and call it the Final Four. Most recently (this past summer), we did a blind tasting of 16 different session IPAs (each flight was of 4 different beers each, 4 flights made up Round 1). Tasters identified the winning beer of each flight, then that beer made it to the Final 4. I should add that beers were purposefully placed in flights in order of their ranking on BA.

I don't have my notes in front of me (I keep them at home behind the bar), but I believe of the 4 that made it to the Final 4 (one more go-round), #1 was All Day, #2 was Mosaic, #3 was Recreation Ale and...shit. I can't remember 4th place.

Fun times.

 

My friend and I walk into bottle shops asking employees to pick out six to twelve random beers of at least a few different and maybe similar styles, bag each bottle individually, and put a piece of masking tape over the cap. We always tip well and go home for a full blind style assessment. It usually takes about three to six hours depending on the quantity we buy, but the learning curve is unparalleled. We started doing this in preparation for the Cicerone Level 2 examination. During the tasting portion of the test you are given one beer and asked to clarify if it is product "A" or product "B." There are five or six samples given for judgement. At home we keep tally and make it a competition.

 

Definitely, has anyone here done a blind tasting where they recognized one of the beers?

I feel if I ever had PtE in line-up I'd be able pick it out, no guarantees of it being the best though!

Did you pass?

 

That part, yes. I didn't do too well on my written, though. I failed overall by less than ten points, but I really expected more from myself.

 

I once checked the difference between a fresh bottle of Flower Power and a bottle that was in the fridge for 6 months. I had my wife take both out of the fridge and put covers over the bottles before pouring and tasting. After a couple of tastes straight out of the fridge, I let both warm up and tasted again and I thought the older one tasted better. If I ever do another blind test, I'll have to do it in private. If I got anything wrong, my wife would never let me forget it. Again.

 

Definitely agree

 

I love blind tasting lineups.

Do it with top rated IPAs, and then include one local IPA and see if you or your friends pick it out.

 

I've been doing this with three beers at a time of the same style for about 2 months and plan to continue for a long time. I usually try and match up different groups a few times until I have distinguishing traits that I can sub-catagorize and group together to further differentiate. I do a final test at the end of the session. I was 8/10 in my Oktoberfest final and a (sad) 4/12 in my APA tasting (very disappointed...I rushed some of the beers I thought "easier" to identify). I have 10 porters I'm confident I will be able to name next week, but I thought I'd get 100% on the APAs too...

It's quite a humbling experience, but I haven't learned this much about beer in any three month period than my first three really drinking craft. And its insanely fun!

 

By the way...your doing it right! I'm going to have to try this.

 

Would you actually close your eyes when you tasted them?

 

Hell yeah that's exactly what my weekend of session exploration revealed. Glad to finally hear someone agree with me and my attitude of not giving a shit about what BA says.

Haven't had Narwhal but FBS vs. TenFidy? Prolly be obvious. But FBS is one of the absolute most overrated beers of all time, second to MBC Lunch, an average to less IPA that sells out in an hour an any given store.

...and before you all get angry, go ahead and do a blind test with it.

 

that's the idea.

 

I feel like you have to do that even when the styles are the same. A Pliny and Heady blind tasting would be obvious if you've had them already or even just seen them in a glass. Pliny being super clear and Heady being super hazy.

 

Yes if you know these aspects of course. I have some hourglass shaped "diner" coffee mugs and I use them because they provide enough concealment so that you can't identify them by sight. They're not bad for nosing and tasting too.

 

Yes, they definitely appear very different, hence the importance of removing this trait from our perception. If I tried the new golden stout against some black stouts whilst looking at them, I'd question how corrupted my responses were. The previous 2 times I had a golden stout, I am pretty sure the prejudgment compromised my actual opinion on the flavor.

I believe we eat/drink with our eyes first, and that everything during/after consumption is forced to stack up against predetermined expectations. We beer nerds do this with brewery recognition, hop profiles, and even something as absurd as scarcity. Even those of us that know better do it subconsciously to a degree. The only way to strip all this noise away from your experience is not knowing who made your beer, how hard it is to get, how fresh it is, or -in the cases comparable to the aforementioned scenarios- their appearance.

I've actually always been a bit irked by the weight given to appearance, compared to that of smell, upfront taste, mouth-feel, and finish. I like to think I know I generally enjoy cloudy hoppy beers over clearer hoppy beers, I ilke to think I know I enjoy denser heads on a stout over the more airy. But i don't really know until I strip away all the noise that my subconscious mind tags onto the music i'm hopping to listen to.

Keep in mind, I am an asshole.