Let me start out by saying that nobody should host a bear tasting party unless all the participants are over age and there is a designated driver for each person. That way you are assured of nobody getting arrested for underage drinking or driving under the influence. Having said that, what exactly is a beer tasting party and how do they work? A beer tasting party is just that. You bring a number of people over to your place and have them sample a variety of beers. At the end of the evening the beers are ranked from best to worst. There are many variations you can do on this such as having friendly wagers on what beer you think will come in first. Of course gambling for money is illegal so the wagers would have to be for something other than. It's best, when having a beer tasting party, to have a small group. The reason for this is simple. With a small group, the tasting party is just that, a tasting party. With a larger group, it tends to become a party, period. And parties with large groups can become quite rowdy. So if you want a serious tasting party, keep it small. The next thing is the selection of the beers themselves. How do you go about doing this? A good tasting party will have about eight to ten different kinds of beers, all very distinct in taste. You should probably select a beer by its brewing style rather than by its country of origin. You should mix up your beers between beers that are expensive and beers that are cheap. You don't want to have two beers that are very similar. This way you are sure to get a more accurate ranking of the beers. If all goes as it should, the cheap beers should end up at the bottom with the premium beers coming in first. Because this is a tasting party, you don't need a lot of beer. Probably a six pack of each beer will be more than enough and you'll still have plenty left over after you're done. If you're on a tight budget and don't want to buy whole six packs, then figure one bottle of beer for every three people at the party. This way you can pull off your party without going broke. Because you don't want your guests to get rip roaring drunk, it is a good idea to have food at this party. What kind of food? You want foods that will go well with the beers, like cheese and bread. These things won't interfere with the tasting process itself. And if you want, you can even turn this into a combination cheese and beer tasting party. They make great fund raisers. Finally, there should be a certain order to the tasting itself. You want to taste your beers from the lightest beers to the heaviest, making sure that you take a bite of cheese or bread in between each beer so that the taste of the previous beer is gone. Your guests should rank each beer on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. All scores for each beer should be added together and then divided by the number of tasters. This will give you an average score for each beer. By following these simple steps, your beer tasting party should go off without a hitch. |
