A night of mystery

When thinking of beer, what’s the magic, all-important c-word? The one I keep going on about, time after time? No, it’s not Craft. Not Citrus, either. Nor does it come from the c-hop legions of Citra, Cascade, Chinook, Columbus etc etc. Caramel? No, still wrong. Clarity? Not so much, these days. As I’ve said before, the most important c-word in brewing is Context. Where you are, how you’re feeling, who you’re with, how the beer is presented – all of this has a tangible impact on how much you’ll enjoy the beer, whether you’ll order another, and if you end up thinking back to that drinking occasion later on, when stuck in traffic, or in a waiting room, or something.

An important part of Context, in this case, is perception – taking every other external factor into account, it’s how knowing what you are drinking affects your overall feeling toward the experience. Position yourself in your favoured drinking location – a cosy local, a leather-backed chair by a fire, the cement-enclosed concourse of the Darwen End at half-time – and get the beer you know to be your favourite. It’s perfect, a total match. But if you were given a beer you knew that you hated, how would you feel? You’d enjoy it more than normal, maybe, given where you are. But still way less than your top tipple.

But, what if both beers were given to you in unmarked containers? Chances are, you’d pick the one you preferred out of familiarity – but you never really know. Beloved of marketers, this kind of scenario strips everything else from the equation and focuses the attention. It’s why beer judging is so interesting, and sometimes leads to eyebrow-raising champions. It’s why taste-tests are conducted early in the morning, in controlled conditions. It’s why blind-tastings are just so interesting. Such as, for example, turning up at one of your favourite pubs and being faced by a row of blank pump clips. Without knowing what the beers are, which is your favourite?

Edinburgh has had a few of these nights recently, pioneered by the Bow Bar and their blind IPA challenge (the winning beer eventually turning out to be Tempest Brave New World). When they repeated the experiment with dark beers, Tempest won again, this time with Red Eye Flight. Another such event is taking place right at this moment, at the Bow’s stablemate Cloisters Bar, and we went along last night to take part. The brief? Seven cask beers under 4%abv, all drunk without knowing what they are, and rated from 1-7 in order of what was preferred. It was that easy. Except, predictably, in the end it really wasn’t.

Falling into the trap, right from the beginning, of trying to guess what each beer was – or, at least, which brewery they came from, went about as well as can be expected. I’m not revealing what the beers are, of course – they are still on today and the winner yet to be announced – but having been tipped the wink by head Cloisterman Barry, I wasn’t as much in the same ballpark as in knee-deep grass, gamely swinging at pitches being thrown in the next city. It’s fascinating. That distinctive straw-like tang here, a yeasty note you recognise there. All different when you’re unaware of who has brewed what.

Maybe I’m just a lousy guesser, of course. Anyway, for the record, my order turned out to be 1 > 7 > 6 > 5 > 3 > 4 > 2. If you’re in Edinburgh today, head down to Tollcross and rattle through a half of each, and see what you think. Barry assures me the seven pumps don’t just lead into a single subterranean tank, in some kind of cruel joke – they are all different, and knowing what they are, extremely good cask ales. But knowing what they are is half the battle. Remove that, and the context of what you are drinking becomes very different indeed…