Beer Olympics: A Grown-up Beer Tasting Game


Updated February 10, 2022

What do you do on rainy days or in cooler weather at the cottage? You bring your games inside of course! That’s exactly what we did last fall when we had the sister & brother-in-law up one evening for dinner. We decided that we’d have an evening of beer tasting. Brian had the awesome idea to make things interesting and so the Beer Olympics was born!

Yes! A Grown-up Beer Drinking Game!

And of course you can play this outside on a hot day too!

You will need:

  • Beer to sample
  • Small sampling cups. You can use glasses too but without rinsing between samples and tracking which glass is whose, it could get kinda weird.
  • Score sheet (I’ve included one here that you can print off!) Beer Olympics Printout
  • A few of your favorite snacks to munch between samples to “cleanse your palate”
  • A pitcher or bucket – just in case you find a sample so awful you can’t bring yourself to finish it. Life’s too short to drink bad beer.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Choose your theme. For our first Beer Olympics we chose international brands. You could also choose from local, craft breweries, single brewery, country specific brands etc.
  2. Select your beers for sampling. In our case, each person brought two types of beer, one tall-boy each (or the equivalent). You can scale that for more “judges.” For example if you have 8 people, each person brings one type of beer but two tall-boys. That’s plenty for sampling without getting plastered.
  3. Wrap the cans or bottles in newsprint or other paper to make this a real blind taste test for everyone.
  4. Select a “responsible” member of the group to keep score and set up your tracking sheet. I’ve provided one here that you can download or you can create your own.
  5. Make sure everyone knows how the game works & understands the scoring system.
  6. You’ll be sampling one beer at a time. Pour a sample for each person – enough to empty the can – and pass them around.
  7. Pretend you’re a connoisseur and take a sip! This is where the game gets really fun; usually a great conversation ensues as you and your friends comment and score the sample. There’s always a great debate and “Really? You like THAT!” comments are plenty. Remember you’re judging the beer, not your friends taste!
  8. Go around the table and allow each person to give their score. If you have wrapped the cans, this is when you would reveal the label. Record each score on the scoresheet. Our rating system is as follows: Beer Olympics Game Ratings
  9. Repeat the process with the next sample and so on until all samples are finished.
  10. Once all scores are recorded, it’s time to tally and declare your Gold, Silver & Bronze finalists!

This “game” for four people takes approximately 2.5 hours to enjoy! Remember to download your Beer Olympics Printout!

If you’re really into beer tasting and want to keep track of what you’ve tried and how you liked it, check out this NEW Beer Tasting Notebook!

*** Please drink responsibly! www.thecottagewife.com is not responsible for how much fun you have or for any careless behavior that may result from this game. ***

The Cottage Wife

In addition to hiking, biking, reading and writing, I like to focus on making as light an impact on the land possible, while still living a modern life.

4 thoughts on “Beer Olympics: A Grown-up Beer Tasting Game

  1. Just did a beer Olympics at a brew pub in Annapolis called the Rams Head Tavern. 6 of the own brews. The winner is their Copperhead Ale. Now bring on the crab cakes!!!!!

  2. This was a highlight of our winter. We have done this twice and find it educational and hilarious!

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