The Ikale Collaboration: Randomized Trials of Beer Recognition

Tonga no longer has a national airline with the recent demise of Royal Tongan Airlines, but it has two national beers: Ikale and Royal. Both are lagers, but they are widely believed to be of different taste and quality. Bottled Ikale beer is considered to be inferior in quality with a great variation from batch to batch, and even from bottle to bottle within the same batch. Draft Ikale is believed to be of higher quality, whereas Royal is the premium beer. Both beers are made by the same company. Recently we taught an epidemiology course in Tonga, and during a late night planning meeting we decided to conduct a series of randomized “taste test” trials to test these common perceptions.