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The Super Bowl of Beer -- the Great American Beer Festival '97
The Methodology of the Home Beer Tasting, or How Come that Bock Tastes Like Smoked Salmon?
Kitchen Table Tastings -- Blind Belgian-Style White Beers
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The Methodology of the Home Beer tasting, or How Come that Bock Tastes Like Smoked Salmon?
The following excerpt from my second book, A Taste for Beer, is presented in response to requests from Al Farrell and Dan Morales, who wanted more information on beer tasting and encouraging others to expand their beer horizons. If there is a specific topic you would like me to address, or you would just like to say hello, please e-mail me using the link at the bottom of this page.The first step for a beer tasting will, of course, have to be the accumulation of your brews. This may be accomplished all in one shot if you are lucky enough to have a good beer store in your immediate vicinity, otherwise it will necessitate more, and possibly considerably more, effort on your part. It could, in fact, end up being a process that will take weeks or months to complete, depending on how many brews you want and how finicky you are about which specific brands you choose. In the norm, however, a fair selection can generally be picked up without too much fuss in most cities and a good many towns.
For the beer tasting, you will probably want at least six to ten different brews and unless you anticipate a huge crowd, two or three bottles of each brand should suffice. (It must be emphasized here that these recommendations are for social tastings only; serious, evaluatory tastings will require much more rigidity and should never, in my opinion, exceed a maximum of six different brews.) If you have access to a computer - and who doesn't these days? - you may wish to work up a scoring sheet for your guests using a scale of anywhere from 1 to 10 or 1 to 50. Whatever your rating system, you want your guests to be scoring the appearance, aroma, taste and overall impression they have of each beer, with the weighing of points roughly divided into 50% for flavour and more or less equal amounts for everything else.
(For some reason, the assignment of numbers is a very comforting action for anyone engaged in the evaluation of beer, wine or virtually any other comestibles and so the opportunity to rate and rank will be welcomed by your tasters. Myself, I have always preferred to emphasize descriptions rather than numerical designations, but this intimidates some people who doubt their own descriptive abilities, usually without cause.)
In setting up your tasting, you will want to have each beer chilled to an appropriate temperature (cellar to room temperature for strong ales, stouts and the like; 15-30 minutes out of the refrigerator for lagers and wheats; and somewhere in between for bitters, bocks and pale ales) and set out in an attractive display. The kitchen or dining room table is always a good place at which to set up, and you can add a touch of class by using a white tablecloth and liberally distributing (unscented) candles around the room. A pitcher of water for glass rinsing and palate cleansing is recommended and you will want to make sure that you have snack food available, but that it is not so salty, spicy, oily or overly pungent that it will brutalize the taste buds of your guests. If you want to be particularly fastidious about things, you can even match your snack foods to your beers, but a selection of mild to medium cheeses, breads and perhaps some grapes or paté will suffice nicely.
Furnish each of your guest tasters with a clear wine glass and a separate glass of water and invite them to proceed at their leisure, taking a 2 to 3 ounce portion of each beer in turn. Because this is a social occasion, the mood should remain light and friendly, so make sure that no one feels obligated to engage in in-depth ruminations about every single beer. A simple reminder that the evaluation is for their own, individual usage should be enough to make sure that no such intimidations are felt.
If you have been able to secure a quantity of each beer that was involved in the tasting, you can offer your guests a chance to enjoy more of their favourite brew after they finish their evaluations. Otherwise, have beers of equal quality available for post-tasting consumption - it is a big come-down to be entranced by great beers for part of the evening and subjected to poor ones for the remainder of the night.
You may discuss the beer after your tasting bottles have been exhausted, and you likely will for a time, but such talk is entirely unnecessary unless it is specifically desired by your guests. Even the best of us sometimes just want to drink our beer without thinking too much about it!
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