Blind Beer Tasting! And The Winner Is?

We had fun in Maine when I suggested we have a "blind" beer tasting. It had to be blind as we hold an extreme bias AGAINST one of the beers we would be tasting.

Here's how it all started...
While on our driving vacation, we saw many billboards advertising the new Budweiser beer called "American Ale".
I'll be up front with all of you and admit that we do not like Budweiser beer, in fact we really dislike it even if it is the pride and joy of DH's home state :)

So, DH and I discussed the fact that neither of us have ever liked the taste of the B. beer. In order to give this new beer a chance, I said we need to have it served with a few others AND be blindfolded in order to pick which one we like or at least rate each one as to "drinkability".

Thus we began planning for a "blind" taste. We knew we would be seeing my cousin, HT, who we drank many pints with over in England a few years ago, and my sister is known to drink a few beers so she would be a good candidate. We decided to include our nephew, AT, as he just turned 21 to get a young person's perspective as well.

We purchased a variety of beers (not overly extensive) which included our favorite "Maine" beer called Old Thumper.

In the end, we only had DH, myself, HT and Melissa to take on this challenge (AT had already left for an evening out with friends). My Mom was the bartender who made sure none of us could see what beer she was pouring and had assistance bringing the "rounds" to the panel of thirsty and very willing judges (us!).
I would reveal our comments on each beer but you would soon realize how inept we are at judging beer. I don't think we could tell the difference from a lager or ale. We should have been describing the head, hops, any fruit flavors, the bubbles, the smell, whether it is sweet, bitter, sour; etc. We could only come up with "no taste" to "mild flavor" and "what after taste?". I guess, what really matters is whether you like it or not, but I do need to read up on the subject just so I could tell another beer drinker what I liked about a particular beer so that he/she would understand (I had done some researching here but must not have paid any mind to what I was reading!).

In suspense long enough?
Here's the results:
First place (most first and second place votes): Old Thumper - What a great tasting beer; not too heavy, great flavor and aftertaste.
Second Place: Oh, oh.... the "B" Beer - American Ale came in second place. Yes, we were really pleasantly surprised!
Third Place: Bass; surprised as we do like this beer (along with Sam Adams beers).
Bass Beer is very good; would choose it along with Newcastle Brown Ale. So we were surprised it ended up third place.

The bottom two beers were just horrible as agreed by our panel of "experts". Be wary if you buy them!!
Next to Last Place, really bad just because it has no flavor.
And with apologies to our friends from "Down Under". Coming in at last place was none other than:


So we leave it to you to decide how worthy our totally unscientific taste test was..... :)
Cheers!!