Hello again, hops fans! Summer may be winding down but that certainly doesn’t mean that the fun has to stop. Looking for something new to add to your Friday nights? Try a flight night! A solid way to sample a variety of tasty beers, a flight night can help you refine your palate while impressing your friends with your beer knowledge. Whether you’re getting the whole gang together or setting up a special evening for two, there’s a beer flight for that.
Flight Night Basics
Not totally sure what a beer flight is or how to set one up? No problem. Taking a nod from flights of wine offered for tasting purposes, a beer flight is essentially the same idea. Generally consisting of 2 to 6 ounces of 4 to 6 different beers, a beer flight is the perfect way to sample several different beers. Here are some basic guidelines to follow:
Beer Order: While you can drink the beers in any order you like, generally speaking it’s considered best practice to go from the lightest beer to the darkest. This will help preserve your taste buds while you sample the subtler beers until you get to the darker, stronger flavors.
Glassware: Wondering how to best serve your flight? While there are a huge number of beer flight glasses and serving styles out there, this part is more dependent on your personal preferences for glassware and how much beer you want to serve in each tasting glass. You can always use any set of small glasses you have as flight glasses, just be sure to mark down what beer goes into each glass. Want to serve each beer in its proper glass? Learn more here.
Tasting Tips: Don’t forget to take it slow! As you taste beers, pause to reflect on both their flavor and their aromas. Have some sort of palate cleanser available to snack on between beers so you can experience each one with a refreshed palate. Serve your brews up with a side dish of beer trivia by keeping one of these books on standby!
Flight Night Ideas
No matter your style, there’s a flight night lineup for you and your crew. Here are a few beer flight ideas to help you get started. Enjoy!
Intro Flight for Newbies: Host an introduction flight night to teach your friends about the glory that is craft beer. Check out the beer lineup plus get other useful tips here to help make the orientation go smoothly.
Date Night Flight: Set the mood with a tasting flight of your date’s favorite beers. Pro tip – pair your beer flight with cheese to really impress your sweetheart!
IPA Tasting Lineup: Whether you try this with IPAs or any other beer variety, lining up a tasting of a single beer type is a great way to hone in on what makes you love a particular style. Read this for some great inspiration on an IPA flight night lineup.
Dinner Party Brewer’s Showcase: Also called a horizontal flight, serving multiple beers from the same brewery can gives you a great sense of the just what a brewery has to offer and can help you. It’s also a great way to learn how to identify beer varieties by taste or play a blind tasting round of “name that beer”! Here’s a lineup starring some stellar Community beers to get the fun started!
- Witbier – Start here with this gently orange spiced white beer.
- Texas Helles – Next up is this smooth, super refreshing lager.
- Public Ale – Get ready for stronger flavors and aromas with this English-style extra special bitter ale.
- Mosaic IPA – Finish off strong with this intensely hoppy IPA that has some seriously awesome pine, citrus and tropical fruit aromas.
