TOP TEN Beers of 2023

In case you missed it! I took a look back at my favourite beers of 2023 and sampled them all AGAIN, in a blind taste test of sorts.

Then ranked them on flavour and personal preference – here’s how it went down:

FIRST: to re-collect my favourite cans, which meant a bit of Beer Shopping and getting to know the Take Away FRIDGES at local breweries. (pretty fun tho, not gonna lie)

SECOND: Kmart shopping for STICKERS and CUPS.

I got Matt to help me with the blind taste-testing part:

We put a sticker on a cup, that had a matching sticker under it – so when we poured a beer, the 2nd sticker went on note paper with the corresponding beer. Then we hid all the note papers away until the final big reveal.

WHEN all the cans were collected, we could get to testing!

The beers were poured and the stickers were STUCK on each others cups. With the cans left there in the middle – in no particular order. The PINK post-its were to write our notes and grade as we tasted.

I tried to guess which beer was which. The RED ALE was pretty obvious! Next time I would consider doing categories like: Just the Pales, or all STOUTS.

It was a fun afternoon of taste testing and note taking. The final notes revealed – No. I didn’t correctly guess any brewery (except the Working Title Red), but we had fun! And then lined up the winners from Left to Right. As you see in the photo above ^ with the 10 beer on the left, up to Number 1 on the right:

#10 Blackflag Brewing “Rage” Juicy Pale Ale 6% Now in most local Brisbane bottle shops!

#9 Range Brewing “Disco” Pale Ale 5.2% Cans from the tap house in Newstead.

#8 Big Shed Brewing “The People’s Brew” HAZY NZ 6.5% Brewed in South Australia, I found at My Beer Dealer.

#7 Working Title Brewing Co. “Vertigo” Red Rye 6.5%. Grabbed fresh from the fridge in Newstead.

#6 Seeker Brewing their Unicorn NEIPA 7.2% We bought the GABS 2023 box specifically to try this again! Loved it at GABS festival and again from the box.

#5 Behemoth “Learn to Fly” Hazy Pale Ale 5%. The only NZ beer in the bunch, found at the local Vintage Cellars.

#4 Seeker Brewing with Future Magic Brewing Co. “Citra for Safety” Oat Cream IPA 7%. Found these easily at My Beer Dealer.

#3 Parched (now the Brew Baron Beer Co.) HAZY IPA “Brave New World” 5.2% Much fun popping into the Brew Baron, grabbed these fresh out of the fridge.

#2 The Pink Boots collaboration with Sea Legs Brewing Co. – Oat Cream IPA 6% Locally brewed in Brisbane, I could find at local bottle shops or My Beer Dealer.

#1 from Bridge Road Brewing – the New Sky Vol 3 – Triple Dry-hop Hazy 6.3% Which I had sent up from Victoria. Thank you Bridge Road Brewers! It was my absolute favourite of the year.

It was a super fun experiment and one I’d definately like to do again. It took a bit of planning, but hopefully my notes make sense if you’re keen to try your own taste-testing thing.

Cheers!