Beer Tasting - At Home

az2wp0sye65487

Hi,

Instead of heading to the pub this weekend and paying mad money for a pint; I'll be having a 'beer tasting' session at home with some friends. Just something a little different from the usual p**s up in the house! (No doubt it'll end up a p**s up by the end of the night)

I've never done this before, and I don't think any of the lads have either.. So, I suppose I'm looking for some tips on what kind of beers to go for. Should we give each beer marks out of 10 and try to find an overall winner etc etc. Bearing in mind this is just a bit of craic!

I await your suggestions...

Thanks.

BeerNut

What you can get your mitts on depends heavily on where you live. Tell us where you are and I'll recommend an offy to make some selections in.

Meanwhile, you could do a lot worse than taking advantage of Tesco's current offer of Duvel for €1.99, and the one in Lidl for Bishops Finger at €1.99 and Hoegaarden for €2.99. Guinness Foreign Extra is another readily-available supermarket beer that gets overlooked very easily -- €2.20 or so in Dunnes.

rubadub

Lidl have loads of fancyish beers on offer starting today.

750ml bottles of hoegarden & leffe are €3 I think. Bishops finger, spitfire, tyskie and several others are on offer too. No mention on the site but my mate got the leaflet.

Most offies have lots of foreign beers now, some are just overpriced though, i.e. not great quality, just expensive since they are imported.

5% heineken is €1.89 per 500ml can in lidl too.

az2wp0sye65487

BeerNut wrote: »

What you can get your mitts on depends heavily on where you live. Tell us where you are and I'll recommend an offy to make some selections in.

Meanwhile, you could do a lot worse than taking advantage of Tesco's current offer of Duvel for €1.99, and the one in Lidl for Bishops Finger at €1.99 and Hoegaarden for €2.99. Guinness Foreign Extra is another readily-available supermarket beer that gets overlooked very easily -- €2.20 or so in Dunnes.

Thanks,

Sorry I never mentioned where, Dublin 7 / 9 / 11 area. Work, Live and spend time in these areas. I know Sweeneys in Phibsboro/Glasnevin at Hart's Corner has a decent selection.

Also, in addition to selecting some good beers, I'm trying to find beers that will all be from different countries. I'd like to have a little background info on the beers I choose too. I assume this will likely be available via Google?

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I know Sweeneys in Phibsboro/Glasnevin at Hart's Corner has a decent selection.

You're laughing, so. DrinkStore in Manor Street is well worth a visit if you can make it in.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I'd like to have a little background info on the beers I choose too. I assume this will likely be available via Google?

Yeah, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate tend to rank highly on Google and usually have good general information.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I'm trying to find beers that will all be from different countries.

Right.
Belgium: Duvel and Hoegaarden are two leaders in their class. Also see if you can get hold of Westmalle Dubbel or Rochefort 8 or 10 for the darker side. Chimay Bleu will do at a pinch.

US: Goose Island IPA is a quintessential American IPA; Flying Dog Snake Dog is another good one. For dark beers they don't get much better than Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and Sierra Nevada Stout.

Germany: For pale lager, Augustiner Edelstoff is one of the best. Schneider Weisse is the best wheat beer, and their wheat bock Aventinus is sublime. For something truly different get some Schlenkerla Rauchbier Maerzen smoked lager -- one to amaze your frends with (DrinkStore pretty much have a monopoly on selling this at the moment).

Britain: Meantime's London Pale Ale and London Stout are both great. Robinson's Old Tom is a lovely strong dark ale. On the lighter side there's always good old, plain old London Pride, or any of the Brakspear beers. North of the border, Cairngorm's Trade Winds is in a lot of places at the moment and is very tasty.

Ireland: O'Hara's Stout is the best session-strength stout around in bottles. Alewise, Clotworthy Dobbin is superb and for something paler, College Green's Belfast Blonde is excellent.

And if you can't find something to like in that, beer isn't your thing

az2wp0sye65487

BeerNut wrote: »

You're laughing, so. DrinkStore in Manor Street is well worth a visit if you can make it in.

Yeah, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate tend to rank highly on Google and usually have good general information.

Thanks for the sites

BeerNut wrote: »

Right.
Belgium: Duvel and Hoegaarden are two leaders in their class. Also see if you can get hold of Westmalle Dubbel or Rochefort 8 or 10 for the darker side. Chimay Bleu will do at a pinch.

I have had Hoegaarden before. It's really light, and has a slightly sweet taste. Very nice. Surely the pronunciation of the name isn't how it looks!

BeerNut wrote: »

US: Goose Island IPA is a quintessential American IPA; Flying Dog Snake Dog is another good one. For dark beers they don't get much better than Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and Sierra Nevada Stout.

I've had the Brooklyn Lager also, picked it up in Tesco I think. It's also not bad.

BeerNut wrote: »

Germany: For pale lager, Augustiner Edelstoff is one of the best. Schneider Weisse is the best wheat beer, and their wheat bock Aventinus is sublime. For something truly different get some Schlenkerla Rauchbier Maerzen smoked lager -- one to amaze your frends with (DrinkStore pretty much have a monopoly on selling this at the moment).

I've never heard of these, but will keep an eye out!

BeerNut wrote: »

Britain: Meantime's London Pale Ale and London Stout are both great. Robinson's Old Tom is a lovely strong dark ale. On the lighter side there's always good old, plain old London Pride, or any of the Brakspear beers. North of the border, Cairngorm's Trade Winds is in a lot of places at the moment and is very tasty.

I think I've seen some of these in Sweeney's at some stage.

BeerNut wrote: »

Ireland: O'Hara's Stout is the best session-strength stout around in bottles. Alewise, Clotworthy Dobbin is superb and for something paler, College Green's Belfast Blonde is excellent.

Surely for Irish, good aul Guinness will win every time?!?!

BeerNut wrote: »

And if you can't find something to like in that, beer isn't your thing

Thanks again for the info. You abviously know your beer!

Have you ever tried the bottles of 'Duff' that are now on sale? Do they actually taste good or are they sold purely on popularity?!

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Surely the pronunciation of the name isn't how it looks!

It's hoo-garden, with a sort of gutteral rasp on the H, apparently.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Surely for Irish, good aul Guinness will win every time?!?!

You tell us: get a bottle of Guinness and a bottle of O'Hara's and taste them side-by-side without knowing which one is which. IMO, Guinness is thin and lacking in flavour. They won't tell us what chemicals they put in it, but they do definitely make it by brewing a strong beer and then watering it down. I personally can't think of a worse stout sold in Ireland today.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Have you ever tried the bottles of 'Duff' that are now on sale? Do they actually taste good or are they sold purely on popularity?!

It's crap. But I'm not really into yellow lager.

az2wp0sye65487

I'm intrigued! I'll have to get some O'Haras now!

OK, so say I choose about 7 or 8 different beers, get some info on them etc. What next? Is there an order to tasting? Lighter beer first? As I saif this is the first time we'll be doing this, but I'd still like to take something away from it. Should we rate the beers? based on different characteristics... etc.??

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Is there an order to tasting?

Yes.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Lighter beer first?

No, or at least not by colour. You want the more strongly flavoured ones at the end where they won't interfere with the more delicate ones. Of course, you won't know which they are until you taste them. As a rule of thumb, I'd go in order of alcoholic strength.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Should we rate the beers? based on different characteristics... etc.??

You can. the Cyclops method used in the UK is simple, or there's the more involved RateBeer system, though that looks like more trouble than it's worth.

dereko1969

What TBN said but if you do get the Goose Island IPA or any american IPAs i'd leave them to the end as they would really affect your taste buds if you drank different beers afterwards.

rubadub

I have done beer, coffee & whiskey tasting, usually you will get digestive biscuits or cream crackers in between drinks to "clear your tongue".

Be sure your mates are on for it, most of mine would not touch anything other than the usual mass commercial crap.

kenmc

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Surely for Irish, good aul Guinness will win every time?!?!

Only in a slow race; it tends to be a bit sluggish off the line and falls at every hurdle. Pretty much a donkey in the grand national, but with big glitzy neon blinkers and supermodels disguising the fact.

BeerNut

rubadub

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Surely for Irish, good aul Guinness will win every time?!?!!

People will be influenced, so have a blind tasting to piss off the blind guinness followers. Also if they do like their mass produced stuff get some €1 cans in for blind tasting too, amsterdam, hollandia along with their carlsberg/bud/heineken. See if it really is worth the extra €1 per can just to see crap ads on TV.

az2wp0sye65487

rubadub wrote: »

People will be influenced, so have a blind tasting to piss off the blind guinness followers. Also if they do like their mass produced stuff get some €1 cans in for blind tasting too, amsterdam, hollandia along with their carlsberg/bud/heineken. See if it really is worth the extra €1 per can just to see crap ads on TV.

Never even occurred to me to do a blind taste test! what kind of beers would be recommended to be blind tasted against the likes of Miller / Bud / Carlsberg ?

DBCyc

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I think I've seen some of these in Sweeney's at some stage.

You can get a great selection of the above recommended beers in Sweeney's. Although if you are nearer to the Drinkstore in Stoneybatter, you will get a better variety.

Drinkstore have a great selection of IPAs which are worth trying. If you see the great divide's hercules double IPA there make sure you pick one up, one of my favourites

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

what kind of beers would be recommended to be blind tasted against the likes of Miller / Bud / Carlsberg ?

As rubadub says: the cheapest lagers you can find.

rubadub

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Never even occurred to me to do a blind taste test! what kind of beers would be recommended to be blind tasted against the likes of Miller / Bud / Carlsberg ?

BeerNut wrote: »

As rubadub says: the cheapest lagers you can find.

Yes. That was really just me having a mini-rant about people being irrationally snobby about their beers, while they are really paying over the odds for beers of similar quality, only thing "premium" about them is the price. If you have any mates like this it would be a good test, might put them in their place, they might thank you in the long run if they find one they like!

e.g. I had a mate who would turn their nose up at most €1 cans, then discovered amsterdam is brewed by grolsch, and all of a sudden it is OK :rolleyes:. Another was saying "that hollandia stuff is actually alright" in shock, I was asking what he expected. Most seem to have some idea that it is going to be manky, yet if questioned I doubt many will name beers they despise, in fact it usually is only a "premium" they can list as hating (bud, miller & carlsberg are the usual ones I hear).

Now some lads in this forum will not like the mass produced stuff, but the fact is it is all VERY similar, I find the cheaper ones usually have an even more generic taste and so would be even more widely accepted, esp. if it was a blind test.

Full thread on cheap beers here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055378862

az2wp0sye65487

OK,

So I went and picked up a couple of bottles lastnight to sample at the weekend. I took some advice from here, and went with my (beer)gut for the rest. Keep in mind I wanted to get beers that are each from a different country. I got 8 last night. I may be able to get more before the weekend. The beers I picked up are as follows.

1. O'Hara's Irish Stout - (Ireland)
2. Peroni Nastro Azzurro - (Italy)
3. Innis & Gunn - (Scotland)
4. Untouchable Pale Ale - (USA)
5. Moosehead Lager - (Canada)
6. Hoegaarden - (Belgium)
7. Grolsch - (Netherlands)
8. Erdinger Kristal - (Germany)

Bit of a mix. Hopefully they'll be nice, and interesting to taste & compare. I've had one or two of these before and like them, particularly Moosehead, Erdinger & Hoegaarden. I'm looking forward to trying O'Hara's Irish Stout after what some of you here said about it.

Also, I found a good site that I took some info from to help us out with the understanding & tasting - Beer Naturally

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Bit of a mix.

Three types of identical generic yellow fizz, though: Nastro Azzurro, Moosehead and Grolsch.

Untouchable's a good introduction to American Pale Ales, though Prohibition is superior, IMO. Innis & Gunn tends to divide opinion. I think it's terrible but Gordon Ramsey likes it, so who's to say?

Enjoy!

az2wp0sye65487

BeerNut wrote: »

Three types of identical generic yellow fizz, though: Nastro Azzurro, Moosehead and Grolsch.

Untouchable's a good introduction to American Pale Ales, though Prohibition is superior, IMO. Innis & Gunn tends to divide opinion. I think it's terrible but Gordon Ramsey likes it, so who's to say?

Enjoy!

God, it must be tough being so perfect. :rolleyes: :P:P:P

Sure how else is someone to know what's nice & what's not (in their opinion) if they never try different types of beers....

I've never tried Grolsch before... so why not try it? Also, Although moosehead is similar to a lot of other lagers, I think it is slightly different, and has a lovely 'creamy' texture & taste to it.

Maybe creamy isn't the best way to describe it, but I don't know how else to. Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying something new.

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Sure how else is someone to know what's nice & what's not (in their opinion) if they never try different types of beers....

'zackly. Which is why I was surprised to see 37.5% of the list are the same type of beer.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I've never tried Grolsch before... so why not try it?

No reason at all. But you said you were going for different types, and it's not a different type to the other two lagers. Different brand; same type.

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I think it is slightly different, and has a lovely 'creamy' texture & taste to it.

Well there's a fun exercise: get your mates to set you up a glass of Moosehead, Grolsch and Nastro Azzuro and see if you can spot the creaminess blind. Blind tasting is the best way to learn about your own opinions about beer. And is fun too (a bunch of us did a blind session here and here).

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

I'm looking forward to trying something new.

Sorry if I sound like I'm having a go. I hope it leads on to exploring, tasting and most importantly enjoying more beers.

az2wp0sye65487

BeerNut wrote: »

'zackly. Which is why I was surprised to see 37.5% of the list are the same type of beer.

No reason at all. But you said you were going for different types, and it's not a different type to the other two lagers. Different brand; same type.

Yeah, but how can you decide which lager/stout/ale you prefer when you only taste one?

BeerNut wrote: »

Well there's a fun exercise: get your mates to set you up a glass of Moosehead, Grolsch and Nastro Azzuro and see if you can spot the creaminess blind. Blind tasting is the best way to learn about your own opinions about beer.

I'm up for that challenge! I'm feeling confident that i'll be able to pick out aul Moosey!

BeerNut wrote: »

And is fun too (a bunch of us did a blind session here and here)

:rolleyes: Sure you scored 0 out of 4..... What would you know!

BeerNut wrote: »

Sorry if I sound like I'm having a go. I hope it leads on to exploring, tasting and most importantly enjoying more beers.

That's the idea! Well, that AND spending time with my friends who I haven't seen in a while!

BeerNut

Vaughn Delicious String wrote: »

Yeah, but how can you decide which lager/stout/ale you prefer when you only taste one

I know what you mean. But yellow lagers really are very samey in a way that ales, stouts wheatbeers aren't. Your Hoegaarden and Erdinger are both wheatbeers, but are from different local traditions and taste totally different. Likewise Innis & Gunn and Untouchable -- different localised ingredients and methods. Your lagers, however, are all trying to be the same beer, based on the pilsner style and popular throughout the world. I'd have put them into different sessions and put another style of lager in instead of one or two of them: Samuel Adams Boston Lager, for instance, or Samichlaus. But it's your session.

/gets off soapbox, out of pulpit and down from high horse.