Taste off

We had a double blind beer tasting contest last weekend. You know how everyone has their loyalty to some cheap beer, usually left over from college? I'll still defend Miller Lite, even though I haven't had it in a few years. The blind taste test has been on our list for ages, ever since D watched Beer Wars. We kept putting it off because we thought it would take too long to plan and then last week we decided screw it, let's just do this and we invited a few friends immediately.

{double blind}

We got tallboys (Bud, Bud Lite, Coors, Coors Lite, MGD, Miller Lite and High Life) and I covered them in brown paper grocery bags and sealed the top with masking tape. Once they were wrapped I held them out to D so he could put numbers on them while I looked away. The masking tape around the top edges made pouring a little messy but no one cared. I should have gotten a picture of the finished product but all this was happening five minutes before our friends were supposed to arrive.

{beer tasting}

We laid down more brown paper grocery bags to set up personal tasting stations, panicked when we realized we didn't have enough glasses for everyone and then remembered that luckily we still had leftover plastic cups from the wedding. There are no pictures of the actual tasting because it was fairly intense. Everyone wrote their guesses down on their cards, we all debated around the table and then peeled off the paper to reveal the beers. I was able to correctly identify Miller Lite, but I failed at everything else.

{palate wrecker ipa}

After the tasting, we moved on to a meal and much fancier beers. The Green Flash Palate Wrecker IPA was excellent.

Update - I've had several people ask about our glasses (I'm flattered!), so here is the info. They're all Bormioli Rocco bodega glasses and they're affordable little workhorses. We saw them last year at Mill Valley Beerworks and loved them and then stalkerishly emailed the owner who very kindly told us the manufacturer. I have all three sizes and they work great together. The short stout ones are the mini size - I use them for tastings and they're perfect for shaken cocktails. The medium are exactly the right size for a full beer, also great for juice or wine. We use the large ones as water glasses. I got all ours here (mini, medium, large) but you can probably find them from other sources.