The Palate Deck

Playing cards that offer beer information and casual tasting guidance for the many conversations that happen over beer.

Role: Creator

The Story

The Palate Deck is a set of Tasting Cards that encourage conversation and gameplay while sampling beer.

This project began as so many do, during a conversation over beer in 2014. If you’ve ever participated in a collaborative tasting session, whether it was for beer, wine, coffee, chocolate, or whatever else, you’ve likely experienced flavours and sensations that are familiar yet hard to define. Having a guide or a sheet of common flavours can be so useful to help narrow down the possibilities and trigger connections you might not have made.

I worked on a few iterations of the idea off and on during the next two years, from tile-based board games to bingo cards, but it wasn’t until early 2016 when the right form materialized: a deck of cards. Cards are portable, cards are tactile, and the surface area of a deck cards is deceptively large so you can convey a lot of information in a small package.

In late 2016 I tried funding the Palate Deck via Kickstarter, but even with hundreds of backers that wasn’t enough to hit the full funding necessary for a print run. As a result this project is temporarily on hold, but I’m picking it up again at some point. Watch this space.