Beer Tasting Tips & Suggestions

A fun activity with friends, family, colleagues or other beer lovers: organise a beer tasting at home! Try different beers, discover your new favourites and match them with tasty snacks. To get you started, we have listed the best tips for a beer tasting at home for you.

Happy beer tasting!

Which beers do you choose for a beer tasting?

The most important element of a beer tasting: the right selection of beers! You want to serve the tastiest beer and also go for variety. Make sure in advance that you have decided on a common thread or theme. Which beers will you taste?

#1 Beer tasting with beers in the same style

You can opt for a number of beers within a certain beer style, for example by tasting six different Tripels or IPAs. This is always instructive, as you will learn to recognise the differences within the same style. Moreover, chances are you will find your new favourite beer within that style this way. 

#2 Beer tasting with beers from a country

How about a beer tasting with different beers from one country? Go for Belgium as a theme or choose only beers from England. This is extra fun on certain holidays, with watching sports games or when you have something to celebrate related to that country. Oktoberfest, for example, is the ideal occasion to go for a German beer tasting. 

#3 Beer tasting with beers from one brewery

A fun way to taste many different beers is to go for a tasting with beers from one brewery.Do you have a favourite beer from a specific brewery? They might have many more goodies in store for you. The big breweries are always good, but a beer tasting is also great fun to discover the different flavours of a local brewery. How about a beer tasting with options from Beavertown, Magic Rock or Thornbridge? 

Make your beer tasting educational

A beer tasting should be fun and tasty, but how much fun is it if you also learn something?If you want to become a real beer connoisseur, it is useful to consciously taste the different beers so that you learn to recognise flavours. To help you with that, we have developed a tasting form. Taste and discuss what you see, smell and taste.Bet you'll be a beer expert in no time? 

It becomes even more educational if you include some background information about the beer, the beer type and the brewery. If each of the friends looks up the information on one or two beers and presents it when pouring, you will build up a wealth of knowledge in just an evening!

How about a beer tasting with different beers from one country?

Go for Belgium as a theme or choose only beers from England. This is extra fun on certain holidays, with watching sports games or when you have something to celebrate related to that country.

Drinking beer in the right order

The beers are in, but what is the right order to drink?

For this, pay particular attention to two things:

The alcohol content
The flavour intensity

As a basis, put the beers in order from the lowest alcohol percentage to the highest. Now look carefully at the flavour intensity. It may be that a beer with a somewhat lower percentage has enormously strong flavours due to the addition of spices, for example.If a beer has a strong flavour intensity, move it up one place.

Choosing the right beer glass

For a tasting, use a small glass with a capacity of up to 25 cl.You can buy special tasting glasses for beer tasting (AnDer or ISO glasses) and, of course, our own Beerwulf glasses are also very suitable. Small, tulip-shaped wine glasses also work and you probably already have those around the house.

Read also: which glass goes with which beer?

If you are tasting with several people, it is useful if everyone uses the same type of glass. After all, a glass does a lot with the smell and thus the taste of a beer.Pour a beer preferably over three tasting glasses, this way you can taste enough without it getting out of hand. After tasting, rinse the glasses well before pouring the new beer. This is immediately a good time to take a sip of water to neutralise your taste again.

Blind beer tasting

Want to go for an extra challenge?

Then organise a blind beer tasting. When you see a label, name or style of beer, you immediately make all sorts of associations in your head. If you do not know exactly what you are drinking, you can really judge all the smells and tastes. At official beer competitions, for instance, beers are always tasted blind. 

You can do this in different ways. For instance, get all kinds of different beer styles and try to guess which style you are drinking at that moment. 
Or just go for a few beers within the same beer style and discover the differences! 

It is easiest if someone else (who is not necessarily a taster) pours the beers. But you will also go a long way if you cover the labels with tape, for example.Another well-known trick is to put the bottles or cans in a paper bag or even a sock.

What do you eat at a beer tasting?

If you are tasting beer, you will want something to eat with it for several reasons. First of all, it is good to neutralise your taste after tasting your beer.Water helps with this, but a piece of white baguette or a cracker (with no flavour) is better.Pour a beer preferably over three tasting glasses, this way you can taste enough without it getting out of hand.