Guides · 5 min read

How to host a beer tasting party

Beer is the most forgiving drink to build a tasting around: it is affordable, endlessly varied, and everyone already has an opinion. A well-run beer tasting takes that casual confidence and turns it into a proper game, one where the person who "only drinks lager" surprises everyone.

Here is how to put one together, from picking styles to keeping score.

Choose a spread of styles

Variety is what makes a beer tasting click. Rather than six similar IPAs, pick beers that are clearly different from one another so the comparisons mean something: a crisp pilsner, a wheat beer, a hoppy IPA, an amber or brown ale, a stout, and maybe a sour or a Belgian tripel to keep people guessing.

A fun local twist: taste six beers from your own region, or run a "guess the country" round with Belgian, German, Czech and American entries.

Glasses and pour size

You do not need a shelf of branded glassware. One small glass per guest, around 100 ml poured per beer, is plenty to taste properly without anyone tapping out before the stout. A small tulip or even a wine glass concentrates the aroma nicely.

Serve most craft beers cool rather than ice cold. Straight from the fridge mutes the flavour; a few minutes out lets the aromas open up.

Taste light to dark

As with wine, work from delicate to intense so the big flavours do not steamroll the subtle ones. Start with the pilsner and wheat beer, move through the pale ales and IPAs, and finish with the ambers, sours and stouts.

Between each, a sip of water and a plain cracker resets the palate. Give people a minute to smell and taste before scoring.

Make it a blind game

Pour out of sight or wrap the bottles, label them A to F, and let everyone taste without knowing the brand. Style and country guesses turn into a genuine challenge once the labels are gone, and the beer everyone loved is rarely the one they expected.

Score each beer out of ten and add guessing rounds for style, brewery or country. TastingParty runs all of this for you: guests join on their phones, the scores land on a big screen, and the reveal comes with a little drama built in.