Help a new guy through a beer tasting event!

If there are other good threads, point me to one but I didnt see anything in the search...

I went to my first beer event over the weekend. Almost 40 vendors with between 4 and 10 beers avalable to taste. As you can imagine, I went crazy :rockin:

After about the 15th different beer I couldnt really taste much. Not because I was but it was just taste overload.

Give me pointers on the right way to tackle this type of event! Should I stick to a beer type, say, IPA's and just try all of them? Should I always try lightest beers to heaviest beers? (side note, I saved the Dragons Milk from New Holland Brewery for last because that wrecks me)

Let me hear how you go about this!

water and pretzels

there's nothing you can really do

you can keep notes, but make sure to ignore all your notes after beer 15 or so

I'm always of the opinion that good beer will shine through. Make a note, mental or otherwise, of particular beers that truly shined. Even when I'm smashed and had a billion different things, you can usually tell, if you're paying attention, to a beer that's truly good versus one that's just drinkable because everythings drinkable at that point.

I usually shy away from the stuff I've had before and try to remember one or two that seemed awesome, or a newer brewery that seemed good.

my friend just went to the beer summit in boston and had a similar experiece. he just grabbed stickers and other crap from the tables with the beers he thought he liked.

motobrewer said:

you can keep notes, but make sure to ignore all your notes after beer 15 or so

Click to expand...

Love it! Is that because of the alcohol or because of the taste buds

I went to GABF with my company several years ago. The official tasting glass had a one ounce line (maybe two ounce, but not more.. memory is cloudy). Anyway, one of the keys is to take small samples as you make your way around.... and, as previously stated WATER and some kind of palate cleansing munchie

Yeah, we got a pint glass with a tasting line at about 2 ounces (2 shots worth?) but no munchies or water to be found anywhere....

The last one I went to I would snap a picture with my phone of the beer for the ones I really liked.