To do a blind tasting at home, I and Shyam had to take turns. Idea behind a blind tasting is that the taster doesn't know what he or she is tasting and only later finds out the identities of the food/drink before them. Between me and Shyam, we had to take turns. First I marked the glasses and filled them and let him taste it, then he did the same for me (mixing up the markings on glasses, but not mixing up the glasses so as not to confuse flavors - if you are not lazy enough to wash glasses or have enough clean glasses, you won't care about switching markers).
The easiest way I thought of marking the glasses was to use different rubber bands on the glasses. I put them on the stems.
Then make sure to write down which beer goes with which marker.
Then pour the beers and let the other person have fun with it.
Trick, of course, is to pick similar beer, so we did buy all Black IPAs, and then all look the same, so no giveaways there. Now it is all by smell and taste.
Shyam did tasting first, I went second.
Actual Beer | Shyam's notes | Shyam's Guess | Katya's notes | Katya's Guess |
Uinta | heavy hand on hops highly sweet (malty) | Home-brew | most complex of the three and most bitter of the three - hoppy with some roast notes | Tommyknocker |
Tommyknocker | imbalanced heavy hops but doesn't work for the beer bitter | Uinta | light roast hoppy | Uinta |
Home-brew | mildly hoppy smooth sailor | Tommyknocker | pleasantly hoppy very tiny/miniscule sourness | Home-brew |
The fact that Shyam thought that our actual beer was from Tommyknocker is a huge success. I did recognize ours correctly because, although it was very good and on the same level as the rest, it was missing a few minor extra notes (like roast notes) - but it is such a small thing and I am so proud of us! We finally made a really awesome beer. That is not to say that our previous beers were bad - they were good, for home-brews; but this one was just good, no buts or ifs. And that is an achievement for us.
This was certainly a fun little exercise and I think we'll be doing it for all our home-brews to come. And to all other home-brewers out there that haven't tried doing such a blind tasting, we highly recommend that you do!
Wishing you all the fun in your kitchen adventures and a good night!
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