Sucking the Fun Out, With Science!

THE Rating Process:
Here's the explanation of the rating system (taken from the 2005 write-up). Each person was given a printed spreadsheet, with beer names at the top and beer-attributes down the side. Each beer was sipped, slugged, and judged based on the following attributes:

1. Smell: Take a good sniff of it and rate the smell. Does it entice you like the scentacle of a window-sill-pie in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, or revolt you like a French cat-rapist (Pepe LePew)?
2. Sip: Take a quick sip and give your first impression as it hits your tongue.
3. In Mouth: Swish it around and let the flavor fizzle/unfurl/explode.
4. Swallow: How does it taste going down?
5. Aftertaste: After it's in your stomach, does it leave any surprises?
6. Repeat: Does it hold up when you drink more, or is it like Pepsi in a taste test, tasty at first but difficult to keep drinking?
7. Memories: Does it unlock any precious childhood memories of Halloweens-gone-by? Does it make you feel nostalgic?
8. Overall: How did you like it?
9. Pumpkinosity: Is it a PUMPKIN beer, or just a beer?
10. Enjoyment: Um, I forget why this was necessary. Was it an enjoyable drink or a chore? (?)
11. Beerishness: Does it have a strong beer taste or is it like a pumpkin soda?
12. Slugability: Could you slam it while people stood around you chanting "chug! chug! chug!"?

Additionally, tasters were encouraged to put any comments they had about the beer in the following columns.
1. Comments: General things that couldn't be expressed through numbers.
2. Hints of: What subtle (or unsubtle) flavors do you recognize?

Once the brave 15 completed rating the 12 beers, we talked about The Results.


Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Process and Procedures
Part 3: Tasting Parameters
Part 4: Results
Part 5: Conclusions


Copyright 2007 homeworkparty.com