Turning a Good Trip For the Better

Gathering all the beer to put on one of our tastings can take unexpected turns. On a recent trip to Connecticut, two such turns in the tasting room at Counter Weight affected our direction both in the car and when looking at our tasting results.

We arrived at the tasting room and looked first at what was available in cans, figuring that was all we’d be able to include in the tasting. Space Coyote and Where Do We Go From Here seemed like good candidates. We grabbed a pour of each and found a table. Next to us were a couple of guys drinking a beer that looked (and we later confirmed is) amazing.

Curious what they were drinking, when a break in their conversation arose we leaned over and asked. If you are able to get your hands on Spiral Architect don’t pass up the chance. It was one of the best beers we had that day.

Our glasses newly empty, the road beckoned again. Given our neighbors’ taste in beer, perhaps they knew places that weren’t on our list. This is where we found both of our turns. We mentioned how we were picking up beer to have a blind tasting with a fairly modest-size group (some tickets are still available here). It turns out one of those two partakers was a scientist who talked to us about how even with a fairly small sample we might be able to get a reasonable ICC.

That was the first turn. We have never looked deeper than simple statistics like the mean, mode, and standard deviation for our results to date. Obviously, we know that our results are just what our tasting produced on that particular day, but wouldn’t it be great if there was some way we could estimate how likely we are to get the same results if we did another blind tasting? ICC is how we can try to do that. Was tonight’s winner a fluke, or is the group likely to pick it every time? Perhaps we can crunch some numbers (and cans) and figure that out?

The second turn was another great find. As we were talking to these guys and looking for advice for what else we should try, another nearby patron piped up. He said that Tribus was worth our time, though it was not yet on our list of breweries for Connecticut. That also turned out to be good advice. I Been Juicin is a tasty addition to our list, which we would not have known about without the local guidance.

So thanks to all the knowledgeable people who helped guide us on our latest beer run. Cheers!