If you had the chance to test your beer skills, how do you think you would fair?  Of course you think you can pick an IPA from a lineup of stouts.  And finding a hard cider in a field of beers… well, that’s easy, right?

Back in February, we had the opportunity to test our knowledge and correctly identify 20 beers at Shoes & Brews in Longmont.  We did have some tools at our disposal.  We did get a list of the beers on tap as well as access to UnTapped.  Luckily, this was a partner challenge so my husband got to come along and we took about an hour to label 20 beers.  I thought for sure we could come away with 15 correct (the record is 17) and my husband thought we would be lucky to place a handful.

So we started out with the easy ones.  I pulled the cider from the Old Mine right away.  Then we grabbed the fruit beers with obvious color and taste profiles (can you spot the raspberry scented beer?).

Then it got tough.  We sorted out the ones we thought were stouts versus the ones that were obvious IPAs.  The real challenge here was being able to sort past there.  We used some helpful (and some not so helpful) UnTapped reviews to help us narrow down colors and funky flavors.  We weeded out the black lager and some of the more distinct beer.  And finally, it came down to chance.  My husband doesn’t enjoy IPAs at all so once he thought he had placed all of the dark beers in the right spot, he walked away for a real pour of beer while I continued to sift through the tiny tasters.  Once I was satisfied, I turned in our card and waited for our score.

Roger at Shoes & Brews went down the page and gave us our final tally!

10!  That’s right, we got 50%.  Not so bad but definitely lower than I thought.  It was the IPA’s (6 on the menu that day) that really tripped me up.  I think I got 2 correct.  Luckily, we can try this again.  Shoes & Brews plans on doing this every month on the 20th so keep an eye on their Facebook page for more details!