A group of 12 of us met on December 19th in the back room of KnB Wine Cellars to taste the first round of bottles for the Great Brettanomyces Experiment. We had a very ambitious goal of trying all 20 strains in one sitting. It wasn't the optimal way of doing the tasting, but really the only practical way when trying to get 12 tasters together at one time (the free beer helped). Our palettes were definitely fatigued by the end and I think the ideal situation would be 2 sessions on back to back days if you want to taste all 20 strains. We had a nice mix of craft beer enthusiasts, BJCP judges, and sour/wild beer homebrewers. Well enough about the tasting lets get to the results.Results:
These tasting notes and rankings were summarized from all the tasting participants.
Conclusions:
I think this experiment was a success (and we will continue to see how it goes). The base recipe really let the yeast strains shine (or not) while still providing enough substance to make the drinking experience enjoyable. I plan to use these results not as a these are good strains and these are useless, but as guidance to what beer styles or situations they may work well in.
Next Steps:
I'm going to follow-up in a couple different ways:1. All the strains are going to get a second chance as a bottle conditioning yeast in a recently brewed Beire de Garde.
2. I'm going to create some custom recipes based on the flavor profiles of my favorite strains. I'll probably end up blending most of the strains together based on their flavor profiles.
3. I will also be compiling the results others are logging on the Google Form to compare and get a better idea of each of the strains
As always let me know if you have feedback or questions. We will be holding another tasting in a couple months, so let me know if you are interested.
