Monday, March 5, 2012

New Home-brew - Black IPA, and Blind Tasting

Yesterday we finally opened and tasted a bottle of our home-brew that we brewed a month or so ago. And out of the beers we brewed so far (we started with our first attempt in June 2011), this one is the best. So good, in fact, when we tasted it yesterday first, we thought it was on the level with the beers with buy in a liquor store. We finally made it! Then an idea came to me - to truly compare our beer with brews we get at a store, let's do a blind tasting. This time we brewed Black IPA, and not long ago we tasted a Black IPA from Tommyknocker right at the brewery from the tap, and a bit before that we had Pitch Black IPA from Widmer Brothers. So I thought of buying those two and then tasting it with ours. Liqour store was out of Widmer's this time, but instead we got Uinta Dubhe Imperial Black IPA and Tommyknocker Hop Strike Black IPA.

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 BeerShyam's notesShyam's GuessKatya's notesKatya'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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