The joy of blind tasting
Only a couple of hours after awards were handed out at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival I was with a friend who received an outraged phone call from somebody I don’t know. The gist was that the results must have been rigged because all of the medals Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Pabst (brewed by Miller) and Coors raked in.
Not to mention the fact that the Coors-owned SandLot Brewery in Denver won seven - count ‘em, seven - medals.
The big breweries winning, usually in categories few smaller breweries enter, is hardly new. But this person wondered if the results could have somehow been fixed so A-B captured gold for Michelob Pale Ale in Classic English-Style Pale Ale and gold again for Michelob Marzen in German-Style Märzen/Oktoberfest.
How silly. The GABF is judged blind - that is the judges don’t know what beers they are tasting (and brewers can’t judge their own beers). Granted, once you’ve tasted a distinctive beer such as Alaskan Smoked Porter you may well be able to pick it out “blind,” judges likely don’t known the Michelob specialty beers. In fact, many of the judges had ever sampled the A-B versions and some didn’t even know they existed.
Yet the Pale Ale has been around since 1997 and the Marzen for at least a few years. They are both included annually in a winter sampler. The beers don’t fare at well at beer ratings sites such as RateBeer.com and BeerAdvocate.com. The Pale Ale scores just 2.08 (out of 5) at RateBeer.com, doing a little better at BeerAdvocate.com. Certainly some drinkers set their expectations for a hoppier American Pale Ale - the beer is simply called Michelob Pale Ale - while at GABF it was judged as a less hoppy English style.
I don’t point to those scores to pick on the sites, but to offer an observation about human nature. The results make it clear that the name on the label may boost a beer’s ratings … or lower its mark. When craft-loving enthusiasts are rating beers bearing an A-B affiliation almost surely lowers the score. GABF silver medalist Odell’s 5 Barrel Pale Ale has a 3.24 rating at RateBeer.com.
And you’d think a Märzen/Oktoberfest is a Märzen no matter what, right? There is no American Oktoberfest. Yet Michelob Marzen gets 2.29 at Ratebeer.com, while Sudwerk Marzen earns 3.28.
Wouldn’t you like to know how the two beers would fare if the online reviewers tasted them blind as well?
And you might try it yourself with a variety beer - or even pitting a favorite beer with another beer of similar style.
Quick note: I briefly considered blogging GABF, with multiple posts per day. But four book signings and other commitments made me think better of that. Besides, a little time, and combining impressions compiled in different parts of different days, probably makes for more thoughtful commentary. I’ll continue to post the thoughts in the next few days.
