Stouts in June

Sunday marked the Columbia Beer Enthusiast's stout blind taste test. Fifteen or so stouts and maybe 11 or 12 imperial stouts later, we had some winners. I swiped the 411 from our Ning. The pics are mine.

It should also be noted that I brought the imperial winner: Bell's Expedition Stout. My prize? I won a Brugge Black, a Belgian dark ale from Indiana.

Yesterday the CBE put on it's second blind tasting with great success! Special thanks to Sanford and Sycamore for hosting! There were 19 of us total and we ended up rating over 25 different stouts (14 regular and 12 imperial), not bad for a hot summer day! For those who did not participate, here is how we handled the tasting:

1. Regular (<8%)>

2. Each beer was put in a plain brown bag and randomly assigned a number. Regular stouts were labeled S1-S15, while imperials were labeled I1-I12.

3. Everyone was given a scoring sheet where they were asked to rate the beer on four characteristics (appearance, aroma, mouthfeel, and flavor) on a five point scale (0-5). Using these four scores, a total score was summed (0-20). Each scoring sheet also had room for notes/additional comments.

4. Once we finished tasting the flight of regular stouts, everyone's scoring sheets were given to our official scorer and the overall scores were entered into the cpu. We then moved on to tasting the flight of imperials and did the same thing scoring-wise.

5. Once we finished both flights of beers, we 'unveiled' the beers and the overall results.