Blind Beer Tasting – Imperial/Double IPAs – Photo credit: Lindsey Scully

This specific Blind Beer Tasting marks the one-year anniversary of us starting these monthly tasting events. We’re so happy that we have a group of friends that are as excited about beer as we are at Volume by Alcohol and who also look forward to trying new brews every month. Here’s to another year!

The rules are (somewhat) simple: Every person showing up had to bring a beer in the specified style and that was wrapped or the label concealed. We asked attendees to bring either a 750 mL or a couple of 12oz bottles so that everyone could get an adequate sample. We then handed out scorecards that were basic in nature with a rating of 1-10, with 10 being the best and 1 the worst.

There was only one beer opened at a time, this way it alleviated any confusion on people wondering what numbered beer they had. The host of the evening poured each blind beer into a pitcher, this way no one saw that it was their beer and could rate it higher.

After the final beer we tallied up and averaged out all the scores for each beer and then it was time to crown the winner. We gathered all the (empty) bottles and growlers and started with the last place beer and worked our way down to the winner, taking off the paper bags with each person saying what beer they brought once revealed.

There was a tie which is why the rank is thrown off a bit below. We ended up having two of the same beer, Ale Smith’s Yule Smith, No-Li’s Jet Star, and Left Coast’s Hop Juice. I’ll note next to each one since the same beer did place differently (which could be due to an older batch, or even the more we drank the higher the scores got. However both of the Ale Smiths were stamped with a “Bottled on 5/21/13”. Many variables to be honest.) There will be a #1 next to the beer that was drank first, and a #2 to the second time the same beer was consumed.

Blind Beer Tasting – Imperial/Double IPAs – Photo credit: Lindsey Scully

15. Yule Smith #1  (Ale Smith) – Average score: 5.00

14. Detour (Uinta Brewing) – Average score: 5.13

13. Idiot (Coronado Brewing) – Average score: 5.25

12.  Hop Juice #2 (Left Coast Brewing)– Average score: 5.63

11. Imperial IPA (Green Flash Brewing) – Average score: 5.75

10. Hop Juice #1 (Left Coast Brewing) – Average score: 5.94

9. Tricerahops (Ninkasi Brewing) – Average score: 6.00

8. TIE — Jet Star #2 (No-Li Brewing) and Double IPA (Populuxe Brewing) – Average score: 6.13

7. Jet Star #1 (No-Li Brewing) – Average score: 6.19

6. Hoptimum (Sierra Nevada) – Average score: 6.25

5. Hop 15 (Port Brewing) – Average score: 6.31

4. Yule Smith #2 (Ale Smith) – Average score: 6.38

3. Earth Thirst (Eel River Brewing) – Average score: 6.56

2.Whoop Pass (Silver City Brewing) – Average score: 6.75

And the Winner…

1. Anniversary Ale (Port Brewing) – Average score: 6.81

Congratulations to Port Brewing for winning our Blind Beer Tasting on Imperial or Double IPAs! The winner got to choose the next theme and decided on Sours (krieks included).

To view more photos from previous tastings visit our Facebook page.

We have had an on-going Spotify playlist that we created called ‘Craft Beer Night’, that features a lot of indie artists as well as some more popular groups. We are constantly adding new songs that we find and enjoy and would like to share it with you! Craft Beer Night is typically always playing whenever we have people over for beer tastings and is great as background music on Shuffle, sorry we can not figure out how to have it randomized when we embed it. But you can subscribe to the playlist and hit the Shuffle button that way! Enjoy and if you have any music (new or old) you think we should add to Craft Beer Night let us know. After all, this is a beer AND music blog and we are always open to suggestions.