Our friend is a self-proclaimed beer connoisseur and we often trust him for advice on certain beers, but sometimes we question the accuracy of his palette. In order to dispel any doubt about his beer tasting authority, we will be holding a blind tasting. There will be several participants, and we ideally need 10-20 different beers of varying qualities. We want to zero in on IPAs and other pale ale variants because it's too easy to differentiate other styles. We will be asking the participants to rate the beer on a scale of 1-5 on the first round, and then on the second round to identify the beer brand/sub style of pale ale. We are located in new england, so fairly easy to find beers in that region are a requirement. Any suggestions on beers to include?
Not sure exactly what beers you have access to, but I'd try and get a sought-after hazy IPA and then include New Holland's Tangerine Space Machine. I'd be curious what people thought of the latter in a blind test, as I don't think the current ratings on the site do it justice.
20 IPAs? Expect the last 10 - 15 reviews to be horribly inaccurate. The palate fatigue with hoppy beers is real. Identify the brand? That should prove entertaining. I'm really not trying to dissuade you from doing this, but using less aggressive beers for blind tastings is the way to go. Stouts or porters are a good place to start. As are most traditional Belgian Trappist/Abbey ales, the majority of German beers, and British ales. Anything that doesn't destroy your ability to differentiate tastes within 2 or 3 beers. So most beer styles that are popular now, IMO, should not be used.
I think you have to ask yourself, are you going down the judging route to find the 'best' made beer or should you be going down the preference route. ie here are nine beers. Which one do you like the best vs. which one is the most well made. I guess your 1-5 scale can have some rules I would stop around 10 total ipas per session. Even six is pushing it IMHO. Easy to find shelf turds should be placed next to core IPA stallworths, next to hyped regional day old hazy giants. I'm talking 3.70 range ba beers alongside the 4.60s. For giggles, try to find the same beer at various ages. 6 days old vs 30 days vs 90. That's a great test on so called pros. I disagree with ops statement about other styles being easy to distinguish. No style is easy to distinguish in a proper blind. My favorites are my Oktoberfest samplings. About 6 are pale. 7 are medium Amber with the other 1/3 darker Amber. I've stopped trying to guess which was what and what one is the best or highest quality and simply go with my gut instinct on which beer do I like to drink. I sometimes do a cheap beer sampling and thrown in some well made American pilsners and some German pilsners to see if people truly like those more than macro 'swill'. You'd be surprised
Identify the brand of a hazy NE ipa? Hmmm, good luck with that. 10-20? Way too many, try 6-8, max. What's a pale ale variant? Tony Mosher has a book, appreciating beer, start there. Why don't you have a tasting for everyone to enjoy, not just to check one guys palate. Pilsner, kolsh, white ale, pale ale, ipa, douple ipa, west coast ipa , New England ipa, maybe a belgian or two.
+1 If you really want to expose his palate and humble him, double up the choices or double them up with an altered example. For example, include the same beer for spot #2 and #7. Or serve a fresh one straight and then add a few drops of vinegar to another of the same. I always like to include some home brews in there to really add some "ringers." Have fun with it.
I wonder how many people could get them all right even if you gave them a checklist with the names of classic beers and lined up 20 of them (SNPA, Anchor Steam, Sam Adams Boston, etc.).
This sounds like a really ambitious tasting, good luck. IPAs are harder to do a blind tasting than many other styles because the key ingredient, hops, are very sensitive to aging. As @Oktoberfiesta alluded to... I also like idea of testing the biases of beer "pros" by tricking them... The same beer at different ages beers could be one way to do that. Another fun bias test is tell someone beer is from X popular brewery, when it's actually Y less popular/disliked brewery [or vice versa] and see how they react. For example beer geeks are often indifferent to or disparage Sam Adams, so it might be interesting to swap a popular Trillium or Treehouse NEIPA for Sam Adams' NEIPA.
Or just pour them the same beer in each sample and see how they describe them. Chances are they'll be pretty different descriptions of the same beer. The mind can play tricks when it is biased.
These are all very helpful ideas. I am thinking we do trim down the beers a bit. The second round the options for brands will be revealed to choose from for brand guesses. I also like the addition of having each participant write a sentence to describe the beers in the first round. Some other great "pranky" ideas about doing beers of different ages, adding a few drops of vinegar, etc. Thanks!!
By a bunch of fruity IPA's and let him bitch all night about it, or see him hail grapefruit sculpin as a tree house beer. Either way is a hilarious way to deal with a petulant snob.
Blind tastings can be really fun, educational and humbling. Sorry for being blunt, but (in my opinion) the reasoning behind yours is lacking. Why drink what "the connoisseur" likes, and why try to tear him down and/or validate him? Do it to help educate yourself and help discover your own preferences. Keep in mind the limitations of it though. Trying a few ounces of a beer in a sea of many on a specific day has its limitations. Do the same tasting on a different day and get different results. Drink 16 ounces of a beer on its own and you'll get a different experience too. I agree with what's already been said - cut down the numbers to 5-10, add in duplicates (or related beers or something to that effect). Go with beers that are readily available to you. Add in something more fancy/hip if you feel like it. Add in something that you ordinarily don't think too highly of. Maybe split a large group of beers into two smaller groups - doing a group of 7 on one night and another 7 on the next night. Divide them up according to similar profiles. It's also not "too easy to differentiate other styles" compared to IPAs. Put PBR and Budweiser in a triangle test and compare the results to doing the same with Dogfish Head 90 Minute and Racer 5. Have fun and post in this thread after you do it.
Or you can tell him from the get go that there are 5 beers, but 7 pours. One beer has been added twice, and one is an altered variation or something like that. Up to you. If you add vinegar, go very light with it. I got the idea from an "off flavor" sensory kit that judges use to learn to pick out flaws in beers. You could even show the bottles/cans ahead of time and see if people can guess which one is which in the descriptive sentence. Whomever has the most correct matches/guesses wins a prize or something. Another idea, is have everyone bring 2 bottles or cans of their favorite IPA and see how they fare among the group. When the tasting is over, people just pour and drink whatever is left. Really, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.
I think you're probably better off finding single hop IPAs and seeing if your buddy can discern the flavor of the different hops. I don't think he is gonna be able to pick a specific beer, unless you have a list of what you have and he can pick from the list. Even then, with palate fatigue, its gonna be tough.
Some of these brewery’s are having new can releases every week. So keep an eye out for ones that fit your bill. I’d find some good single hop ipas, fruity milkshake ipa’s..maybe a huge “ddh” “triple” ipa. That shit would blow my palate out after like three.
I want to know more about the know it all. I'm a practical joker from birth, but this guy is either going to be dethroned or throned again, for good. Hopefully nothing personal is driving the potential trickery. I have a decent palate, but on occasion "it" goes blind. Anyway, please let us know!
Exclude the self proclaimed connoisseur from the tasting and start trusting your own pallette. Don't waste good beer on him.
