Melbourne Beer Tasting Competition

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

I'm considering organising a beer tasting competition, to give people an opportunity to show-off how precise thier tastebuds can be.

In short there would be a blind tasting of approx 25 beers [5 in 5 rounds], and people would asked to identify which beers they were tasting. [I thought it would be kind of neat to have teams [like a trivia quiz arrangement] of tasters as well.

At the end of the day the most accurate taster [and tasting team] would be given a round of applause and maybe even a prize if i can organise one.

Would people be interested in participating in this? If so would you be willing to pay a couple of dollars to cover the cost of the beer?

A couple of other questions:
Do you think I should break the rounds up into categories [either by style of beer or perhaps by overseas/australian/australian boutique etc?]
Should i post a list of the beers to be tasted on the web first so that people can have the opportunity to practice before the big day?

Hopefully this experiment might go some way toward answering some of those age old questions like can you tell the difference between VB, Tooheys and more expensive beers, and is there a difference between Melbourne and Victoria Bitter at all!

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Sounds like a metric shed-load of fun.

It would be churlish to expect you to pay for (all of) the beer. Perhaps on subsequent occasions - when the thing has grown momentum, corporate sponsorship can help subsidise the cost...

I think the biggest issue is location. Should be central-ish and close to public transport to help evacuate the venue safely.

[buscador]

Sounds like a metric shed-load of fun.

It would be churlish to expect you to pay for (all of) the beer. Perhaps on subsequent occasions - when the thing has grown momentum, corporate sponsorship can help subsidise the cost...

I think the biggest issue is location. Should be central-ish and close to public transport to help evacuate the venue safely.

Reading that word evacuate, made me think of the swat team of police breaking down the doors to find a group of 50 or so chanting and roaring to the tasting winners, cinematic...

"His name is Robert Paulson, his name is Robert Paulson."

[buscador]

oh yeah, id be interested...b

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

I think that I can take care of the venue without too much trouble - but i will have to do a little negotiating first and i wanted to see if anyone was interested before i progressed that too far. But you are right and issues of closeness to city and public transport would uppermost in that part of the planning.

Do you think you would prefer to enter individually or as part of a team?

[r.magnay]

Hey PHI, that would be a perfect place to slip the beer, water, stout test in that I read about and posted earlier, it would put the cat amongst the pigeons if it turned out to be a fact!

Bit far for me to go but it sounds like a good idea anyway.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Do you think you would prefer to enter individually or as part of a team?

To my mind, teams only work if you have an existing relationship with the other members, else it is kind of weird. (Or I am - I always get that mixed up.) But on the other hand, some claim that teams create relationships.

On the other hand again, neither would change my vote.

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

Spills - actually i understand what you mean [what does that say about me?] I suppose i was trying to get a fix on whether people would prefer to turn up with a couple of mates [maybe people they brew or drink with normally] or whether they just wanted to turn up in a room of strangers and have to make friends as best they can. [There will definitely be no getting to know you games!]

r.magnay - can you link to the post you are refering to - im guessing im guessing what it is correctly but i can't be sure

[velophile]

I'm sure I could get a team together. Five to a team?

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

Hey Velo - hadn't really thought about how many to a team - i like six for some reason - but five could work

Perhaps we could meet halfway at 5.5?

[KEG]

5 adults and a child

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

hmmm that could work as well...

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

I was thinking of the Sunday afternoon of the Labor Day weekend for this fine event - does that suit/not suit people who were interested?

[buscador]

want more beer

want more homebrew

but work monday mornings, (man you can see the puss growing, huh?)

saturday arvo would be bettter, but i canot control the weather either can i??

maybe i can!

b

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

work even on a public holiday monday? we could go for saturday i just thought that it was more likely that most people would already have a saturday event booked in

[Oliver]

I was thinking of the Sunday afternoon of the Labor Day weekend for this fine event.

PHI,

Excuse me for not knowing when the Labor Day weekend is, but when's the Labor Day weekend?

I like the idea of this, by the way.

Oliver

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

Well Labor Day weekend is the second weekend in March - there are some people keen - but few who are ultra-keen enough for me to push ahead with it [esp given that it involves some capital outlay]

of course also looming in the near future is the 2007 Great Intercontinental Pub Crawl so i need to have the beer tasting off the table in time to organise this even more important event

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Then, why don't we just arrange to meet up at the Napier (or somewhere similar) and have a beer or two anyhow?

[Pyssedas Heavy Industrial]

that's exactly the kind of sensible straight-forward thinking that gets people into trouble!

not a bad idea though - any preferences as to when?

[DarkFaerytale]

i'll be up for a meet