A couple of months ago, I helped my friends Chris and Ellen brew a batch of homebrew. It was a biere de garde extract recipe, with some interesting hop substitutions. Anyway, at the time, my wife decided that when it was ready we should have a “tasting” party.
Well, the party was yesterday, and it was a smashing success. To keep from drinking all the homebrew, we asked everyone to bring one or three interesting things for other people to try. My wife made a bunch of delicious crustinis and other folks brought some other finger food (including some kick-you-in-the-head truffles) but the food was to complement the beer.
As if I didn’t already make enough of a fool of myself, I was compelled to ask each and every one of my guests to sample at least five different beers and give their rating of each, on a scale from 1 to 5. I gave them a little paper ballot, referred them to the Unofficial Hop Talk Beer Rating System, and…let them go.
Much to my surprise and delight, they did it! Well, not everybody, but better than half of the adults who attended rated at least four beers, and some people sampled as many as 18. (My 2 ounce beer sampler glasses got quite a workout.) What was really cool is that everybody was more than willing to try beers they normally would pass by at the beer store. Even the hardcore Coors Light guy sampled, and rated highly, quite a number of different beers. (He still gave his beloved Coors Light a 5, though.)
To be sure, it wasn’t picture perfect. The Flying Dog Imperial IPA Simcoe was universally loved by the hopheads in the group, and universally reviled by those with much more tender palates. Some beers were sampled and rated by fewer people, which skewed the results. And, of course, some people avoided beers they new the would not like. (See the aforementioned Coors Light for one example.)
Still and all, it was a great success. Everyone said they had a great time, and that’s the whole idea, right?
Here are the very unscientific results. This is only valid for the group of people who were hanging out on my deck on June 4, 2011. (Each beer is listed with its score and the number of votes it received. As you can see, we lead off with an anomaly.)
- Troegs Pale Ale (5.00) [1]
- Paulaner Hefe-Weizen (3.85) [8]
- Southern Tier Hop Sun (3.79) [7]
- Samuel Adams Cream Stout (3.75) [6]
- Tupper’s Hop Pocket (3.68) [9]
- La Fin du Monde (3.61) [11]
- Troegs Java Head (3.59) [8]
- Magic Hat Wacko (3.50) [5]
- Brooklyn Pilsner (3.46) [7]
- Southern Tier Pale Ale (3.46) [9]
- Flying Dog Woody Creek White (3.38) [4]
- Toasty Frog (This is the homebrew Chris and Ellen made with my help, and the ostensible star of the show) (3.31) [9]
- Coors Light (3.17) [3]
- Franziskaner Weissbier (3.15) [5]
- 21st Amendment Brew Free or Die (3.00) [7]
- Spaten Premium (3.00) [3]
- Spaten Optimator (3.00) [2]
- Dale’s Pale Ale (2.88) [6]
- Flying Dog Imperial IPA Simcoe (2.85) [11]
- Flying Dog Raging Bitch (2.56) [4]
- Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ (2.50) [1]
- Samuel Adams Blackberry Witbier (2.22) [9]
