Saturday night, three of us decided to settle the "which lager is actually best" debate once and for all. Well, at least from the larger that were avabile on offer form our local supermarket.
We used 39 paper cups (13 beers x 3 people). To keep it 100% blind, we wrote the initials of the beer brand on the bottom of the cups. One person poured the beers, then another person scrambled the order of the cups before bringing them out, so nobody knew which cup was which. We only checked the bottoms of the cups after all the scores and guesses were locked in.
We ranked them on a scale of 1-10 and tried to guess the brand.
The Key Takeaways:
The Winner: Tyskie (8.5/10). We all thought it was Heineken. When we actually drank the real Heineken, we thought it was Estrella.
The Loser: Madri (4.3/10). The marketing really worked on us—we gave the lowest score to Madri, but we all guessed that the "bad" beer was actually Tyskie.
We included Innis & Gunn, a craft larger. We struggled with this one, guessing it was Asahi or 1664.
The Corona/Asahi Glitch: Every single one of us perfectly swapped these two. If it’s fizzy and dry, your brain has a 50/50 shot.
Source: Primary data collected via double-blind tasting.
Tool: Data visualized using Python (Matplotlib/Seaborn).
Methodology: > * Double-Blind: Beer initials were written on the bottom of 39 identical paper cups. Person A poured, Person B scrambled the order.
Participants: 3 tasters (Person A, B, C). Scoring: 1-10 scale based on taste, aroma, and finish. Brand Identification: Participants recorded their "guess" for the brand before checking the bottom of the cup.
Key Finding: There was a significant negative correlation between marketing "premiumness" and blind taste scores (e.g., Tyskie 1st vs. Madri 13th).
by Flaky_Recognition_51
14 Comments
Tyskie is super underrated, typically. For the price, it’s a great beer. I wish it were easier to get in parts of the US.
Nice! My friends and I did the same experiment years ago with brands popular in Colombia because we were tired of arguing which beer to get each week.
Surprisingly, the clear winner was a local brand associated with “the working man”, while all international brands like Heineken and Stella Artois ranked in the low 4s.
Definitely recommend doing this, if only as an excuse to drink lots of beer with friends
Blind tasting in paper is the important part here. While I believe that a lot of preferences are down to marketing, some relatively bad beers are able to “overpower” the taste difference from drinking from the cup, while some loose a lot of taste from the container it comes with.
E.g. Heinecken from a bottle is solid (not necessarily good), tin less so. In a glass even less. Whereas Stella is a more neutral experience imo.
So preferentially I’d love another round with different ways to drink it as a robustness test.
You should repeat this exact experiment again with the same test subjects to see if the results are reproducible.
Lol we did this with fry sauce once. I assume it’ll go like these beers.
From smell and sight, I should be able to identify at least 4 of them. After that tho, its anyone’s guess
As an Untapped proud member I’m not surprised by the results.
Especially for Moretti which is claimed to be good and that is just below average considering it’s pricier than 1664 for example.
I love this but I think you need more data collection I might have to help with research 🤣 would be interesting to see split by segment – I wouldnt say I can identify Corona specifically but I can easily idenfity a Mexican beer vs an american vs german styles for example. I generally like mexican the best and would probably end up ranking Corona high as well just based on first taste even if I enjoyed others blind (probably something to do with psychologicy).
Did you guys test for bias by ranking your favorite beers before hand?
Might have to run this experiment with my local grocery store. We luckily have a pretty wide selection IPA even smaller stores and stations so people just tend to buy smaller packs of what they like. This would be an epic way to decide the best beer to get a group for parties
>Corona/Asahi Glitch
If you’re mixing these up, I question your tastebuds. Rice beer has a different taste.
I’d pick Staropramen as no1 out of a blind tasting I reckon. It has a distinctive honey taste.
I like the idea, but I don’t think it’s the best way to taste lagers, in paper cups all poured at the same time.
You should do the same test but include for the brewed in the country of origin vs brewed where it is consumed.
Bud Heavy ‘s slogan, “Not the worst.”
while I could agree with the results and I like your motivations
**The** ***n*** **is too small to draw any real world conclusion.**
Your test sample is very probably sharing the same cultural background and such.
Here 4 more tasting recommendations
* Leffe Blonde – Belgium
* Jever Pilsner – North Germany
* Becks Pilsner – North Germany
* Augustiner Helles – South Germany
As a Madrid resident I’m glad Madri scored poorly, it’s not even made in Spain and I don’t think you can even buy it here. We all drink Mahou.