Dave Hoops column: How to conduct blind beer judging at home

four small glasses filled with different colored liquid, sitting on wooden board — Four samples of beer.

By Dave Hoops

February 03, 2025 at 3:00 PM

Greetings, everyone. Now that the cold snap has broken for now, folks are looking for fun things to do, so today I’m going to break down how to run a home beer tasting and judging without needing to be a trained taster or professional judge.

I’ve been judging international beer competitions for some time, and I get asked often how I judge beer, how I know what's good, how I can tell if a beer is flawed and many similar questions.

A few months ago, a good friend was asking me some of these questions and as I was answering I told him about a few blind tastings I’ve done with other judges and the results. This column is about beer, but over the years I’ve also done blind judging of bottled water, kombucha, non-alcoholic beers and ciders.

He asked if I would be willing to put together a blind judging for a group. The answer was "yes," and I’ll outline how to do this yourself.

The first step is deciding on the focus of the tasting. I’ve done things like American light lagers; one brewery’s total catalog and the favorite beer in their portfolio; pale ales, stouts, double IPAs, barrel-aged beers, Minnesota beers; and many homebrew tastings. This tasting was for eight judges.

As you put this together you will need someone to lead the tasting. This person is in charge of pouring the samples and tabulating the results of each round. The judging leader can taste the beers, but they will know which beers are being judged and should keep their results private.

Materials needed:

Small clear glasses, 4-8 ounces. Glass is good, but plastic is just fine. If you are judging 10 beers with 80 people, you will need over 80 glasses unless you are going to wash and reuse some.
Judging sheets. A simple internet search for “beer judging sheets” will yield many free and printable options. I prefer a simple scoresheet as the ones we use in competition usually have 20-30 categories to judge for scoring. One of my favorites can be found at brewersfriend.com/beer-tasting-sheet-party-printout. This is a perfect tool with fewer than eight categories and is free to print. You will need one sheet per round of beers judged per person.
Pencils with erasers.
Staging area out of eyesight of the judges to pour and serve the samples to the judges. Having two people stage and remove spent samples is the easiest way to do this and keep things moving.
Beers you are judging, kept cold. If the tasting is eight to 10 people, a six-pack is adequate as the samples need only be 3-4 ounces.

As you're reading this, you can see that the setup is pretty simple, so I’ll explain the actual judging.

When I conducted this blind tasting, everyone was excited but some judges were concerned whether their picks would be correct. There is no "wrong;" beer judging is subjective and if you like something the score will reflect such.

The next step is to explain the scoring. Each judge will get a fresh sample one at a time to judge on the scoresheet.

The simple sheet I highlighted earlier has five categories to score:

Appearance. Look at your sample, is the beer clear, does it have nice foam, is there anything floating in it, do you find the color attractive to your eye? Give a score. The scale could be how many points out of 10 or 30; score according to your opinion.
Aroma. Swirl the beer in the glass and smell the sample. Does the beer smell bready, fruity, grassy, clean, robust or off, like old cardboard or buttery or unpleasant. Score the sample.
These first two judging categories are very important as your eyes then your nose will help your brain prepare to sample the beer and will give you either excitement -- "This is going to be good" -- or "this beer seems off."
Taste. Does the beer taste good? Taste the beer with a medium sip; do not spit. Unlike wine judging, when we spit, the full effect of the beer judging requires finishing the sample and we will be judging the entire sip and giving a score.
Finish. Is the sample pleasant as you swallow it? Is it sweet, dry, cloying, tart?
Drinkablity. Do you like it? Score accordingly.

Total the score.

At the end of each round, record each judge's score of the beer on your master sheet. Keep it to yourself.

Do this for each round if you have experience describing beer you can answer questions from the judges during the judging but do not divulge any information that could influence the judge.

When you finish tabulating the scores, report to your judges, adding the brand and beer they judged.

This is a really interesting and fun activity. You will learn so much. During this tasting, we discovered some supertaster tendencies in the group. We had more than one person nail the beer they were judging blind. “That’s so-and-so beer” and they were right! The best part is discussing the results and the things the judges learned about judging a beer as opposed to drinking a beer.

I will not divulge the results of this tasting, but I will say they were shocking. The theme was everyday lighter beers including some imports from Mexico and Europe.

Please send me a message if you have any questions or need detailed information. I would also love to hear some results!

Cheers!

Dave Hoops, who lives and works in Duluth, is a veteran brewer and beer judge. Have a beer-related question for Dave? Email him at dave@hoopsbrewing.com or the News Tribune at lifestyle@duluthnews.com.