Playing cards that offer beer information and casual tasting guidance for the many conversations that happen over beer.
* this is archived content ported from an older design with minimal intervention
The Palate Deck is a set of playing 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 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 otherwise.
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 to bring the Palate Deck to life via Kickstarter, but even with hundreds of backers I wasn’t able to hit the funding necessary for a full production run. The idea had potential, but interest and fortunes in the beer industry have shifted so this one will remain an idea I took further than many.