Beer discrimination among users of Studenterklubben: a randomized double-blinded trial]

Studenterklubben has been serving beer from Tuborg breweries for Danish medical students throughout the years. A discussion of changing supplier raised concerns about the students' ability to discriminate between Grøn Tuborg and Ceres Royal Pilsner.Two hypotheses were developed: 1) the participants would rate the beers equally and 2) the participants would be unable to identify the Grøn Tuborg. A randomised double-blinded trial was conducted to test the hypotheses. Fifty-seven participants completed the trial. The participants rated the two randomised beers on a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) 1-10 and tried to identify the Grøn Tuborg.The participants rated the Grøn Tuborg (NRS 6.18 SD 1.9) better than Ceres Royal Pilsner (NRS 5.23; SD 1.9), which was significant (p = 0.008). 68% identified Grøn Tuborg correctly which differed significantly (p = 0.004) from the developed hypothesis. The group preferring Grøn Tuborg was significantly better at identifying the correct beer (p < 0.0001).The participants were considered to be representative of the general users of Studenterklubben. It required several supermarkets to buy the required amount of Ceres Royal Pilsner, which might have influenced the participant's general shopping pattern and knowledge about Ceres Royal Pilsner, as well as having lead to different dates of production. This might have influenced the taste of Ceres Royal Pilsner. The guests of Studenterklubben are able to identify Grøn Tuborg. The guests prefer the taste of Grøn Tuborg over Ceres Royal Pilsner.