Hosting Your Own Beer Tasting

Hosting a beer tasting can be a lot of fun, and it's much more than simply getting together to knock down a suitcase of mass market swill. Just like a wine tasting, a beer tasting is a great way to experience new styles, expand your palate, and have a great time talking about and drinking good beer.

So, what's the big deal, you ask? How hard can it be to taste a bunch of beer? Here are a few tips that will help get you on your way.

There are a lot of ways to organize a beer tasting, but a few certain models seem to work especially well to make sure you and your guests get the most out of the event.

The first thing you'll need to decide is what beer you'd like to drink.

One of the more popular approaches to setting up a beer tasting is to do a "horizontal tasting", where the same style of beer across several breweries are sampled. For example, you might try six different pale ales from different breweries. This is a great way to learn a lot about a particular style, because you can see how various breweries approach the same type of beer, and take note of the differences and similarities.

To learn more about beer styles and what they taste and smell like, visit www.bjcp.org and read the style guidelines for each beer style. (Nerdy? Yes - but nerdy is chic.)

Another variation on the horizontal tasting is to spotlight a particular brewery. In this format, you'll want to collect as much beer from one brewery as you can, sampling across all the styles they brew. This works particularly well if you have a local brewery or brewpub with several styles available.

If possible, try to select a brewery that has at least four styles, in order to get a good idea of that brewery's character.

A less common, but very interesting model of beer tasting is the "vertical tasting", where beers from different vintages are sampled. Different vintages? You bet. Just like wine, many styles of beer can be cellared for several years.

Many of these styles, such as Barleywines, Imperial Stouts and Porters and Strong Ales, are vintage dated with the year stamped on the bottle (don't call this a "born-on date", lest you be smacked by a good beer drinker).