USK Tasting Results

It’s been a long time since I’ve held a tasting with 16 different beers in one night, and it’s always a bit hectic when it happens. This tasting was no exception, with some absolutely amazing beers on display. All the beers were tests blindly, with the guests not knowing what they were drinking except for the styles. We tried four rounds of four different beers: lager, sours, IPA and a random category with diverse styles. Guests were asked to try the beers, compare them to the style descriptions, and then vote for which they thought was their favourite. I’m not doing reviews on all 16 beers for this tasting, but I will add the results below for posterities’ sake, if nothing more.

For the lager category, the ”Oberoende Märzen” from Brygghus 19 was a big winner, followed by Bryggverket ”Sommar Lager”, Jämtlands Bryggeri ”Lucifer Doppelbock” and finally bringing up the rear was the classic yet slightly boring Corona lager.

For the sours, ”Strawberry Lemonade” from Connecticut Valley was the runaway winner, with ”Orange Creamsicle” from Vault City next in line. In third position was ”God Raspberry” from Omnipollo and taking the wooden spoon in this group was ”Pinkish” from Brekeriet.

The IPA group was the most even of all the categories, but in the end, ”Hazy Liza Hazy IPA” from Hedemora Stadsbryggeri came top of the class. ”Engelsk IPA” from Östersunds Nya Ångbryggeri picked up the silver medal, followed closely by ”#SIPA Session IPA” from To Øl. In last position was ”Serpentine Speed Imp WCIPA” from Salama Brewing, but it was a very close group.

In the final group with four different styles, the vote was again fairly evenly split. The winner was ”Tistron Lager” from Hantverksbryggeriet, with second going to ”Ester Veteöl” from Två Feta Grisa. In third was ”Dry Hop Saison” from Saison Dupont, with the final place going to ”Glödkolsmäskad Lager” from Bottenvikens.

Doing tastings like these are always fun, and it’s hard to predict how a crowd will vote (I think I only guessed two of the four group winners correctly). Even though there was a winner for each group, nearly everyone that attended agreed that there were no bad beers in the groups, and they would have been happy to drink all of them. I was very happy with the selection, and I’m sure I’ll do something similar again at some point.