Methods for Reviewing Homebrews
For homebrews, we will also employ a blind tasting. Each of us, or a third party, will serve the homebrew along side a commercial beer brewed in the same style. This way we won’t be giving ourselves too much credit for our own creations.
When we review a homebrew, we will be using the Beer Judge Certification Forms. Now, neither of us is a certified beer judge, but we feel their form is an excellent guide to evaluating a beer and its characteristics. You can see and download their form from the competition page of their website (the form is a PDF under Beer Scoresheet), but a quick overview of the points is below.
- Aroma How it smells: malty, hoppy, floral, skunky, stale. 12 points
- Appearance How it looks. Not that important, really. 3 points
- Flavor The big deal. How it tastes. 20 points
- Mouthfeel The tactile impression. Fizzy, flat, thick, watery, astringent. 5 points
- Overall Impression The beer as whole. What we really thought. 10 points
We reserve the right to change our methods and probably will. We will most likely revisit beers more than once. You’ll like that, though. More to read!