It made for a really interesting experience. The six beers I tasted blind are listed below with some information on my findings:
1. Caythorpe Dark Gem - We'd talked about this beer ealrier, so I had an idea it was this when I tasted that it was clearly a mild. It was OK, and a typical mild, but fell short of some of the really good milds out there at the moment such as those from Great Oakley and Potbelly. Simon enjoyed it more than I did.
2. Church End Tekuté Zlato - This is supposedly a Slovakian styled lager. I marked it down as a light bitter with some fruity hops, more of the pineapple type flavour than citric fruits. It was pretty decent.
3. Everards Hazy Daze - I guessed this straight away, as it truly was a hazy wheat beer, and actually very good. Pretty authentic fruity flavours and good spices make this a superior British take on a Belgian Wit and is as good a beer as I've had from Everards in years.
4. Tunnel Munich Style Lager - another supposed lager style beer; this time German rather than Eastern European. I had this down as a golden ale with good citric flavours from the hops. Nothing like a Munich styled lager in my opinion. I did enjoy it though.
5. Thornbridge Gildas - I guessed this as soon as I smelled it. Simon knew I wanted to try this, and its aroma was so very very good. You could tell this was a superior British hoppy beer and the 6.5% alcohol was noticeable in the nose, which I could have sniffed at for a long time, but there was drinking to be done. It drank just as well as it smelled. Wonderful full on flavours from both the hops and the malts. A lovely beer.
6. Milestone Raspberry Wheat - Simon was being mischeivous now as he knows I'm not a huge fan of Milestone beers as a rule. I could tell this was a fruit beer from the aroma, although I got the wrong fruit. I liked it, I dare say more than I would if I'd known what I was drinking. The fruit was pretty decent rather than appearing to be just a little syrup added to a bland base beer.
This was a worthwhile experiment, and one I would like to repeat again. I was pleased that I got two beers spot on pretty easily; raised doubts in the declared style of the two 'lagers', and enjoyed a Milestone beer more than I expected. Try drinking blind sometime yourself, you may be really surprised at the outcomes.
