How to run a blind beer tasting at home with friends

Pick a theme, not a random pile

The best blind tastings compare like with like. Five lagers, five wheat beers or five IPAs give everyone a fair contest. Mixing a stout with a pilsner tells you nothing, because anyone can tell them apart.

Good themes for a first evening: Indian craft lagers against an imported pilsner, or three wheat beers from different breweries with one German hefeweizen hidden among them. Five or six beers is plenty. More than that and palates tire, which our guide to beer flights explains.

Buy fresh stock where you can. Check the packed-on date and avoid bottles that have been sitting in a warm shop window. A stale beer will lose for reasons that have nothing to do with the brewery's recipe.

Hide the beers properly

One person, the host, should know which beer is which and nobody else. That person does not score.

• Chill every beer to the same temperature for a few hours. A beer served warmer than the others gets judged unfairly.
• Pour in a separate room or out of sight. Bottle shapes and can colours give the game away.
• Label glasses with random codes, like 417 or 283, rather than 1 to 5. People unconsciously score the first beer differently.
• Use identical glasses. Clear stemmed wine glasses work well and let everyone see colour and head.
• Pour the same volume each time. Around 60 ml is enough to judge a beer properly.

Set up the table

Each taster needs a scoring sheet, a pen, a jug of water, a spit cup and some plain crackers or bread. A white sheet of paper or napkin behind the glass helps everyone judge colour. Keep strong smells away: no incense, no scented candles and no frying in the next room until the tasting is done.

If you want inspiration for the sheet itself, our guide to setting up a beer tasting has a simple layout. A good home sheet asks for five things: appearance, aroma, flavour, mouthfeel and overall enjoyment, each scored out of five, with a line for comments.

Running the round

Serve the beers in the same order to everyone, lightest and least bitter first, so a big IPA does not flatten the delicate lager that follows. Ask people to score silently and not discuss until everyone has finished. The loudest voice at the table should not decide what everyone else tastes.

Once all sheets are in, go round the table beer by beer. Ask each person what they found before revealing anything. Then reveal the labels one at a time, starting with the lowest scorer. The reveal is the best part of the evening. Starting from the bottom keeps the suspense.

Add a twist if the group enjoys it. Pour one beer twice under different codes and see who notices. It is humbling. It also shows how much expectation shapes what we taste.

Keep the evening responsible

Six 60 ml samples add up to roughly one large bottle of beer per person, which is a sensible amount spread over an evening. Use the spit cups for anything you do not want to finish. Serve real food once the scoring is done, not just snacks.

Invite friends who do not drink. They can be the host and pourer, or score a parallel flight of non-alcoholic beers, which are well worth tasting blind too. Agree how everyone is getting home before the first glass is poured. Keep cabs or a designated driver lined up. Nobody drives after a tasting.

What you learn and what comes next

Most groups discover two things. Expensive or famous beers do not always win. And people who are sure they can recognise their usual brand often cannot. Both lessons make you a more honest taster.

You will also notice the limits of a home panel. People use different words for the same thing, scores drift and nobody can say whether a strange note was a fault or a style feature. Getting past that needs trained reference samples and a shared vocabulary, which is what a structured sensory course provides. For now, keep your sheets. Run the same theme again in six months and compare. Our guide to training your palate has ideas for practising in between.