Beer tasting at club meetings

[carniebrew]

Just thinking about beer tasting sessions at our future meetings, what do you guys think about running it this way? I was thinking that some guys might want a level of anonymity for their beers being tasted, which will remove any possible bias, and save any embarrassment for the shy, retiring types. It should also allow for a good level of honesty from people tasting, because they won't know whose beer they're commenting on. Please keep in mind I'm not talking about "judging" or scoring here, just casual tastings of each other's homebrews that we'll do from time to time.

• I'll bring a big esky with ice to put everyone's beers in, along with some tasting glasses and water for rinsing between beers.
• Guys bringing beers for a tasting could look to turn up a few minutes early, and bring their beers over to the esky.
• I have some copper plant tags which I'll use to put numbers on each beer, noting down the brewer, beer number and generic info to be shared (e.g. style and other pertinent stuff, e.g. this is a 5.9% abv, 50 IBU American IPA, with nothing but cube hops) on a sheet of paper that'll be kept private (for later reference when needed). Other info we might record for discussion;
  Water profile (salts used?)
• Finings
• Date brewed/bottled
• Ferment Temp
• etc

• When the tasting starts, someone from the committee (or any other volunteer really) can announce the shareable info about the beer, then take note of the discussion being had during the tasting, to be passed back to the brewer at the end.
• We work our way through each beer using this method, until done.

Possible variation: If we had a lot of beers to taste on a particular night, we could break into small groups, say 5 or 6 members, to taste 3-4 beers each. We work it so the brewer isn't in the same tasting group as their beer, and feedback is noted down for later discussion (or just to be passed back). If there's a clear standout from a particular group, or even a beer with a specific feature/flaw we want everyone to try, we could share that beer with the wider group (provided there's enough to go around).

Thoughts/questions/tweaks on this? It may not work completely anonymously for our Horizon/Select beers, 'coz most of us have already called out what type of beer we're brewing, let alone the recipe, but I'm thinking this could be a good approach going forward?

 

[technobabble66]

Sounds great, CB.
I don't care about anonymity, but for proper tastings they should be blind I s'pose.
I'm not sure if it's better to go with zero info, some basic details like style etc, or full info.
Again I'd probably go for a more "proper" blind tasting and suggest maybe the Zero Info option could be worth trying. It might mean we really focus on the elements actually present, rather than just looking for what we expect to be there.
And then go over the full details afterwards... A bunch of OCD brewers going through each other's OCD preparations!

 

[technobabble66]

Oh, & fwiw, if we do the small groups thing I'd possibly prefer to be drinking a sample of my brew while others comment on it, so I can better understand the different elements they're picking out.

 

[carniebrew]

I agree, personally I'm not concerned about anonymity either, perhaps the process could just be used for those that are? Maybe it won't be needed at all.

 

[going down a hill]

I heard an interview with the head of the big hb club The Maltose Falcons in the US. They have two types of tastings where one is informal and is a basic evaluation of the brew where pleasantries are exchanged and is not very formal, the other is you sit down with two people (who are bjcp certified, which I don't think any of us are, so that is a problem at this moment) and puck the beer apart. This way you get the type of feed back that you are after. Maybe something for the long term?

 

[TimT]

Cool, though I should note I'm pretty sure they have a fridge at Eagles Nest Theatre too and depending on how well we get to know the folks there we might be able to use that.

 

[pomsaleius]

I'm also not too fussed about anonymity (God, that word's a bugger to type after a few glasses) for the more informal tastings. For competitions however, it's a must.

 

[TheDudeAbides]

My two cents:
I'm really looking forward to getting some critique about my brews and just hope that everyone continues to be as humble with their opinions and advice as they have been hitherto. Not fussed about anonymity, and actually would prefer if people knew the brew was mine.
There is probably a stack of things I'm doing wrong, and I am really looking forward to sponging of others' knowledge like the parasitic leech that I am.
Cheers.