TOPIC:

As ICB has done a couple of experiments at this stage, I was wondering what the best technique is in relation to revealing the names of the beers, and also quantities.

So, how many beers are enough to do a blind tasting? How many is too many, making it difficult for the taster to keep track?

Should the list of beer names be revealed beforehand so people can try to name the beer they are tasting, or just let them rate them from favourite to least favourite without knowing what they are till the end?

And yes, I'm planning one <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Don't drink Phuca before a blind tasting. <!-- s:roll: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="" title="Rolling Eyes" /><!-- s:roll: -->

I would say 5 is about the limit. And then with small quantities 200 ml at most.

[quote:f5uczb2k]Adeptus

Should the list of beer names be revealed beforehand so people can try to name the beer they are tasting, or just let them rate them from favourite to least favourite without knowing what they are till the end?
[/quote:f5uczb2k]

SBillings had the idea of a tasting of different styles where you did not know what you were getting. It was a rate that beer and why rather then a name that beer thing.

&amp;quot;a_friend_in_mead&amp;quot;:vhehfgm0 wrote: Don't drink Phuca before a blind tasting. <!-- s:roll: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="" title="Rolling Eyes" /><!-- s:roll: -->[/quote:vhehfgm0]

It'll Phuca up your taste buds...

Should've used that as an excuse after my poor showing at the last tasting, not the fact that I was relying exclusively on guesswork.

How you do it depends on what you want to achieve, really. With both of our tastings it was to test how well people really knew beers they were familiar with. For this you need to say what the beers are in advance and I agree that five is about the limit. If you have someone who insists Beer X is better than Beers Y and Z of the same style then they're asking for one of these.

I think the totally blind rating thing is a great idea. It'd work best outside the pub context, I think, where the person, or people, setting it up have a greater choice of candidates available. Because there's a higher level of secrecy involved, the person who bought the beers can't do a tasting based on them, because their knowledge of what's there will skew the results. The purest way would probably be to have the organiser not taste, but that's no fun. The alternative is to get a large number of people to bring six or so random beers of varying quality, let everyone see the beers available at the start, and then give each taster only a small sample of them.

In my case I want to limit the stype to German Pilsners, so a single type, but varying "quality". What I want to do is to challenge perceptions and get an idea if people really prefer the brand that they say they do.

So, the thing is, if I let them know what is there, will that incfluence things? Or is it better to simply get them to set an order of preference based on taste, and then reveal the beers. I think the latter might be more fun, but it might also be fun to hear people discussing what they think is what. <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

I wouldn't participate in the case where nothing is revealed.

In that case I think it's best to leave them totally blind and just ask them to write tasting notes and say which is their favourite. You can always tell them what beers they have [i:19vtk4y7]after[/i:19vtk4y7] that and ask them to identify them.